Name: Unleavened or Unfermented Bread
Ingredients: 2 cups all-purpose flour; ¾ cup water; 1 teaspoon coarse sea salt; 1 teaspoon baking ammonia (or 1 teaspoon baking soda with ½ teaspoon cream of tartar)

Why it works: Flour and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 20% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 30,481 recipes. Both carry acetaldehyde, which smells pungent, ethereal. The science ↓

Unleavened or Unfermented Bread

Ingredients

2 cups all-purpose flour
¾ cup water
1 teaspoon coarse sea salt
1 teaspoon baking ammonia (or 1 teaspoon baking soda with ½ teaspoon cream of tartar)

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the dough

Preheat your oven to 400°F (200°C).
In a bowl, mix the flour and salt.
In a separate bowl, combine the water and baking ammonia (or baking soda and cream of tartar).
Pour the wet mixture into the dry ingredients and stir until a dough forms.
Knead the dough briefly on a floured surface.

Shape and bake

Roll out the dough to your desired thickness.
Cut into desired shapes and place on a baking sheet.
Bake for 10-15 minutes until lightly golden.

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.

Flour + creamtop 20% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together30,481 recipes

Shared aroma: acetaldehyde (pungent, ethereal).

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

What each ingredient does

All-purpose flour: Provides the starch and gluten network that forms the dough's structure.
Water: Hydrates the flour so it forms a cohesive, workable dough.
Baking ammonia: Releases gas as it heats, helping the bread puff and lighten slightly.
Baking soda: Reacts with the acid in cream of tartar to produce gas for lift when baking ammonia is not used.
Cream of tartar: Supplies acid so baking soda can react and release gas during baking.

“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.