Leaven Bread
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the starter
In a wooden vessel, cover the dough with flour.
The night before baking, mix the dough with the flour and warm water.
Cover the mixture with a linen cloth and a blanket.
Keep the mixture warm.
Make and bake the bread
The next morning, mix the risen dough with 2-3 bushels of flour and 1 pound of salt per bushel.
Knead the dough well.
Shape the dough into loaves.
Bake the loaves in the oven as directed.
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
- Dough from your last baking
- Acts as a starter, supplying leavening microorganisms that make the bread rise.
- Flour
- Provides the structure-building starch and gluten that hold the risen loaves together.
- Warm water
- Hydrates the flour so gluten can form and lets the starter become active.
- Coarse sea salt
- Controls fermentation pace and strengthens gluten, adding flavor.
The step that matters
Keep the mixture warm overnight. Fermentation depends on temperature. If the mixture gets too cold, the starter becomes sluggish and the dough will not rise well.
“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.
You might also like
Cornbread345 recipes
Bread Pudding336 recipes
Milk Bread Rolls242 recipes
Potato Bread124 recipesThe free Flavor Lab newsletter: one surprising pairing a week and the molecular reason it works, in 60 seconds. No spam, unsubscribe anytime.
Prefer an account? Create a free account to save pairings and unlock the full chemistry.