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Bread

Kentucky Salt Rising Bread

A bread made with sweet milk, cornmeal, flour, yeast, lard, and salt, baked at 300°F.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 78,219 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Kentucky Salt Rising Bread

Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a slow oven”. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the starter

  1. Scald the milk and add a pinch of salt to it.

  2. Add enough cornmeal to make a batter.

  3. Place the mixture in a warm place overnight to sour.

  4. Add 1 pint of warm water to the mixture.

  5. Add enough flour to make a batter.

  6. Set aside in a warm place to rise for about 2 hours.

Make the dough and bake

  1. In a bowl, combine 3 cups of flour, 1 teaspoon of salt, 1 tablespoon of lard, and ½ cup of yeast.

  2. Work the mixture into a sponge.

  3. Add lukewarm water as needed.

  4. Let it rise for about 3 hours.

  5. Bake in a slow oven at 300°F (150°C) for about 40 to 50 minutes.

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. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Milk and flour 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

Flour
Forms the bulk of the batter and dough, giving the loaf its structure as it sets in the oven.
Yeast
Its fermentation produces gas that makes the dough rise and gives the bread an open crumb.
Sweet milk
Adds richness and softness to the dough, and its sugars help the crust brown in the oven.
Cornmeal
Feeds the fermentation of the starter, helping it sour and develop flavour before mixing.
Lard
Adds fat that tenderises the crumb and keeps the bread soft.

The step that matters

Let the starter sour overnight in a warm place. Salt rising bread gets its leavening and tangy flavour from bacterial fermentation, not yeast alone. The starter needs steady warmth long enough to sour; if it stays cold or is cut short, the dough will not rise well.

“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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