Skip to main content
Main

To Make Leavened Bread

Leavened bread made by mixing dough with water, flour, salt, and leaven, then rising, shaping, and baking.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

To Make Leavened Bread

Ingredients

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.

Make the leaven

  1. Keep a piece of dough (1 pound) for use; it will last several days.

  2. Mix the dough with warm water.

  3. Knead it with flour to create a sponge.

Build the dough

  1. Take 15 cups of flour and divide it into four parts.

  2. Mix 3¾ cups of flour with the leaven and enough water to form a dough.

  3. Knead well.

  4. Cover the dough with flannel.

  5. Let it rise until fermented.

  6. Dilute the risen dough with more water and add another 3¾ cups of flour.

  7. Let it rise.

  8. Repeat with the last 3¾ cups of flour, ensuring each addition rises properly before mixing more.

  9. Add 6 ounces of coarse sea salt.

  10. Knead the dough again.

Shape and bake

  1. Divide the dough into 8 loaves, making them broad and not too thick.

  2. Let the loaves rise on the board to overcome the pressure from shaping.

  3. Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven.

  4. Reserve a piece of dough for the next baking.

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

What each ingredient does

Dough (leaven)
Its wild fermentation cultures raise the new dough and add sour flavor.
Flour
Provides the gluten network that traps gas and gives the loaves structure.
Warm water
Hydrates the flour so gluten forms and activates the fermentation.
Coarse sea salt
Controls fermentation pace and strengthens the gluten for a firmer crumb.

The step that matters

Let each addition rise before adding more flour. Fermentation must be active before more flour is added; otherwise the leaven is diluted and the dough rises weakly, giving a dense loaf.

“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.

You might also like

Tomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesBrown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesMutton BrothMutton Broth292 recipesYorkshire PuddingYorkshire Pudding264 recipes