Why it works: Sugar and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 92,116 recipes. Both carry phenylacetaldehyde, which smells hawthorne, honey. The science ↓
Salt-rising Bread
Ingredients
Directions
Make the sponge
Dissolve salt, sugar, and baking soda in boiling water.
Let the mixture cool until it is warm to the touch.
Mix in enough flour to create a thin batter.
Pour the batter into a 4-quart can and place it in a warm spot or a hot water bath for 3 to 4 hours, until it doubles in size.
Shape and bake
Make a medium, stiff dough from the sponge and shape it into loaves.
Bake the loaves using the same method as for yeast bread.
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.
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Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together92,116 recipes
Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Flour
- Forms the structure of the batter and dough that holds the bread together.
- Baking soda
- Reacts to produce gas that leavens the sponge so it rises and doubles in size.
- Sugar
- Feeds the rising and adds a touch of sweetness and browning to the crust.
- Salt
- Controls the rise and adds flavor.
The step that matters
Letting the sponge rise until doubled. The rise depends on gas produced as the baking soda reacts, and the batter needs warmth and time to trap it. Stopping early leaves a dense loaf, so the batter should visibly double before shaping.
“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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