Skip to main content
Bread

White Bread

A yeast‑leavened loaf made with water, flour, salt, sugar, and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓
White Bread

Why it works: Flour and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

White 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.

Make the sponge

  1. Dissolve the yeast in lukewarm water.

  2. Stir in sifted flour until the mixture is thicker than griddle cake batter.

  3. Set in a warm place until it rises and begins to go back.

Make and rise the dough

  1. Add the pint of lukewarm water, salt, sugar, and butter to the sponge.

  2. Add enough sifted flour to make a soft dough.

  3. Knead well until thoroughly light.

  4. Shape into loaves and place in greased pans for final rising.

Bake and cool

  1. When light, bake at 400°F (200°C) until done.

  2. Cool by leaning against something and covering with a cloth.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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 + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  3. Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Compressed yeast
Ferments the sugars in the dough, producing gas that makes the bread rise.
Flour
Forms the gluten network that gives the bread its structure and chew.
Sugar
Feeds the yeast and adds a little sweetness and browning.
Butter
Adds fat that softens the crumb and gives a tender texture.
Salt
Controls yeast activity and strengthens the gluten for better texture.

The step that matters

Knead well until thoroughly light. Kneading develops the gluten network that traps the gas from the yeast. Under-kneaded dough rises poorly and bakes up dense and heavy.

“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.

More white bread recipes

Plain 11Manitoba 3 See all 90 →

You might also like

CornbreadCornbread345 recipesBread PuddingBread Pudding336 recipesMilk Bread RollsMilk Bread Rolls242 recipesPotato BreadPotato Bread124 recipes