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Bread

Salt Rising Bread

A bread leavened by a fermented sponge of sliced potatoes and cornmeal rather than yeast.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Potato and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,611 recipes. Both carry (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal, which smells cucumber, melon. 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. In a bowl, combine sliced potatoes, cornmeal, sugar, and salt.

  2. Pour boiling water over the mixture and let it stand in a warm place overnight.

  3. Strain the liquid and add baking soda and scant salt.

  4. Mix in enough flour to form a stiff batter and let it rise until doubled in size.

Make the dough and bake

  1. In another bowl, combine scalded milk, boiling water, and lard to make a stiff batter.

  2. Add the sponge (the risen mixture) and mix into loaves.

  3. Let the loaves rise until doubled in size and bake for 45 minutes at 400°F (200°C).

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. Potato + milktop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,611 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, melon).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  4. Potato + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,355 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Sugar + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together77,875 recipes

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

Flour and milk 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

Potatoes
Provide starch and natural enzymes that feed the fermentation in the starter.
Cornmeal
Adds body and texture to the starter and helps it ferment.
Flour
Builds the structure of the batter and later the loaves.
Scalded milk
Adds richness, softness and browning to the crumb and crust.
Lard
Adds fat that tenderises the crumb and keeps it moist.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic fermented starter to lift and aerate the dough.

The step that matters

Letting the starter ferment overnight in a warm place. The starter needs a steady warm environment to ferment properly. Too cool and it stays flat; too hot and it can sour unpleasantly or spoil before the dough is mixed.

Swap the potato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, flour, milk):

  1. Arrowrootfits better
  2. Sweet potatofits better
  3. Beetrootfits about as well
  4. Potatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, flour, milk. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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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