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Bread

Health Bread

A yeast-leavened bread made with oats, cornmeal, raisins, and sweet milk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and raisin match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,075 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Health Bread

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sponge

  1. Bring the sweet milk to a boil.

  2. Stir in the rolled oats and corn meal.

  3. Allow to cool until lukewarm.

  4. Dissolve the yeast in lukewarm water.

  5. Add the sorghum and sugar.

Mix and knead the dough

  1. Warm the flour in a pan.

  2. Make a nest in the center.

  3. Pour in the liquid ingredients.

  4. Stir and gradually incorporate the flour from the edges.

  5. When ⅔ of the flour is mixed in, add the melted shortening, raisins, and salt. Mix until all the flour is incorporated.

  6. Knead by hand until smooth and firm.

Rise, shape and bake

  1. Grease the top of the dough.

  2. Place it in a bowl.

  3. Let it proof until doubled in size.

  4. Press the dough down.

  5. Let it rise again until doubled.

  6. Shape the dough into loaves.

  7. Place in greased pans.

  8. Allow to rise again until doubled before baking.

  9. Bake in a preheated oven until the loaves shrink from the pan, longer than white bread.

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. Flour + raisintop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Sorghum + raisintop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together28 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Sorghum + flourtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together99 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Corn + sorghumtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14 recipes

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

  5. Oats + corntop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together220 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methoxy-4-vinylphenol (clove, smoky).

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

What each ingredient does

Yeast
Ferments the dough so it rises and becomes light.
All-purpose flour
Forms the gluten network that gives the loaves their structure.
Rolled oats
Absorb liquid and add a soft, moist crumb with a hearty texture.
Sorghum molasses
Feeds the yeast and adds sweetness, color and a deep flavor.
Shortening
Adds fat that tenderizes the crumb and softens the texture.
Graham flour
Adds coarse bran and germ, giving a nuttier flavor and denser crumb.

The step that matters

Knead by hand until smooth and firm. Kneading develops the gluten network that traps gas from the yeast. Under-kneaded dough rises poorly and bakes up dense and crumbly.

Swap the raisin

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (milk, oats, corn, sorghum, molasses, sugar, flour):

  1. Vanillafits about as well
  2. Raisinthe original
  3. Figfits less well
  4. Coconutfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, oats, corn, sorghum, molasses, sugar, flour. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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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