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Bread

Plain White Bread

A simple loaf of white bread made with flour, water, yeast, salt, and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 92,116 recipes. Both carry phenylacetaldehyde, which smells hawthorne, honey. The science ↓

Plain White Bread

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Prepare the yeast

  1. Crumble the yeast into a basin, add the sugar to the yeast, and cover with warm water.

  2. Let the mixture rise.

Make the dough

  1. Warm the flour in a bowl.

  2. Pour the yeast mixture into a hole in the center of the flour.

  3. Add a little more water.

  4. Stir some flour into the yeast to make a batter.

  5. Sprinkle the salt around the edges of the bowl.

  6. Let the batter rise until it bubbles.

  7. Knead in the remaining water until a light, smooth dough forms that does not stick to your fingers.

  8. Set the dough aside to rise for 1 to 1.5 hours.

Shape and bake

  1. Shape the dough into loaves.

  2. Fill well-greased warm tins no more than halfway.

  3. Let the loaves rise to the top.

  4. Bake in a preheated oven at 400°F (200°C) initially, then reduce the heat gradually until done, about 30 to 45 minutes depending on 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

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. Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

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 chew.
Yeast
Ferments sugars and produces gas that makes the dough rise.
Water
Hydrates the flour so gluten can develop and activates the yeast.
Salt
Strengthens the gluten and controls the speed of yeast fermentation for flavor.

The step that matters

Knead in the remaining water until the dough is smooth. Kneading develops the gluten network that traps gas. Stop when the dough is light, smooth, and no longer sticky, so the loaves rise well and keep their shape.

“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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