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Salt-raising Bread

Bread prepared by salt-raising, using water, salt, brown sugar, flour, and milk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and milk 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 ↓

Salt-raising Bread

Oven, in the book's wordsA steady oven

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the starter

  1. Scald a quart tin cup or earthen milk pitcher with boiling water.

  2. Fill the cup one-third full with warm water, add salt, brown sugar, and enough flour to make a batter.

  3. Place the cup in a closed vessel half-filled with moderately hot water.

  4. Maintain an even temperature and add a teaspoon of flour once or twice during fermentation.

  5. After about five hours, sift flour into a pan and make an opening in the center.

  6. Pour the yeast mixture into the opening and add warm salted milk or milk and water.

  7. Stir rapidly into a pulpy mass with a spoon and cover closely.

Shape and bake

  1. Keep warm for an hour, then knead into loaves, adding flour as needed.

  2. Place in warm, greased pans, cover, and let rise until light.

  3. Bake in a steady oven, then let steam escape and wrap in damp towels.

  4. Store in closed earthen jars until needed.

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 + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  3. Sugar + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together77,875 recipes

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

Flour and milk 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

Coarse flour
Forms the batter and the dough, providing the structure that holds the bread's shape.
Warm water
Dissolves the sugar and salt and provides the moisture that lets the fermentation start.
Brown sugar
Feeds the fermenting microorganisms, helping the starter become active and rise.
Salt
Controls the rate of fermentation and adds flavor to the dough.
Warm milk
Adds moisture and richness, giving the loaves a softer crumb and browner crust.

The step that matters

Maintain an even temperature during fermentation. Fermentation depends on steady warmth. Too cold and the starter stays sluggish; too hot and wild yeasts and bacteria can overgrow, giving a sour or off flavor and a poor 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.

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