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Bread

Whole Wheat Bread

A loaf of whole wheat bread made with sweet milk, hot water, lard, butter, salt, sugar, yeast, and whole wheat flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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

Ingredients

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 dough

  1. Scald the sweet milk and add the hot water.

  2. Melt the lard and butter in the hot liquid, then stir in the salt and sugar.

  3. When lukewarm, add the dissolved yeast cake.

  4. Stir in enough whole wheat flour to make a stiff dough.

  5. Let the dough rise overnight.

Shape and bake

  1. Shape into loaves and let rise for 45 minutes.

  2. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C) and bake for 1 hour.

  3. If the bread browns too quickly, cover it with a dampened piece of brown paper.

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
Forms the stiff dough structure that holds the loaves together.
Yeast cake
Produces gas as it ferments, causing the dough to rise and become airy.
Lard and butter
Adds fat that tenderizes the crumb and softens the texture.
Sugar
Feeds the yeast and adds sweetness and browning in the crust.
Sweet milk
Adds moisture and richness, and its milk solids aid browning.

The step that matters

Adding the yeast when lukewarm. Yeast is killed by high heat, so the liquid must be cooled to lukewarm before the dissolved yeast cake goes in, otherwise the dough may fail to rise.

“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

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