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Bread

Yeast Raised

A yeast‑raised bread made with wheat flour, cornmeal, molasses, lard, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Bread and wheat match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 209 recipes. Both carry 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline, which smells popcorn, roasted. The science ↓

Yeast Raised

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Make the sponge and mush

  1. Dissolve the yeast in warm water.

  2. Add molasses and a portion of the wheat flour to create a sponge.

  3. Scald the cornmeal with boiling water to make a soft mush.

  4. Mix the lard and salt into the cornmeal mush.

Mix and shape the dough

  1. Add about 1 pint of milk or water and the mush to the sponge.

  2. Form a slack dough.

  3. Let the dough rise again.

  4. Work the dough over.

  5. Scale the dough and mold into loaves.

Proof and bake

  1. Place the loaves in pans.

  2. Cover the pans.

  3. Allow the loaves to proof.

  4. Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C).

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. Bread + wheattop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together209 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

  2. Flour + wheattop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,373 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + molassestop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,429 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Wheat + molassestop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together702 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  5. Bread + flourtop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together10,383 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Bread and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 10,383 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

Bread flour
Gluten in the flour builds the elastic network that gives the loaves their structure.
Yeast
Yeast produces carbon dioxide as it ferments sugars, which makes the dough rise.
White cornmeal
Scalded cornmeal adds a soft, moist crumb and a distinct corn flavor.
Molasses
Molasses feeds the yeast and adds sweetness, moisture and a darker crust.
Lard
Lard adds fat that tenderizes the crumb and keeps it from drying out.

The step that matters

Allow the loaves to proof. Proofing lets the yeast produce gas until the loaves are properly airy. Too short leaves a dense loaf, and too long lets the structure collapse or go sour.

“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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