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Entire Wheat Bread

A simple whole wheat loaf made with shortening, sugar, salt, boiling water, scalded milk, yeast, white flour, and whole wheat flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and wheat are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,418 recipes. Both carry (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal, which smells cucumber, melon. The science ↓

Entire Wheat Bread

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a hot oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the dough

  1. Combine shortening, sugar, salt, boiling water, and scalded milk in a bowl.

  2. Let the mixture cool until lukewarm.

  3. Add the dissolved yeast to the mixture.

  4. Mix in white flour.

  5. Gradually add whole wheat flour until the dough is soft and manageable.

  6. Cover the dough.

  7. Let the dough rise until it doubles in size.

Shape and bake

  1. Shape the dough into loaves or biscuits.

  2. Cover the shaped dough.

  3. Let the dough rise again.

  4. Bake in a hot oven at 400°F (200°C) until golden.

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. Milk + wheattop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,418 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, melon).

  2. Flour + wheattop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,373 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  5. Sugar + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together77,875 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Milk and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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

Yeast
Ferments the dough, producing gas that makes it rise and become light.
White flour
Adds gluten-forming protein, giving the dough structure and elasticity alongside the whole wheat flour.
Whole wheat flour
Forms the main body of the dough, adding a firmer texture and nutty flavour.
Milk
Adds tenderness, softness and browning from milk sugars and proteins.
Shortening
Adds fat that softens the crumb and keeps the bread tender.

The step that matters

Let the mixture cool until lukewarm before adding the yeast. Yeast is killed by high heat, so the boiling water and scalded milk must cool to lukewarm before the yeast is added; otherwise the dough may not 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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