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Bread

Water Bread

A simple bread made with boiling water, butter, lard, sugar, salt, yeast, and flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and flour 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 ↓

Water Bread

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a hot oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the dough

  1. In a large bowl, combine butter, lard, sugar, and salt.

  2. Pour boiling water over the mixture and let it cool to lukewarm.

  3. Add the dissolved yeast and 5 cups of flour, stirring until well mixed.

  4. Add the remaining flour, mix, and turn onto a floured surface.

  5. Knead until the dough is smooth and elastic, with bubbles forming under the surface.

Rise overnight

  1. Return the dough to the bowl, cover with a clean cloth, and let it rise overnight at 65°F (18°C).

  2. In the morning, cut down the dough by turning it over several times with a knife.

Shape and bake

  1. Knead again, shape into loaves or biscuits, and place in greased pans, filling them half full.

  2. Cover and let rise until doubled in size, then bake in a hot oven at 400°F (200°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. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  3. Butter + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Butter and flour 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 bread its structure and chewy crumb.
Yeast
Produces carbon dioxide gas that makes the dough rise and become airy.
Lard
Adds fat that tenderizes the crumb and softens its texture.
Butter
Adds fat that enriches flavor and softens the crumb.
Sugar
Feeds the yeast and promotes gentle browning in the crust.

The step that matters

Kneading the dough until smooth and elastic. Kneading aligns gluten strands into a stretchy network that traps the gas yeast produces. Under-kneading leaves a dense loaf that rises poorly.

“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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