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Peptik White Bread

A simple unleavened white bread made with flour, salt, baking powder, and water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 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 ↓

Peptik White Bread

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Prepare the dough

  1. Mix the flour, salt, and baking powder by sifting them together twice.

  2. Make a well in the center of the flour mixture.

  3. Pour the water into the well, ensuring the dough is soft.

  4. Stir quickly with a large spoon until all the flour is wet.

Bake

  1. Transfer the dough to a greased baking pan (4 inches wide, 4 inches deep, 8 inches long).

  2. Smooth the top with a knife dipped in melted butter.

  3. Bake in a preheated oven at 350°F (175°C) for one hour.

Finish

  1. Remove the bread from the pan.

  2. Sprinkle the bread with water.

  3. Wrap the bread in a cloth until cool.

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).

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

All-purpose flour
Forms the gluten-based structure that holds the loaf together.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the dough, causing the loaf to rise without yeast.
Cold water
Hydrates the flour so the dough can form and bind together.

The step that matters

Stir quickly until all the flour is wet. Overmixing once the liquid is added develops gluten, which makes the bread tough and dense. Stirring just until no dry flour remains keeps the crumb tender.

“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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