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Bread

Salt-rising Bread

A bread made by scalding cornmeal in sweet milk, then mixing with flour, water, salt, sugar, lard, and baking soda, and baking.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 78,219 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Salt-rising 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.

Make the starter

  1. Scald 1 tablespoon of cornmeal in enough sweet milk to make a thin mush. Keep it warm until the next morning.

  2. Stir 1 pint of warm water into enough flour to make a stiff batter. Add the light cornmeal mixture and keep warm until it rises.

  3. In a crock, place a few spoonfuls of flour and pour 1 pint of boiling water over it. Stir thoroughly.

  4. Add 2 pints of warm water or warm sweet milk and enough flour to make a stiff batter. Beat thoroughly and add the risen mixture.

  5. Let this rise in the crock, keeping it warm. When light, place flour in a bread bowl and make a well in the middle.

Mix and shape

  1. Stir in 1 large tablespoon of coarse sea salt, 2 tablespoons of sugar, 2 tablespoons of lard, and 1 teaspoon of baking soda.

  2. Pour the light batter into the well, knead well, and shape into loaves. Let rise in a warm place.

Bake

  1. Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven.

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. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  3. Milk + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together77,875 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Milk and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Flour
Forms the stiff batter and the structure that holds the loaves together.
Cornmeal
Scalded into mush to feed the starter with fermentable starch and flavor.
Lard
Adds fat that tenderizes the crumb and softens texture.
Baking soda
Neutralizes acidity from fermentation and helps the loaves rise and brown.
Sugar
Feeds the rising culture and adds sweetness and browning.

The step that matters

Let the starter rise until light. The starter must be fully fermented and warm before it goes into the dough. Under-risen starter gives weak rising and a dense loaf, while cool conditions slow the yeast-like culture.

“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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