Name: The Rev. Mr. Magnet’s Economical Bread
Ingredients: 5 pounds flour; 4 gallons water; coarse sea salt (to taste); yeast (as needed)

The Rev. Mr. Magnet’s Economical Bread

Ingredients

5 pounds flour
4 gallons water
coarse sea salt (to taste)
yeast (as needed)

Directions

Prepare the bran

Remove the coarse flake bran from the flour.
Boil the bran in more than 4 gallons of water until smooth, yielding 3 gallons and 3 quarts of bran-water.

Make and bake the bread

Knead 56 pounds of flour with the bran-water, adding salt and yeast as for other bread.
Divide the dough into loaves and bake for 2 hours and 30 minutes.

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: Produces gas that makes the dough rise and become airy.
Bran (in the method): Adds fiber and body, and its soaked water adds moisture to the dough.

“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.