Why it works: Ginger and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 17% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,054 recipes. Both carry 1-penten-3-one, which smells fish, pungent. The science ↓
Salt Rising Bread
Ingredients
Directions
Make the first starter
Take one pint of water, one-half teaspoonful of salt, and one teaspoonful of sugar; stir until the mixture has the thickness of pancake batter.
Ensure the water is warm as the hand can bear.
Place the vessel containing this batter into water of the same temperature as the first water, and let it stand for three hours.
After three hours, water will rise to the surface; then thicken with flour until the batter is as thick as it was at the beginning.
Let it stand three more hours, when it will again rise, making a total standing of six hours.
Make the dough
Then get the flour you need for baking, scald about one pint of it, and after it is cool mix the rising together with warm water and mix to a stiffness suitable for kneading on a warm board.
Knead the dough thoroughly.
Place the dough in a baking pan, set aside until it rises to twice its original size.
Bake in a quick oven.
Make the mush and mix the dough
In the evening, scald two tablespoonfuls of cornmeal, a pinch of salt, and one teaspoonful of sugar, with sweet milk, and set in a warm place until morning.
Then scald a teaspoonful of sugar, one teaspoonful of salt, half as much soda, with a pint of boiling water.
Add cold water until lukewarm, then put in the mush made the night before and thicken to a batter with flour.
Put in a close vessel in a kettle of warm water (not too hot), when light, mix stiff, adding a little shortening.
Mold into loaves. It will soon rise, and will not take as long to bake as yeast bread.
Make the ginger starter
Take one tablespoonful of ginger, one teaspoonful of soda, and one pint of boiling water; thicken with coarse flour or middlings; let it rise and set in a cool place.
Use a teaspoonful in a baking of salt-rising bread.
Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)
Counts 3 of 4 ingredients. The other 1 aren't in our nutrition table and add nothing above, so the real totals are higher.
What these numbers assume: 3 portions
| Ingredient | Portion assumed | kcal |
|---|---|---|
| Sugar | 1 tbsp (12.5g) granulated | 49 |
| Ginger | 1 tsp grated fresh (2g) | 2 |
| Salt | 1 tsp (6g) | 0 |
| Water | not in our table | 0 |
One typical portion per ingredient; the recipe's quantities are not counted. A rough guide only, not for medical or dietary planning.
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.
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Ginger + sugartop 17% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together14,054 recipes
Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).
Ginger and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 14,054 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 (in the method)
- Thickens the starter and dough, giving the loaf its structure.
- Soda
- Adds lift and helps the dough rise.
- Sugar
- Feeds the fermentation and adds mild sweetness.
The step that matters
Keeping the starter at a steady warm temperature. Fermentation depends on warmth. Water that is too cold slows the rise, while water that is too hot can kill the microbes that leaven the bread, so the starter may fail to rise.
“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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