Skip to main content
Main

Household Bread

A yeast bread made with flour, salt, sugar, water, and yeast, baked until crusty.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Flour and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 92,116 recipes. Both carry phenylacetaldehyde, which smells hawthorne, honey. The science ↓

Household Bread

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a hot oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the dough

  1. Cream the yeast and sugar together.

  2. In a large bowl, combine the flour and salt, making a well in the center.

  3. Add a little of the water to the creamed yeast.

  4. Pour the mixture into the well along with the remaining water, mixing to form a dough.

  5. Sprinkle the dough with flour.

  6. Cover with a clean cloth and let it rise in a warm place for 1 hour.

  7. Turn the dough onto a floured surface.

  8. Knead the dough well.

Shape and prove

  1. Divide the dough into three parts.

  2. Knead each part thoroughly into a long loaf.

  3. Place the loaves on a greased baking tin.

  4. Let the loaves rise in a warm place for 15 minutes.

  5. Brush the tops with egg.

  6. Make cuts on top to allow the loaves to rise.

Bake

  1. Bake in a hot oven at 400°F (200°C) for 30 minutes, then reduce the temperature to 300°F (150°C) and bake for another 30 minutes until brown and crusty.

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

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

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

What each ingredient does

Flour
Forms the dough structure that traps gas and sets into the crumb of the loaf.
Yeast
Produces carbon dioxide as it ferments sugars, making the dough rise and become airy.
Water
Hydrates the flour so gluten can form and dissolves the yeast to activate it.
Salt
Strengthens gluten and controls the pace of yeast fermentation for better flavor.
Sugar
Feeds the yeast so it becomes active quickly and helps the crust brown.
Egg (in the method)
Brushed on top, it adds color and a glossy, browned finish to the crust.

The step that matters

Kneading the dough well. Kneading develops gluten, the stretchy network that holds the gas bubbles from the yeast. Under-kneaded dough rises poorly and bakes up dense.

“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.

You might also like

Tomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesBrown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesMutton BrothMutton Broth292 recipesYorkshire PuddingYorkshire Pudding264 recipes