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Bread

Salt Rising Bread

A yeast-like bread made with cornmeal, flour, milk, and salt, rising in warm water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Bread and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Salt Rising Bread

Ingredients

Directions

Make the starter

  1. Combine cornmeal, flour, sugar, and baking soda in a pint bowl.

  2. Heat the milk until scalding hot.

  3. Pour the scalding milk over the dry ingredients and stir until warm.

  4. Place the bowl in a larger vessel filled with warm water, ensuring the water reaches nearly the batter's height.

  5. Set the bowl in a warm place overnight, using a lamp to keep the water hot.

Build the batter

  1. In the morning, mix 1½ cups warm water and 1 tablespoon sugar in a double boiler.

  2. Add enough flour to the mixture to make a yeast‑like batter.

  3. Fill the lower part of the double boiler with warm water.

  4. Let the batter rise as before.

  5. When light, scald ½ cup flour with 1 cup scalding milk.

  6. Cool the scalded mixture.

Make and bake the dough

  1. Add lard or butter, salt, a little more sugar, and a pinch of baking soda.

  2. Let the mixture rise again.

  3. When light, mix until soft enough to handle.

  4. Form the dough into loaves.

  5. Place loaves in greased pans, greasing the tops with melted butter.

  6. Set the pans in a larger one with warm water or on a warming closet until doubled in size.

  7. Bake at a temperature slightly higher than for yeast bread.

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. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  3. Milk + breadtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  4. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

Cornmeal
Provides starch and body to the starter, feeding the fermentation that leavens the bread.
Flour
Forms the gluten structure that traps gas and gives the loaves their crumb.
Milk
Adds tenderness and richness, and its sugars contribute to browning in the crust.
Sugar
Feeds the fermenting microorganisms and adds mild sweetness and crust colour.
Lard or butter
Adds fat that tenderises the crumb and gives a softer texture.

The step that matters

Keeping the starter warm overnight. Fermentation depends on steady warmth. If the bowl cools, the starter stays flat and the bread will not rise properly, so the water bath must stay hot.

“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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