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Bread

Unfermented Bread

A quick bread made with flour, baking powder, salt, and cold water, baked at 400°F.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Unfermented Bread

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the dough

  1. In a large bowl, mix the flour, baking powder, and salt together.

  2. Add cold water gradually and mix lightly with your hands or a spoon until combined.

  3. The dough should be wetter than yeast bread but stiffer than batter.

Bake

  1. Immediately transfer the mixture to a preheated oven at 400°F (200°C) and bake.

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

All-purpose flour
Forms the structure of the bread as its proteins and starches set during baking.
Baking powder
Releases gas when wet and heated, which lifts the dough so it rises without yeast.
Cold water
Hydrates the flour so its proteins form a cohesive dough that holds the gas bubbles.

The step that matters

Bake immediately after mixing. Baking powder starts releasing gas as soon as it meets liquid, and the heat sets the structure. Waiting before baking lets the gas escape, so the bread comes out flat and dense.

“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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