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Bread

Salt-raising Bread

A yeast bread made by fermenting a coarse flour batter with salt and sugar, then baking.

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.

Start the yeast

  1. Scald a quart tin cup or an earthen quart milk pitcher.

  2. Fill the cup one-third full with warm water.

  3. Add salt, brown sugar, and enough coarse flour to make a batter.

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

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

  6. After about five hours, the yeast should rise to the top.

Make the sponge

  1. Sift flour into a pan and make an opening in the center.

  2. Pour in the yeast and add warm salted milk or milk and water.

  3. Stir rapidly into a pulpy mass with a spoon.

  4. Cover the sponge and keep warm for an hour.

Shape and bake

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

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

  3. Bake in a steady oven at 350°F (175°C).

  4. Once done, let the steam escape, then wrap in damp towels and store in closed earthen jars.

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
Feeds the yeast during fermentation and forms the batter that builds the starter.
Warm milk or milk and water
Moistens the flour into a pulpy sponge and softens the dough for kneading.
Brown sugar
Provides a small amount of sugar as food for the yeast during fermentation.
Flour for kneading
Adjusts the dough's consistency so it is firm enough to shape into loaves.

The step that matters

Maintaining an even temperature during fermentation. Yeast activity depends on steady warmth. Temperature swings slow or stall fermentation, so the starter may fail to rise and the bread may come out heavy.

“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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