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Bread

Salt Rising Bread

A cornmeal bread that rises overnight using milk, water, baking soda, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 78,219 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Salt Rising Bread

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Make the starter

  1. Scald the cornmeal with the milk.

  2. Let it rise overnight.

  3. In the morning, combine the ⅔ cup of milk, hot water, baking soda, and enough flour to make a sponge.

  4. Add the cornmeal.

  5. Stir well.

  6. Place in a warm area to rise.

  7. Once very light, add the remaining cup of milk.

Make the dough

  1. Add hot water.

  2. Add salt.

  3. Mix everything together.

  4. Knead thoroughly, but not as stiff as for yeast bread.

Bake

  1. Place the dough in pans.

  2. Let it rise until light.

  3. Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) for 30 minutes.

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. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Milk and flour 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

Milk
Moistens the sponge and helps it ferment gently into a soft, tender crumb.
Flour
Forms the sponge and gives the bread its structure as it sets in the oven.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic fermented sponge to help the loaf rise.
Cornmeal
Feeds the fermentation in the starter and adds a slightly grainy texture and flavor.

The step that matters

Knead thoroughly, but not as stiff as for yeast bread.. Kneading develops gluten so the loaf holds its gas and rises well. A dough that is too stiff stays dense, so keep it softer than a yeast dough.

“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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