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Bread

Light Bread

A simple yeast bread made with flour, yeast, lard, salt, and cold water, baked until light.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Light Bread

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Make the dough

  1. Mix flour, yeast, lard, and salt in a bowl.

  2. Add cold water gradually to form a dough.

  3. Knead the dough well until smooth.

  4. Let the dough rise until very light.

Shape and bake

  1. Knead again and shape into loaves and rolls.

  2. Let rise again.

  3. Bake in a preheated oven at 350°F (175°C) for one hour.

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.

Explore the science

What each ingredient does

Flour
Forms the main structure of the dough once hydrated and kneaded.
Yeast
Produces gas during rising, making the dough light and airy.
Lard
Adds fat that tenderizes the crumb and softens texture.

The step that matters

Let the dough rise until very light. Yeast needs enough time to build gas and stretch the gluten network. Under-rising leaves a dense loaf, while over-rising can weaken the structure and collapse during 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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