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Bread

Yeast, Bread Without

A yeast-free loaf made with flour, sugar, soda, salt, and buttermilk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and buttermilk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,721 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Yeast, Bread Without

Oven, in the book's wordsA fierce oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Prepare

  1. Blend the sugar and carbonate of soda together.

  2. Mix the salt with the flour in a bowl.

  3. Sift the soda and sugar mixture into the flour.

Make and bake the loaf

  1. Stir the mixture well and add buttermilk to form a firm dough.

  2. Shape the dough into a loaf and place it in a preheated oven at 400°F (200°C).

  3. Bake for about 50 minutes, or until the loaf is cooked through.

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 + buttermilktop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,721 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Sugar + buttermilktop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,973 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Sugar + flourtop 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 structure of the loaf once wetted and worked into a dough.
Buttermilk
Hydrates the flour to form a firm dough and provides moisture and slight acidity.
Carbonate of soda
Reacts with the acidity of the buttermilk to release carbon dioxide, which lifts the loaf.

The step that matters

Sifting the soda and sugar into the flour. Carbonate of soda must be evenly distributed through the flour, or pockets of concentrated soda can leave bitter, yellow-streaked patches and uneven rising. Stirring well after adding the buttermilk helps spread it through the dough.

“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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