Name: Rye Bread
Ingredients: 2 pounds rye flour; 1½ cups lukewarm water; a little wheat-bread dough; 1 heaping teaspoon coarse sea salt; ½ teaspoon caraway seeds

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 ↓

Rye Bread

Ingredients

2 pounds rye flour
1½ cups lukewarm water
a little wheat-bread dough
1 heaping teaspoon coarse sea salt
½ teaspoon caraway seeds

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Make the sponge

Make a sponge with 1 cup of rye flour, the wheat-bread dough, and lukewarm water.
Let it rise for 3 to 4 hours.

Mix and rise

Add the salt, caraway seeds, and remaining flour. Mix thoroughly with a wooden spoon.
Allow the dough to rise until doubled in size.

Bake

Bake in a 350°F (175°C) oven for about 35 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.

Rye + wheattop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together404 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Rye + carawaytop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together87 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Flour + carawaytop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together1,435 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Rye + flourtop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together1,320 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Wheat + carawaytop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together44 recipes

Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

What each ingredient does

Rye flour: Forms the main structure of the loaf, though it builds less gluten than wheat flour.
Wheat-bread dough: Acts as a starter whose yeast and enzymes get the sponge fermenting.
Caraway seeds: Add a distinctive aroma that suits rye bread's flavor.