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Bread

Plain White Bread

A simple yeast bread made with flour, salt, sugar, butter or lard, yeast, and lukewarm water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Plain White 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.

Mix and rise

  1. In a large bowl, mix 2 quarts of sifted flour with 1 teaspoon of salt and 1 tablespoon of sugar. Rub in 1 tablespoon of butter or lard until well combined.

  2. In a separate bowl, mix ½ teacup of yeast with 1 pint of lukewarm water, then pour into the flour mixture.

  3. Stir until the dough reaches the right consistency, adding more water or flour as needed.

  4. Knead the dough for about 30 minutes, then place it in a warm spot to rise until doubled in size, about overnight.

Shape and bake

  1. Knead again with a little flour, shape into loaves, and let rise in the pans.

  2. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C) and bake until done.

  3. Remove from the pan and let cool against something until cool.

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. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  3. Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

Flour
Forms the gluten network that gives the bread its structure and chew.
Yeast
Produces gas as it ferments, causing the dough to rise and turn airy.
Water
Hydrates the flour so gluten can form and yeast can become active.
Butter or lard
Adds fat that softens the crumb and gives a more tender texture.
Sugar
Feeds the yeast and adds a little sweetness and browning in the crust.

The step that matters

Letting the dough rise until doubled. Rising gives the yeast time to produce gas that lightens the crumb. Under-proofed dough bakes dense, while the dough must be kept warm and given enough time to expand fully.

“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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