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Bread

Yeast of Cream of Tartar and Saloiratus

A yeast-free bread made with cream of tartar, saleratus, flour, and warm water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Cream and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 20% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 30,481 recipes. Both carry acetaldehyde, which smells pungent, ethereal. The science ↓

Yeast of Cream of Tartar and Saloiratus

Ingredients

Directions

Make the dough

  1. Mix the cream of tartar with the flour.

  2. Dissolve the saleratus in warm water and add it to the flour mixture.

  3. Add enough warm water to make a soft dough.

Knead and bake

  1. Knead thoroughly and place in the oven.

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. Cream + flourtop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together30,481 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetaldehyde (pungent, ethereal).

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

What each ingredient does

Flour
Forms the structure of the bread as its proteins develop into gluten when kneaded with water.
Cream of tartar
Provides acidity that reacts with the saleratus to release carbon dioxide for lift.
Saleratus
Acts as the alkaline leavening base that releases gas when combined with the acid.

The step that matters

Dissolve the saleratus and add it to the flour mixture. Saleratus begins reacting with the cream of tartar as soon as it is moistened, releasing carbon dioxide. Dissolving it fully and mixing it evenly through the flour spreads the gas-producing reaction through the dough, so the rise is uniform. Delaying the bake lets gas escape before the loaf sets.

“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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