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Bread

Dyspeptics' Bread

A simple wholemeal bread made with egg, milk, water, and baked at 400°F.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 78,219 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Dyspeptics' 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.

Prepare the batter

  1. Separate the yolk from the white of the egg.

  2. Beat the yolk with the milk and water, then mix with the wholemeal flour to form a thick batter.

  3. Whip the egg white until stiff and fold it into the batter.

Bake

  1. Grease a bread tin and preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

  2. Pour the mixture into the tin and bake for 1.5 hours.

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. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Egg + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

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

Flour and milk 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

Wholemeal flour
Provides the main structure and body of the loaf as it bakes.
Egg
Whipped white adds lift and airiness, while the yolk enriches the batter.
Milk and water
Hydrates the flour to form a batter and adds moisture to the loaf.

The step that matters

Folding in the whipped egg white. Whipped egg white traps air that gives the bread lift. Stirring it in vigorously knocks out those bubbles, so fold gently and keep the batter airy.

“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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