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Bread

Salt-raising Bread

A bread made by fermenting a batter of water, salt, sugar, and flour, then baking the dough.

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

The book says “a steady oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the starter

  1. Scald a quart tin cup or earthen milk pitcher, then fill it one-third full of warm water.

  2. Add salt, brown sugar, and enough flour to make a batter similar to griddle-cakes.

  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, the yeast should rise to the top of the bowl.

Make the dough

  1. Sift flour into a pan, make a well in the center, and pour in the yeast.

  2. Stir in warm milk or milk and water to form a pulpy mass.

  3. Cover the sponge and keep warm for one hour.

  4. Knead into loaves, adding flour to achieve the right consistency.

Bake and store

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

  2. Bake in a steady oven at 350°F (175°C) until done, then let steam escape.

  3. Wrap in damp towels and 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

Yeast (in the method)
Ferments the starter, producing gas that leavens the bread.
Flour
Forms the batter and dough structure that holds the gas bubbles.
Warm milk
Adds moisture and softness to the dough.
Brown sugar
Feeds the fermentation in the starter and adds a little sweetness.

The step that matters

Maintaining an even temperature during fermentation. Yeast activity depends on steady warmth. Too cool slows the rise, and too hot can kill yeast or over-ferment the starter, leaving the bread flat or sour.

“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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