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Bread

Sponge White Bread

A yeast-based white bread made with a stiff batter sponge and optional milk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 78,219 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Sponge White Bread

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sponge

  1. In a large bowl, combine warm water and enough flour to create a stiff batter.

  2. Add the yeast and set the mixture in a warm place to rise until very light.

Make the dough and rise

  1. Stir in the salt and additional flour to form a dough, but do not overmix.

  2. Optionally, add a little milk when mixing the dough.

  3. Allow the dough to rise again in a warm place until light, but avoid letting it rise too long to prevent souring.

  4. If the sponge becomes acidic, add a little baking soda.

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 + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and milk barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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

Yeast
Produces gas that makes the dough rise and become light.
Flour
Forms the batter and dough structure that traps the gas bubbles.
Warm water
Hydrates the flour and activates the yeast for fermentation.
Baking soda (in the method)
Neutralizes acidity that builds up in the fermenting sponge.

The step that matters

Second rise. Letting the dough rise too long lets fermentation turn sour, because yeast and bacteria keep producing acids. Watching for lightness and not overrunning the rise keeps the flavor clean.

“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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