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Salt-rising Bread

A bread dough that rises using salt, flour, water, lard, and milk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By Vehling, Joseph Dommers, 1879-1950. fmo · From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Bread and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,466 recipes. Both carry 2-undecenal, which smells sweet. The science ↓

Salt-rising Bread

Ingredients

Directions

Make the starter

  1. Take a teaspoon of new milk, let it boil, then stir in two tablespoonfuls of meal, let it where it will keep warm enough to lighten.

  2. Next morning, thin with warm water, and add two or three tablespoonfuls of flour and quarter teaspoonful of salt; set it in warm water, and the rising will come quickly.

  3. Set in a warm place; in five hours it will be light.

Mix and rise the dough

  1. Take two quarts of flour, one tablespoonful of lard, about a teaspoonful of salt; mix with warm water tolerably soft.

  2. Knead well.

  3. Two tablespoonfuls of morning's milk, one pint warm water, one teaspoonful of salt, two pints of flour; work smoothly, and place in a pot of warm water.

  4. Then take four pints of flour, pour the rising in and mix with a little warm water, a pinch of salt, and very little lard — a piece about the size of a hen's egg.

Shape and bake

  1. Grease pan well and top of bread.

  2. Mould the bread, put to rise, and when light, bake.

  3. Set to lighten in a warm place.

  4. When it is quite light, put it to bake.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

797Calories
27 gProtein
27 gFat
108 gCarbs

Counts 5 of 6 ingredients. The other 1 aren't in our nutrition table and add nothing above, so the real totals are higher.

What these numbers assume: 5 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Flour1 cup (125g) all-purpose455
Milk1 cup (244ml) whole149
Lard1 tbsp (12.8g)115
Egg1 large egg (50g)78
Salt1 tsp (6g)0
Waternot 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 Vehling, Joseph Dommers, 1879-1950. fmo. 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.

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

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  2. Milk + teatop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together738 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-heptenal (creamy, biscuit).

  3. Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

  4. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 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

Flour
Forms the gluten network that gives the loaf its structure and crumb.
Lard
Adds fat that tenderises the crumb and softens the texture.
Meal
Feeds the wild microbes in the starter so the dough rises.
Milk
Provides sugars and proteins that help feed the starter and add softness.

The step that matters

Keeping the rising warm. Salt rising bread gets its lift from slow fermentation by bacteria, which work best at warm, steady temperatures. If the starter or dough cools, rising stalls and the loaf turns out dense.

“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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