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Bread

Bread

A simple yeast bread made with flour, salt, sugar, yeast, and warm water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and sugar 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 ↓

Bread

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. The book gives no cooking times either; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Prepare the dough

  1. In a bowl, mix the flour, salt, sugar, and yeast.

  2. Gradually add warm water and stir until a dough forms.

  3. Knead the dough on a floured surface for about 10 minutes.

  4. Place the dough in a greased bowl, cover, and let it rise for 1 hour.

Shape and bake

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. Shape the dough into a loaf and place it in a greased loaf pan.

  3. Bake for 30-35 minutes or until golden brown.

  4. Let cool before slicing.

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 + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked 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

All-purpose flour
Forms the gluten network that gives the bread its structure.
Yeast
Produces gas that makes the dough rise and become airy.
Salt
Controls yeast activity and strengthens the dough's flavour and structure.
Sugar
Feeds the yeast and helps the crust brown.
Warm water
Hydrates the flour so gluten forms and activates the yeast.

The step that matters

Kneading the dough. Kneading develops the gluten network that traps the gas from the yeast. Under-kneaded dough rises poorly and gives 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.

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