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Bread

Wheat Bread

A simple wheat bread made with flour, yeast, salt, water or milk, and optional butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Wheat Bread

Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

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 and make a hole in the middle.

  2. Pour in the yeast and stir lightly.

  3. Add warm water or milk as 'wetting', and if using water, dissolve butter in it.

  4. Stir in the wetting lightly without mixing all the flour.

  5. Cover the bowl with a thick towel and let it rise in a warm place.

  6. In the morning, add salt and mix in all the flour, kneading well.

  7. Let the dough rise for two hours or until light.

Shape and bake

  1. Mold the dough on a board, cutting and kneading until elastic.

  2. Shape into loaves and place in baking tins, allowing them to rise until doubled.

  3. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C) and bake until browned.

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

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

  2. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

Flour and butter 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

Flour
Forms the gluten network that gives the bread its structure and chew.
Yeast
Ferments the dough, producing gas that makes it rise and become light.
Salt
Controls yeast activity and strengthens the gluten for better texture and flavour.
Butter
Adds fat that softens the crumb and enriches flavour.

The step that matters

Kneading and rising the dough until elastic. Kneading develops the gluten network so the dough can trap gas. Under-kneading gives a dense loaf, and the dough must rise until light before shaping so the bread bakes up 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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