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Bread

Entire Wheat Bread

A loaf of bread made from unsifted whole wheat flour, water, butter, sugar, salt, and yeast.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Wheat and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,373 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Entire 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.

Make the dough

  1. Sift the flour into a bowl, reserving 1 cup for kneading.

  2. Mix the sugar and salt with the remaining flour.

  3. If using compressed yeast, dissolve it in a small amount of water.

  4. Add the remaining water and yeast to the bowl, then add softened butter.

  5. Beat the dough vigorously until smooth and light.

  6. Turn the dough onto a floured surface and knead for 20 to 30 minutes until elastic.

Rise and shape

  1. Return the dough to the bowl, cover with a clean towel and a lid, and let it rise for about 8 hours.

  2. Butter two bread pans and one roll pan.

  3. Shape the dough into rolls to fill the pan and divide the remaining dough into two loaves.

  4. Let the rolls and loaves rise until doubled in size.

Bake

  1. Bake the rolls in a 350°F (175°C) oven for 30 minutes and the bread 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.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Wheat + buttertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,002 recipes

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

  4. Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  5. Butter + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

Entire wheat flour
Provides the structure, as its proteins form the gluten network that holds the rise.
Yeast
Produces gas that makes the dough rise and gives the bread its light texture.
Warm water
Hydrates the flour so gluten can form and the yeast can become active.
Butter
Adds fat that softens the crumb and gives a tender texture.
Sugar
Feeds the yeast and adds a little sweetness and browning.

The step that matters

Knead until elastic. Kneading aligns the gluten proteins into a stretchy network that traps the gas from the yeast. If the dough is under-kneaded, the loaves rise poorly and turn out dense and crumbly.

“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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