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Bread

Compressed Yeast Bread

A quick bread made with compressed yeast, flour, water, and salt, rising twice before baking.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By F. L. Gillette and Hugo Ziemann · From a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 25% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,383 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Compressed Yeast Bread

two loaves

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the sponge

  1. Use for two loaves of bread: three quarts of sifted flour, nearly a quart of warm water, a level tablespoonful of salt, and an ounce of compressed yeast.

  2. Dissolve the yeast in a pint of lukewarm water; then stir into it enough flour to make a thick batter.

  3. Cover the bowl containing the batter or sponge with a thick folded cloth and set it in a warm place to rise; if the temperature of heat is properly attended to the sponge will be foamy and light in half an hour.

Make the dough

  1. Stir the salt dissolved in a little warm water into the sponge, add the rest of the flour and sufficient warm water to make the dough stiff enough to knead.

  2. Knead the dough from five to ten minutes, divide into loaves, knead each loaf again, and put into buttered baking tins.

Rise and bake

  1. Cover loaves with a double thick cloth and set in a warm place to rise twice their height.

  2. Bake as any bread.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

455Calories
13 gProtein
1 gFat
95 gCarbs

Counts 2 of 3 ingredients. The other 1 aren't in our nutrition table and add nothing above, so the real totals are higher.

What these numbers assume: 2 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Flour1 cup (125g) all-purpose455
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 F. L. Gillette and Hugo Ziemann. Recipe from a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, 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 dough structure and chew.
Compressed yeast
Ferments sugars, producing gas that makes the dough rise and become light.
Warm water
Hydrates the flour and activates the yeast, forming a workable dough.
Salt
Controls yeast activity and strengthens the gluten for better texture and flavor.

The step that matters

Letting the sponge rise in a warm place. Yeast works best at warm, not hot, temperatures. If the sponge is too cold it rises slowly, and if it is too hot the yeast can be weakened or killed, so the loaves will be dense or poorly risen.

“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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