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General Observations on Wheat Bread

A wheat bread made with flour, scalded Indian meal, mashed potatoes, yeast, salt, and optional warm water or milk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Potato and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,611 recipes. Both carry (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal, which smells cucumber, melon. The science ↓

General Observations on Wheat Bread

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Make the dough

  1. Sift the flour into a large bowl.

  2. Mix in the scalded Indian meal and mashed potatoes.

  3. Dissolve the yeast in warm water or milk and add to the mixture.

  4. Knead the dough until smooth and elastic.

Rise and bake

  1. Place the dough in a well-buttered pan and let it rise in a warm place until doubled in size.

  2. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

  3. Bake the loaves for about 30 minutes or until golden brown.

Cool

  1. Remove from the pans and let cool on a clean board, covered with a towel.

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. Potato + milktop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,611 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + potatotop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,355 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, 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

All-purpose flour
Forms the gluten network that gives the bread its structure and chew.
Yeast
Produces carbon dioxide gas as it ferments, which makes the dough rise.
Scalded indian meal
Adds a coarser, tender crumb and a mild corn flavor to the loaf.
Mashed potatoes
Holds moisture and keeps the crumb soft and slightly moist.

The step that matters

Let the dough rise until doubled in a warm place. Yeast needs time and warmth to produce enough gas to lighten the dough. Underproofed dough bakes dense, while overproofed dough can collapse and turn coarse.

Swap the potato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, milk):

  1. Arrowrootfits better
  2. Potatothe original
  3. Sweet potatofits about as well
  4. Parsnipfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, milk. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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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