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Bread

Whole Wheat Bread

Whole wheat bread made with milk, water, sugar, salt, butter, yeast cake, whole wheat flour, baked at 350°F for 1 hour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Whole Wheat Bread

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 ↓

Whole Wheat Bread

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Prepare the dough

  1. Heat the milk until steaming.

  2. Combine the steaming milk with water, sugar, salt, and butter in a bowl.

  3. Let the mixture cool until lukewarm.

  4. Dissolve the yeast cake in lukewarm water.

  5. Add the dissolved yeast to the bowl.

  6. Gradually mix in whole wheat flour to create a thin batter.

  7. Cover the batter and let it rise in a warm place until about 10 o'clock.

  8. Add more flour to form a soft dough, knead if possible, or beat well.

  9. Let the dough rise overnight.

Shape and bake

  1. Stir down the dough.

  2. Pour the dough into well-greased pans.

  3. Let the dough rise for 30 minutes.

  4. Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) for 1 hour.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  3. Wheat + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,373 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Butter + wheattop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,002 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

Whole wheat flour
Provides the structure of the loaf and absorbs liquid to form the dough.
Yeast cake
Produces carbon dioxide as it ferments, making the dough rise and become airy.
Milk
Adds richness and softness to the crumb and helps browning of the crust.
Butter
Adds fat that tenderizes the crumb and gives a softer texture.
Sugar
Feeds the yeast and adds a little sweetness and browning.

The step that matters

Letting the dough rise fully. Yeast needs time and warmth to produce enough gas for the dough to expand. Rising too short leaves a dense loaf, while over-rising can collapse the structure.

“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.

More whole wheat bread recipes

Unfermented 3 See all 125 →

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