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Bread

Water Bread

Water bread is a yeast‑leavened loaf made with water, sugar, yeast, salt, and flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and flour 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 ↓

Water Bread

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sponge

  1. Dissolve sugar in boiling water and let cool until lukewarm.

  2. Add yeast (dissolved in a little lukewarm water if using compressed yeast).

  3. Stir in 4 to 5 cups of flour.

  4. Mix well for 5 minutes.

  5. Cover the bowl.

  6. Wrap in a blanket if the room is cold.

  7. Let rise overnight.

Knead and shape

  1. In the morning, add the remaining flour and salt.

  2. Knead well for 15 to 20 minutes.

  3. Let rise again until doubled in bulk.

  4. Shape into loaves.

  5. Brush with butter.

  6. Prick.

  7. Let rise in the tins.

Bake

  1. Bake.

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. 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 gluten network that gives the bread its structure and chew.
Yeast
Ferments the dough, producing gas that makes it rise.
Sugar
Feeds the yeast at the start, helping it become active for fermentation.
Salt
Controls yeast activity and strengthens the gluten for a firmer dough.

The step that matters

Knead well for 15 to 20 minutes. Kneading develops the gluten network that traps gas from fermentation. Under-kneaded dough rises poorly and bakes with a dense, crumbly texture.

“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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