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Bread

Yorkshire Brown Bread

A yeast bread made with flour, bran, rye flour, yeast, water, and salt, baked in tins.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and rye match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,320 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Yorkshire Brown Bread

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Make the sponge

  1. Mix the flour and bran in a large bowl.

  2. Make a hollow in the center of the mixture.

  3. Sprinkle salt around the edge of the hollow.

  4. Mix the yeast with a little more than ½ cup of tepid water until smooth.

  5. Pour a cup of tepid water into the hollow.

  6. Mix in some flour to make a thin batter.

  7. Add the yeast to the batter.

  8. Sprinkle flour over the top.

  9. Cover with a cloth and let it rise until bubbly.

Knead and shape

  1. Knead the dough thoroughly, adding lukewarm water as needed until it doesn't stick.

  2. Cut the dough with a knife.

  3. Grease some tins.

  4. Fill the tins three-quarters full with dough.

Rise and bake

  1. Cover and let it rise in a warm place until the surface cracks.

  2. Let the dough rise briefly.

  3. Prick the dough with a fork.

  4. Bake in a moderate oven (350°F/175°C).

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 + ryetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,320 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

Best flour
Forms the gluten network that gives the loaf its structure and chew.
Coarse broad bran
Adds fibre-rich texture and a coarse, brown crumb to the loaf.
Rye flour
Adds a darker colour and a more earthy flavour to the dough.
Fresh german yeast
Produces carbon dioxide gas that makes the dough rise and become bubbly.

The step that matters

Knead until the dough no longer sticks. Kneading develops the gluten that traps the gas from the yeast. Adding water gradually keeps the dough workable without making it slack, so the loaf rises evenly and holds its shape.

“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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