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Bread

Good Bread

A simple bread made from flour and water, kneaded, risen, shaped, and baked until golden.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 2 ingredients
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Good 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.

Mix and knead

  1. Mix 100 pounds of flour with 37 pounds of water.

  2. Knead the dough until smooth.

Rise and shape

  1. Let the dough rise until doubled in size.

  2. Shape the dough into loaves and place in baking pans.

Bake

  1. Bake in a preheated oven at 350°F (175°C) until golden brown.

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

What each ingredient does

Flour
Forms the gluten network that gives the bread its structure and chew.

The step that matters

Let the dough rise until doubled in size. Yeast gas expands the dough and builds its airy crumb. Too short a rise leaves a dense loaf, while an overlong rise lets the gluten weaken so the loaf collapses or tastes sour.

“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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