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Hovis or Wholemeal Bread

A yeast-leavened wholemeal loaf baked at 350°F.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 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 ↓

Hovis or Wholemeal Bread

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a quick oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the dough

  1. In a basin, combine the wholemeal flour and salt.

  2. Cream the yeast and sugar together until liquid.

  3. Heat the milk and water until tepid, then pour over the yeast mixture.

  4. Strain this mixture into the center of the flour and cover.

  5. Let it stand in a warm place for 30 minutes.

  6. Mix the ingredients into a dough and place it in a well-greased small loaf tin.

Rise and bake

  1. Let it rise for 40 minutes until it reaches the top of the tin.

  2. Bake in a 350°F (175°C) oven for about 45 minutes.

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

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  3. Sugar + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together77,875 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 or hovis flour
Forms the bulk of the dough structure and gives the loaf its wholegrain texture.
Yeast
Produces gas as it ferments, causing the dough to rise and turn light.
Milk
Adds softness and richness to the crumb and helps browning in the crust.
Sugar
Feeds the yeast and adds a little sweetness and browning.

The step that matters

Letting the dough rise to the top of the tin. Yeast needs time and warmth to produce enough gas for the dough to rise. Under-proofed dough bakes dense, while over-proofed dough can collapse, so the dough should reach the tin's top but not spill over.

“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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