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Bread

Yeast Raised

A yeast-raised bread made with bread flour, cornmeal, molasses, lard, and milk or water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Wheat and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,418 recipes. Both carry (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal, which smells cucumber, melon. The science ↓

Yeast Raised

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Make the sponge

  1. Dissolve the yeast in warm water.

  2. Add molasses and a portion of the bread flour to create a sponge.

Make the mush

  1. Scald the cornmeal with boiling water to make a soft mush, then mix in lard and salt.

Mix and shape

  1. Once the sponge is ready, combine it with the mush and add milk or water.

  2. Form a slack dough, let it rise again, then work it over.

  3. Scale and mold the dough into loaves.

  4. Place in pans, cover, and allow to proof.

Bake

  1. Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C).

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. Wheat + milktop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,418 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, melon).

  2. Bread + wheattop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together209 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

  3. Bread + milktop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  4. Flour + wheattop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,373 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. 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

Bread flour
Provides gluten structure that traps gas and holds the loaves together.
Yeast
Produces carbon dioxide gas that makes the dough rise.
White cornmeal
Adds texture and a tender, slightly grainy crumb.
Lard
Adds fat that tenderizes the crumb and softens texture.
Molasses
Feeds the yeast and adds sweetness and color to the crust.

The step that matters

Let the dough rise and proof fully before baking. Yeast needs time to produce enough gas to lighten the dough. Underproofed loaves stay dense and may collapse or split in the oven, while overproofed dough can lose 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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