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Bread

Salt Rising Bread

A bread made with cornmeal, milk, water, baking soda, flour, and salt, risen overnight and baked.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 78,219 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Salt Rising Bread

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the starter

  1. Scald cornmeal with milk and let it rise overnight.

  2. In the morning, mix ⅔ cup milk, 1 cup hot water, baking soda, and enough flour to make a sponge, then add the cornmeal and stir well.

  3. Place in a warm area to rise.

Make the dough

  1. Once very light, add 1 cup milk, 1 quart hot water, and salt, then combine all ingredients.

  2. Knead thoroughly, but not as stiff as for yeast bread.

Bake

  1. Place the dough in pans and let it rise until light.

  2. Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) for 30 minutes.

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

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Milk and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Cornmeal
Forms the fermenting starter that gives the bread its characteristic tang and lift.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the sponge and dough together as it rises.
Milk
Adds moisture and softness to the sponge and dough.
Baking soda
Reacts with the sponge's acidity to help the dough rise.

The step that matters

Knead to the right stiffness. The dough should be softer than yeast bread dough because the sponge is slack and wet. Kneading too stiff makes the loaf dense, while the gluten still needs enough working to trap the gas that makes it light.

“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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