English Home-Made Brown Bread
Ingredients
Directions
Make the sponge
Dissolve the yeast in warm water.
Mix half of the graham flour with the yeast to create a 'sponge'.
Let the sponge sit in a warm place for 4 hours.
Make and rise the dough
Add the salt and remaining flour to form a stiff dough.
Knead the dough until smooth.
Grease a pan with a little melted lard or lard mixed with hot water.
Place the dough in the pan, brush the top with lard, and let it rise for 2 more hours.
Shape and bake
Knead again, shape into loaves, let rise once more, and bake.
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
- Graham flour
- Forms the bulk of the dough and gives the bread its structure and brown, nutty flavor.
- Compressed yeast
- Ferments the sugars in the flour, producing gas that makes the dough rise.
- Warm water
- Hydrates the flour and activates the yeast to form the dough.
The step that matters
Letting the sponge rest in a warm place. The yeast needs warmth to ferment steadily; if the sponge is too cold it rises slowly, and if too hot the yeast can die, so the dough may not rise properly.
“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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