English Home-Made Brown Bread
Ingredients
Directions
Make the sponge
Dissolve the yeast in warm water.
Mix half of the flour with the yeast mixture to create a sponge.
Let the sponge sit in a warm place for 4 hours.
Knead and shape
Add the salt and remaining flour to form a stiff dough.
Knead the dough until smooth.
Brush a pan with a small amount of melted lard or lard mixed with hot water.
Place the dough in the pan.
Brush the top.
Let it rise for 2 more hours.
Knead again.
Shape into loaves.
Let rise.
Bake
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 provides the structure of the bread.
- Compressed yeast
- Ferments the sponge, producing gas that makes the dough rise.
- Warm water
- Hydrates the flour and activates the yeast to form the dough.
The step that matters
Let the sponge sit in a warm place for 4 hours. The yeast needs warm, steady conditions to ferment the sponge fully. Too cold slows gas production, and the dough will rise poorly in later stages.
“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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