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Recipe for Making Good Bread

A basic bread dough made with water, flour, salt yeast, and coarse sea salt, then baked.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Recipe for Making Good Bread

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the sponge

  1. Combine warm water, flour, and salt yeast in a large earthen vessel. Mix well.

  2. Set the mixture aside in a warm place until it rises and falls, about 3 to 5 hours.

Make the dough

  1. Dissolve coarse sea salt in 2 quarts of water in another bowl. Mix it with the risen dough.

  2. Add 9 pounds of flour and knead the dough until well combined.

  3. Let it rise until light.

  4. Shape the dough into loaves.

Bake and serve

  1. Preheat the oven hotter than necessary. Test the temperature with a handful of flour; it should turn brown but not burn.

  2. Allow it to cool slightly.

  3. Bake the loaves for a little over an hour, depending on their size.

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

What each ingredient does

Flour
Forms the gluten network that gives the bread its structure and chew.
Yeast
Ferments sugars in the dough, producing gas that makes the bread rise.
Salt
Controls yeast activity and strengthens the dough, adding flavour.
Water
Hydrates the flour so gluten can form and carries the yeast through the dough.

The step that matters

Testing the oven with a handful of flour. Flour that browns without burning shows the oven is hot enough for a good crust. If the oven is too cool, the loaves rise and dry out slowly and come out pale; if too hot, the crust over-browns before the interior sets.

“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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