English Brown 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
Mix 1 gallon of unbolted meal with 1 gallon of fine flour.
Add enough water to form a dough.
Add the leavening
In a separate bowl, combine carbonate of soda and muriatic acid according to your recipe.
Incorporate the soda and acid mixture into the dough quickly.
Bake
Shape the dough into loaves and place them in the oven immediately.
Bake at 400°F (200°C) until cooked through.
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
- Unbolted meal
- Provides the bulk and coarse bran texture that gives the bread its body and rustic character.
- Fine flour
- Its gluten-forming proteins build structure so the dough holds its shape after mixing.
- Carbonate of soda
- Reacts with the acid to release carbon dioxide gas, which leavens the loaves.
- Muriatic acid
- Reacts with the carbonate of soda to release carbon dioxide, providing the rise without yeast.
The step that matters
Incorporate the soda and acid mixture quickly. The soda and acid begin releasing carbon dioxide as soon as they meet. Delaying mixing or shaping lets the gas escape before the loaves reach the oven, which reduces the rise.
“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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