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Bread

Plain Bread

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

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Plain Bread

Oven, in the book's wordsA brisk oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Make the dough

  1. Sift the flour into a heap and make a hole in the middle.

  2. Add the yeast mixed with warm water into the hole and mix into a light paste.

  3. Cover the dough and let it stand by the fire for 1 hour.

  4. Mix in 2 quarts of water with dissolved salt.

  5. Knead the dough until stiff and let it stand for another hour.

  6. Knead again and let it prove for 1 more hour.

Shape and bake

  1. Shape into loaves and bake in a brisk oven at 400°F (200°C) for about 1.5 hours.

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

Fine flour
Its proteins form a gluten network that gives the bread its structure.
Yeast
It produces carbon dioxide gas, which makes the dough rise and become light.

“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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