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Bread

Entire Wheat Bread

A loaf of bread made with whole wheat flour, yeast, water, sugar, butter, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Wheat and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,373 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Entire Wheat Bread

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the dough

  1. Measure the flour before sifting, then sift it into a bowl, reserving 1 cup for kneading.

  2. Add sugar and salt to the flour.

  3. Dissolve the yeast in a little warm water and pour it into the bowl with the rest of the water.

  4. Add the softened butter and beat the dough vigorously with a spoon until smooth and light.

  5. Sprinkle some reserved flour on a board, turn out the dough, and knead for 20 minutes.

Rise and shape

  1. Return the dough to the board and let it rise overnight for 6 to 8 hours.

  2. When the dough is light, turn it out, divide it into two loaves, and shape them smoothly.

  3. Place the loaves in well-greased pans and set them in a warm place to rise until doubled in size.

Bake

  1. Bake in a preheated oven at 350°F (175°C) for 1 hour.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Wheat + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,373 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Wheat + buttertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,002 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  4. Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  5. Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Entire wheat flour
Forms the main structure of the loaf and absorbs the water to build the dough.
Yeast
Ferments the sugars in the dough, producing gas that makes the loaves rise.
Warm water
Hydrates the flour and activates the yeast so gluten can develop.
Butter
Adds fat that softens the crumb and gives a tender texture.
Sugar
Feeds the yeast and adds a little sweetness and browning.

The step that matters

Kneading the dough for 20 minutes. Kneading develops the gluten network that traps the gas from the yeast. Under-kneaded dough rises poorly and bakes up dense, so the dough needs to be worked until smooth and elastic.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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