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Bread

Fob Making Loaf Bread

A yeast bread of flour, warm water and salt, risen overnight, kneaded, shaped into loaves and baked.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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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 ↓

Fob Making Loaf 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 dough

  1. Sift the flour into a large dry bowl.

  2. In a tin or wooden pan, combine the warm water and 1 quart of flour.

  3. Stir the mixture with your hands.

  4. Add the yeast and salt.

  5. Continue stirring while adding more flour until a smooth dough forms.

  6. Cover the dough with a clean cloth.

  7. Let the dough rise in a warm place overnight.

Shape and proof

  1. In the morning, flour a breadboard.

  2. Turn the dough onto the breadboard.

  3. Knead the dough well.

  4. Divide the dough into 2 or 3 loaves.

  5. Knead each loaf.

  6. Grease the bread pans with butter.

  7. Place the loaves inside the pans.

  8. Let the loaves rise for 30 to 40 minutes until doubled in size.

Bake and serve

  1. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

  2. Bake the loaves for 45 minutes.

  3. To check if baked, turn a loaf over and tap it; if it sounds hollow, it is done.

  4. If it does not sound hollow, bake for an additional 10 to 15 minutes.

  5. If the crust is too hard, wrap the bread in a damp towel for 15 minutes before slicing.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

Flour
Forms the gluten network that gives the dough its structure and chewy crumb.
Yeast
Produces carbon dioxide gas as it ferments, making the dough rise and become airy.
Warm water
Hydrates the flour so gluten can form and activates the yeast.
Salt
Controls yeast activity and strengthens the gluten for better flavour and texture.

The step that matters

Let the loaves rise until doubled. Proofing until the dough has doubled lets yeast build gas and gluten structure. Under-proofed loaves stay dense, while over-proofed loaves may collapse in the oven.

“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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