Irish Bread with Straight Dough
Ingredients
Directions
Make the dough
In a large bowl, combine water, yeast, sugar, lard, and salt to make a straight dough.
Knead the dough until it is medium firm.
Allow the dough to rise until it doubles in size.
Shape and bake
Scale the dough and shape it into loaves.
Place the loaves in a cloth-lined box and dust them well with flour.
Bake in a slow oven at 325°F (165°C) without washing the loaves.
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
- Yeast
- Produces gas as it ferments, making the dough rise and become light.
- Sugar
- Feeds the yeast and adds sweetness and browning in the crust.
- Lard
- Adds fat that tenderises the crumb and softens the texture.
- Coarse sea salt
- Controls yeast activity and adds flavour to the dough.
The step that matters
Let the dough rise until it doubles. The rise depends on yeast gas being trapped in the gluten network. Under-proofed dough bakes dense, while over-proofed dough collapses and loses structure.
“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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