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Bread

Rye Bread, As Sewing Society Likes It

A rye bread made with rye and wheat flour, grated potato, lard, sugar, milk, water, salt, and yeast.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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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, As Sewing Society Likes It

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.

Prepare the dough

  1. In a large bowl, combine the rye flour and wheat flour.

  2. Rub in the grated potato, lard, and sugar until well mixed.

  3. In a separate container, mix milk, water, salt, and yeast to create a wet mixture.

  4. Combine the wet mixture with the flour mixture and knead thoroughly.

  5. Cover and let the dough rise overnight.

Shape and bake

  1. Shape the dough into two loaves and place in a baking pan.

  2. Bake in a preheated oven at 350°F (175°C) until golden brown.

  3. For a softer crust, rub a little butter over the bread while baking.

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. Rye + wheattop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together404 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Wheat + milktop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,418 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, melon).

  3. Wheat + potatotop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together235 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, melon).

  4. Rye + flourtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,320 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Potato + milktop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,611 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, melon).

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

What each ingredient does

Rye flour
Provides the dense, earthy structure and flavor characteristic of rye bread.
Wheat flour
Supplies gluten to give the dough elasticity and a lighter crumb.
Potato
Adds moisture and starch that help keep the crumb soft and fresh.
Lard
Adds fat that tenderizes the crumb and softens the texture.
Yeast
Produces carbon dioxide during fermentation, causing the dough to rise.
Sugar
Feeds the yeast and contributes sweetness and browning in the crust.

The step that matters

Overnight rise. Rye flour has little gluten, so the dough is weak and sticky and relies on yeast fermentation to rise. Letting it rise slowly and fully develops flavor and lift before baking.

Swap the potato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (rye, flour, wheat, sugar, milk):

  1. Arrowrootfits better
  2. Beetrootfits better
  3. Sweet potatofits better
  4. Potatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against rye, flour, wheat, sugar, milk. 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.

More rye bread recipes

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