Skip to main content
Bread

To Make Whole-meal Bread and Porridge

A dough made from whole-meal flour, yeast, water, and salt, baked into loaves.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

To Make Whole-meal Bread and Porridge

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sponge

  1. Combine 7 lb of whole-meal flour in a pan.

  2. Mix 3 oz of German yeast with 1 quart of warm water.

  3. Make a hole in the flour, pour in the yeast mixture, and stir until it forms a thick batter.

  4. Cover the batter with dry flour and let it rise in a warm place for 1 hour.

Make the dough

  1. Once risen, add more warm water and 2 teaspoons of salt until it forms a light dough.

  2. Knead the dough thoroughly, cover it with a cloth, and let it rest for another hour in a warm place.

Bake

  1. Shape the dough into loaves and bake for about 1 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

Whole-meal flour
Forms the bulk of the dough and provides the structure of the loaf.
German yeast
Produces gas as it ferments, making the batter and dough rise.
Warm water
Hydrates the flour and activates the yeast.

The step that matters

Kneading and resting the dough. Thorough kneading develops the gluten network that traps the gas from the yeast, so the second rise lifts the loaf rather than letting it collapse.

“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.

You might also like

CornbreadCornbread345 recipesBread PuddingBread Pudding336 recipesMilk Bread RollsMilk Bread Rolls242 recipesPotato BreadPotato Bread124 recipes