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Bread

Family Loaf-bread

A yeast bread made with wheat flour, powdered salt, fresh yeast, and blood-warm water, baked until brown.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Wheat and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,373 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Family Loaf-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.

Prepare the dough

  1. Warm 4 pounds of flour in a tub or pan near the fire.

  2. Mix 6 ounces of salt into the flour or work it into the dough later.

  3. Combine 1 pint of yeast with enough blood-warm water.

  4. Make a deep hole in the flour and gradually pour in the yeast mixture, mixing with your hands until well incorporated.

  5. Cover the mixture and let it rise near the fire until fermented.

  6. Work in the remaining flour until a smooth, tough dough forms.

Bake

  1. Shape the dough into loaves and bake in a preheated oven at 350°F (175°C) for 1.5 to 2 hours.

  2. Leave the bread in the oven for an additional 30 minutes after it turns brown to ensure it is fully baked.

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. Wheat + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,373 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Wheat flour
Forms the gluten network that gives the loaf its structure and chew.
Fresh yeast
Ferments the dough, producing gas that makes the loaf rise.
Powdered salt
Controls yeast activity and adds flavor to the dough.

The step that matters

Rising until fermented. The dough must rise long enough for the yeast to produce enough gas to lighten the loaf. Underproofed dough bakes dense, while overproofed dough can collapse and taste sour.

“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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