Bread
Ingredients
Directions
The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.
Prepare the dough
In a large bowl, combine the flour and salt.
Dissolve the yeast in the warm water and add to the flour mixture.
Knead the dough until smooth.
Rise and shape
Place the dough in a warm, moist environment to rise for 3.5 to 4 hours.
Once risen, shape the dough into loaves weighing 1.25 to 1.5 pounds each.
Bake
Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).
Bake the loaves for 2 hours, switching their positions halfway through.
For a nuttier crust, bake longer if desired.
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
What each ingredient does
- White flour
- Provides the starch and gluten network that gives the bread its structure.
- Fresh compressed yeast
- Ferments sugars in the dough, producing gas that makes the loaves rise.
- Warm water
- Hydrates the flour so gluten can form and activates the yeast.
The step that matters
Rising the dough. The dough needs a warm, moist place to rise fully, because yeast activity depends on temperature. Under-proofed dough bakes up dense, while the gas bubbles trapped during rising give the loaf its open crumb.
“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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