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White Bread

A yeast‑leavened loaf made with water, sugar, lard, flour, salt, and yeast.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By United Methodist Church (Grayville, Ill.) · From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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White Bread

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 ↓

White Bread

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the dough

  1. Dissolve one cake of Fleischmann's yeast and two tablespoonfuls of sugar in one quart lukewarm water. Do not allow to stand more than ten minutes.

  2. Add two tablespoonfuls of lard or melted butter and half of the sifted flour. Beat until smooth.

  3. Add the remaining flour and one tablespoonful of salt, mixing until dough can be handled.

  4. Knead the dough until smooth and elastic.

  5. Place dough in a greased bowl, cover, and set aside in a moderately warm place, free from draft, until light—about two hours.

Shape and bake

  1. Mold the dough into loaves.

  2. Place loaves in greased bread pans, filling them half full.

  3. Cover and let rise one hour, or until doubled in bulk.

  4. Bake for forty to fifty minutes.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

619Calories
13 gProtein
14 gFat
108 gCarbs

Counts 4 of 6 ingredients. The other 2 aren't in our nutrition table and add nothing above, so the real totals are higher.

What these numbers assume: 4 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Flour1 cup (125g) all-purpose455
Lard1 tbsp (12.8g)115
Sugar1 tbsp (12.5g) granulated49
Salt1 tsp (6g)0
Waternot in our table0
Cakenot in our table0

One typical portion per ingredient; the recipe's quantities are not counted. A rough guide only, not for medical or dietary planning.

By United Methodist Church (Grayville, Ill.). 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. See the original page.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  2. Flour + breadtop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together10,383 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Sugar + breadtop 32% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,638 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Flour and bread barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 10,383 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

Flour
Forms the gluten network that gives the bread its structure and chew.
Yeast
Produces carbon dioxide gas that makes the dough rise and become light.
Sugar
Feeds the yeast so it becomes active and produces gas more quickly.
Lard
Adds fat that tenderises the crumb and softens the texture.
Water
Hydrates the flour so gluten can form and dissolves the yeast and sugar.

The step that matters

Knead until smooth and elastic. Kneading aligns gluten strands so the dough can trap the yeast's gas. Under-kneaded dough rises poorly and bakes dense and crumbly.

“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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