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Bread

War Bread

A yeast‑leavened loaf made with bread flour, oatmeal, barley, lard, and milk, baked at 350°F.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Bread and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,466 recipes. Both carry 2-undecenal, which smells sweet. The science ↓

War 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.

Make the dough

  1. Combine sifted bread flour, oatmeal, boiled barley, dissolved yeast, sugar, lard, coarse sea salt, and milk in a large bowl.

  2. Add enough water to form a dough.

  3. Mix everything together in a bread pan and let it rise for five hours or overnight.

Shape and bake

  1. Turn the dough onto a well-floured surface and divide into four loaves.

  2. Place loaves into greased baking tins and let them rise for two hours.

  3. Bake in a preheated oven at 350°F (175°C) for one 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.

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. Bread + milktop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  2. Bread + barleytop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together201 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  3. Flour + barleytop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together582 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Barley + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together598 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, 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

Bread flour
Provides gluten that traps gas and gives the loaves their structure.
Yeast
Produces carbon dioxide during fermentation, which makes the dough rise.
Barley
Adds body and moisture to the dough, giving a denser, heartier crumb.
Oatmeal
Adds soft texture and moisture, and helps the bread stay tender.
Milk
Adds richness and softness, and helps browning on the crust.
Lard
Adds fat that tenderizes the crumb and keeps the bread soft.

The step that matters

Let the dough rise fully before shaping. Yeast needs time to produce enough gas to lighten the dense flour, oats and barley. Rising too briefly leaves the loaves heavy, while over-proofing can cause them to collapse in the oven.

“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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