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To Make English Bread

A yeast bread made with white flour, yeast, water, and salt, baked at 400°F.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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To Make English 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 large bowl and make a cavity in the center.

  2. Mix the yeast and lukewarm water together, then strain through a fine sieve into the cavity.

  3. Lightly mix the yeast mixture with some of the flour until it forms a light paste.

  4. Cover and let it prove in a warm place for 1 hour.

  5. Add the remaining lukewarm water and a little salt to the mixture.

  6. Knead the dough until it is stiff, then let it prove for another hour.

  7. Knead the dough again and let it prove for a final hour.

Shape and bake

  1. Shape the dough into loaves or combine two pieces together.

  2. Bake in a brisk oven at 400°F (200°C) until golden.

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

White flour
Provides the gluten-forming proteins that build the dough's structure and chew.
Yeast
Produces carbon dioxide as it ferments sugars, causing the dough to rise and become airy.
Water
Hydrates the flour so gluten can develop and activates the yeast.

The step that matters

Kneading until stiff. Kneading aligns gluten proteins into an elastic network that traps the gas from the yeast. Under-kneaded dough rises poorly and bakes up 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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