English Bread
Ingredients
Directions
Make the dough
Place the flour in a trough and make a hole in the middle.
Mix warm water with yeast and pour it into the flour; stir until tough.
Let the mixture rise for about 1 hour and 20 minutes without falling.
Add 8 quarts of warm water and salt to the dough; work it with your hands.
Cover the dough with a coarse cloth and prepare the oven.
Shape and bake
Shape the dough into loaves weighing about 5 pounds each.
Bake the loaves in a preheated oven for 2 hours and 30 minutes.
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
- Good flour
- Forms the gluten network that gives the bread its structure and chew.
- Yeast
- Produces gas that makes the dough rise and become airy.
- Warm water
- Hydrates the flour so gluten can form and activates the yeast.
- Coarse sea salt
- Controls yeast activity and strengthens the gluten for better flavor and texture.
The step that matters
Working the dough until tough. Stirring until the dough is tough develops gluten, which traps the gas from the yeast. Too little working leaves a weak, crumbly loaf that will not hold its 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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