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Bread

Chicago Brown Bread

A yeast bread made with rye, graham, and wheat flour, molasses, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Rye and wheat match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 404 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Chicago Brown Bread

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the dough

  1. Mix the rye, Graham, and wheat flours in a large bowl.

  2. In a separate bowl, dissolve the yeast and salt in warm water, then add the molasses.

  3. Stir the yeast mixture into the flour mixture and knead by hand until well combined.

Rise and shape

  1. Let the dough rise for 10 to 12 hours; longer rising will make it lighter.

  2. Shape the dough into loaves and place in greased bread pans.

  3. Allow the loaves to rise again before baking.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake until golden brown and enjoy fresh.

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. Rye + wheattop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together404 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Rye + flourtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,320 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + molassestop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,429 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Rye + molassestop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together804 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

What each ingredient does

Rye flour
Adds a dense, earthy structure and characteristic flavor to the loaf.
Graham flour
Contributes bran and coarse texture, giving the bread a hearty, nutty body.
Wheat flour
Provides gluten that builds structure and lets the dough trap gas and hold its shape.
Yeast
Produces carbon dioxide during fermentation, which makes the dough rise.
Molasses
Adds sweetness, moisture, and a deep color that helps the crust brown.

The step that matters

Let the dough rise for 10 to 12 hours. Yeast needs long, slow fermentation to develop flavor and gas in a dough heavy with bran-rich flours. Rising too briefly leaves the loaf dense, while the record notes longer rising makes it lighter.

“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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