Skip to main content
Main

Bread

A simple yeast bread made with flour, salt, yeast, and warm water, baked until golden.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Bread

Ingredients

Directions

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

Prepare the dough

  1. Combine the flour and salt in a large earthen pan.

  2. Cover the mixture with a cloth.

  3. Place the pan near a warm fire.

  4. Make a hole in the center of the flour large enough to hold the pint of water.

  5. Mix the yeast into the warm water until smooth.

  6. Pour the yeast mixture into the hole in the flour.

  7. Sprinkle some flour over the hole to cover it.

  8. Cover the dough with the cloth.

  9. Let it sit by the fire until the flour cracks in several places.

Knead and rise

  1. Work the mixture into a light dough using only your fingertips.

  2. Knead until you see small air bubbles.

  3. Let the dough rise by the fire until it feels very light.

Shape and bake

  1. Tear off pieces of dough (do not cut with a knife).

  2. Shape the dough pieces as desired.

  3. Place the dough pieces on a floured baking tin.

  4. Bake in a moderate oven (350°F / 175°C) until the loaves rise, crack, and are golden brown.

  5. Once out of the oven, cover with a cloth to keep warm.

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 dough structure that traps gas and sets into the crumb when baked.
German yeast
Produces gas that makes the dough rise and become light.
Warm water
Hydrates the flour and activates the yeast, forming a workable dough.
Coarse sea salt
Seasons the bread and controls the pace of yeast fermentation.

The step that matters

Let the dough rise until very light. Yeast gas must fully expand the gluten network before baking; under-proofed dough bakes dense, while over-proofed dough collapses and loses structure.

“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.

More bread recipes

Pudding 1,021Brown 420Graham 389Boston Brown 349Sauce 282Potato 263 See all 200 →

You might also like

Tomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesMutton BrothMutton Broth292 recipesYorkshire PuddingYorkshire Pudding264 recipesChicken BrothChicken Broth257 recipes