Skip to main content
Bread

Salt Rising Bread

Bread prepared by a salt rising technique using water, cornmeal, flour, lard, milk, and yeast.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Flour and milk 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. Cool the hot water until it is warm enough to bear your finger in it.

  2. Add the salt, cornmeal, and 10 tablespoons of flour to the water.

  3. Beat the mixture until smooth.

  4. Sprinkle the remaining tablespoon of flour over the top.

  5. Cover the mixture.

  6. Let stand in a warm place for 5 hours.

  7. Drain off the clear water.

  8. Beat the mixture thoroughly.

  9. Set aside for another hour until the mixture is light and frothy.

Make the dough

  1. Sift the flour in a mixing bowl.

  2. Add 4 teaspoons of salt to the sifted flour.

  3. Work in the lard with your fingertips.

  4. Make a well in the center of the dough.

  5. Pour in the yeast preparation and warm milk.

  6. Stir until too stiff for a spoon.

  7. Turn the dough onto a floured surface.

  8. Knead until smooth.

Shape and bake

  1. Divide the dough into four parts.

  2. Place each part in a buttered baking pan, filling each pan half full.

  3. Let rise until the pans are full.

  4. Bake at 350°F (175°C) for 50 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. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, 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

All-purpose flour
Forms the gluten structure that holds the loaves together and gives them their crumb.
Warm milk
Adds moisture and softness to the dough and helps it brown in the oven.
Lard
Adds fat that tenderizes the crumb and keeps the bread soft.
White cornmeal
Feeds the fermenting starter and adds a slightly grainy texture.

The step that matters

Knead until smooth. Kneading develops the gluten network that traps gas and gives the loaves their structure. Under-kneaded dough rises unevenly and bakes up dense.

“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.

You might also like

CornbreadCornbread345 recipesBread PuddingBread Pudding336 recipesMilk Bread RollsMilk Bread Rolls242 recipesPotato BreadPotato Bread124 recipes