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Bread

Entire Wheat Flour

A whole wheat loaf made with yeast, salt, sugar, and water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 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 Flour

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the dough

  1. Dissolve the yeast in ½ cup of warm water.

  2. Mix the dissolved yeast with enough entire wheat flour to create a stiff dough.

  3. Let the dough rise overnight.

Finish and bake

  1. In the morning, add salt and sugar, then stir in more flour.

  2. Knead the dough until soft and let it rise again.

  3. Shape into loaves and bake in a moderate oven (350°F / 175°C) until light.

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

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  3. Wheat + sugartop 27% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,071 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

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 dough's gluten network, giving the bread its structure and chew.
Yeast
Ferments the dough, producing gas that makes it rise and turn light.
Sugar
Feeds the yeast and adds a little sweetness and browning.

The step that matters

Knead the dough until soft. Kneading develops the gluten that traps the gas from the yeast. Under-kneaded dough rises poorly and bakes dense, while the dough should feel soft and smooth before its second rise.

“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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