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Bread

Salt Rising Bread. No. 1

A bread made from salt, sugar, cornmeal, oil, water, and flour, fermented and baked.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By Evora Bucknum Perkins · From a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg) · 4 ingredients
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Salt Rising Bread. No. 1

Ingredients

Directions

Make the starter

  1. Mix 1 tablespoon of salt, 1 tablespoon of sugar, and 1 tablespoon of cornmeal (white or Rhode Island if obtainable) with 3 tablespoons of oil, pour over all 1½ pints of boiling water; stir until sugar and salt are dissolved, then add 1½ pints cold water that has never been heated.

  2. Add warm flour for thick batter which will be rather thin after beating (about 2 quarts, perhaps). Beat thoroughly and set in a pan of water at 110 to 125 degrees or in some place that can be kept at a uniform temperature much warmer than for common yeast bread but not warm enough to scald the rising.

  3. When the first bubbles appear, beat the batter thoroughly and repeat the beating each hour until light, which will be in from 4-6 hours. The rising should not be allowed to become too light at any time.

  4. When the batter is light, close the doors so that there will be no draughts.

Shape and bake

  1. Have the pans oiled and warm, and the flour warm.

  2. Add the flour rapidly with very little stirring to the batter; when stiff enough, turn all out onto a warmed, floured board and work in quickly with as little kneading as possible, enough flour for a rather soft dough; form into loaves and place in oiled pans, set in a warm place, covering well to keep a crust from forming over the top as well as to keep the loaves warm.

  3. As soon as light, place in a moderate oven and bake thoroughly.

By Evora Bucknum Perkins. 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

What each ingredient does

Flour (in the method)
Forms the bread's structure once worked into a soft dough.
Cornmeal (in the method)
Provides the starter's fermentation source, which drives the rise.
Oil (in the method)
Adds fat, giving the loaves a softer, more tender crumb.
Sugar (in the method)
Feeds the starter's fermentation and adds mild sweetness.

The step that matters

Keeping the rise at a steady, moderate warmth. Too much heat kills the fermenting microbes or scalds the batter, while cold slows the rise. Keeping the batter uniformly warm and covered prevents a crust from forming and lets it rise evenly before baking.

“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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