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Bread

Bread

A yeast‑leavened loaf made with flour, yeast, water, salt, and sugar, baked until golden.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 92,116 recipes. Both carry phenylacetaldehyde, which smells hawthorne, honey. The science ↓

Bread

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a hot oven”. The 400°F in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the sponge

  1. Beat the yeast with the sugar until creamy.

  2. In a bowl, combine the flour and salt.

  3. Add a little tepid water to the yeast.

  4. Make a well in the flour and pour in the yeast mixture.

  5. Stir in enough flour from the sides to form a thick batter.

  6. Sprinkle a little flour on top.

  7. Cover with a clean cloth.

  8. Let it sponge in a warm place for 15 minutes.

Knead and rise

  1. Add enough tepid water to form a smooth, elastic dough.

  2. Knead the dough well.

  3. Cut a cross on top of the dough.

  4. Let the dough rise in a warm place for 1-2 hours.

Shape and bake

  1. Divide the dough into 2 or 3 equal portions.

  2. Knead each portion lightly.

  3. Place the portions in greased tins.

  4. Let the loaves rise for another 15 minutes until they reach the top of the tins.

  5. Bake in a hot oven at 400°F for the first 10-15 minutes.

  6. Reduce the temperature to 350°F and bake for an additional 30-40 minutes.

  7. Once baked, turn the loaves out of the tins and support them so air can circulate around all sides.

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

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

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

What each ingredient does

Flour
Forms the gluten network that gives the bread its structure and chew.
Yeast
Ferments sugars to produce gas that makes the dough rise and become airy.
Water
Hydrates the flour so gluten can develop and the dough becomes elastic.
Sugar
Feeds the yeast during the sponge stage, helping it become active and foamy.

The step that matters

Knead the dough well. Kneading develops the gluten network that traps the gas from the yeast. Under-kneaded dough rises poorly and bakes up dense and crumbly.

“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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