West Virginia · Bread
Salt-Rising Bread
- Advanced
- 16 h
- roughly 2 of 4 for cost
- Vegetarian
Leads with richness that coats and comforts.
Ingredients
- For the starter: 60g cornmeal, 250ml scalded milk, 1 tbsp sugar, 1/2 tsp salt, 1/4 tsp baking soda
- For the sponge: 500ml warm water, 2 tbsp sugar, 1 tsp salt, 250g flour
- For the dough: about 700g flour, 3 tbsp butter softened, 2 tsp salt
The skills inside
Straining & passing through a sieveShaping by handProofing: the rise before the ovenThe wobble & the skewer: testing a bake
Allergen screen
Found: gluten · dairy
Screened for: gluten, dairy, egg, nuts, peanuts, fish, shellfish, molluscs, soy, sesame, celery, mustard, lupin, alcohol. Not screened: sulphites.
Screened by keyword from the ingredient list, not reviewed by a person; check every label for what the list cannot show.
Method
- Stir the scalded milk into the cornmeal with the sugar, salt, and soda. Keep it at 40-45C overnight, 12 hours, until it foams and smells sharp and cheesy. 600 min
- Strain the starter into the warm water with the sugar, salt, and 250g flour. Keep warm 2-3 hours until bubbly and risen. 180 min
- Work in the butter, salt, and enough flour to make a firm dough, and knead 10 min. 10 min
- Shape into two loaves in buttered pans and rise in a warm place 3-4 hours: this bread is slow and needs steady warmth. 240 min
- Bake at 190C for 35-40 min until deep brown and hollow-sounding. 40 min
How to tell it is going right
This dish has no standard of its own yet. It is judged on the techniques it exercises: checked at the pan, while there is still something to be done about it.
Proofing: the rise before the oven 78 recipes
- Judged on volume against the container rather than on the clock: visibly grown, and grown by roughly the amount the recipe describes.
- The poke test agrees: a floured fingertip pressed a centimetre in leaves a dent that springs back slowly and only part of the way. Straight back means it is not ready; no spring at all means it has gone.
- The surface is domed, smooth, and slightly sheened: not cratered, wrinkled, or collapsed, and not skinned over and dry from proofing uncovered.
- Handled, it feels alive and airy: light for its size, with bubbles visible under the skin.
- It springs in the oven: the piece lifts in the first minutes and the scores open. A shape that does not move at all was proofed past its point before it went in.
Where it goes wrong It was proofed to the clock in a kitchen colder or warmer than the recipe assumed: overproofed, it collapses as the blade touches it and bakes flat and dense with a sour edge; underproofed, it tears at the side and bakes tight.
Shaping by hand 85 recipes
- The pieces match: weighed, or judged against each other rather than by dividing the mass by eye, so that no piece is half again the size of its neighbour.
- Surfaces are smooth and unbroken with no cracks, tears, or dry patches, and the seams are sealed and sitting underneath.
- The shape is defined and it holds while the tray waits: it has not slumped, spread, or relaxed back out of its form.
- Nothing is trapped that should not be: no air pocket where filling should be, no filling breaking through the surface, and no excess flour greying the outside.
- They finish together in the heat: no piece done while another is still raw, which is the only test that the first mark was met.
Where it goes wrong The dough was worked past its point or shaped without a rest, so it fought back: the pieces spring out of shape on the tray and bake tight, uneven, and torn along the surface.
At the Table
- The Pour
- Grüner Veltliner
- Also Right
- Vermentino or dry Chenin
- From the Taps
- Saison
- Zero-Proof
- Sparkling water with citrus & herbs
The vegetable whisperers: peppery, high-acid whites that flatter greens, roots, and grains without bullying them.
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