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Bread

Proportions for White Bread

A recipe for making white bread using water, salt, sugar, lard, flour, and yeast.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and flour 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 ↓

Proportions for White Bread

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the sponge

  1. Heat the water, then add salt, sugar, and lard; cool to lukewarm.

  2. Dissolve the yeast in lukewarm water and add it to the mixture.

  3. Gradually add flour to create a batter or sponge.

  4. Beat thoroughly until bubbles form.

  5. If letting the sponge rise overnight, cover it and place it in a warm area until foamy.

Make and rise the dough

  1. Add enough flour to form a dough that is just stiff enough to handle.

  2. Turn the dough onto a lightly floured surface and knead until elastic, adding flour only to prevent sticking.

  3. Return the dough to a bowl, moisten the top, cover, and let it rise until doubled in size.

Shape and bake

  1. Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured surface and knead slightly to break up large gas bubbles.

  2. Divide and shape the dough into loaves.

  3. Place the loaves into greased pans, cover lightly, and let rise in a warm place until nearly doubled.

  4. Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F for 30 minutes for individual loaves or 50 to 60 minutes for a 1 lb loaf.

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. Sugar + flourtop 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 traps gas and gives the loaf its structure.
Yeast
Ferments sugars and produces gas that makes the dough rise and become airy.
Lard
Adds fat that softens the crumb and gives a tender texture.
Sugar
Feeds the yeast early on and contributes to browning in the crust.
Water
Hydrates the flour so gluten can develop and dissolves the yeast.

The step that matters

Kneading until elastic. Kneading aligns gluten strands so the dough can stretch and hold gas. Adding too much flour to prevent sticking makes the dough stiff and dense, so add flour sparingly.

“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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