Erken's baking advice: how to succeed with home-baked bread

Before the recipes in her Little Cookbook (1943), Henriette Schønberg Erken explains the craft behind a good loaf. The advice is just as useful for anyone kneading a dough today.

Bread-making in three stages

Erken divides the work into three: "Bread-making comprises 3 stages" – preparing the flour into dough, letting the dough rest to ferment, and the baking itself. Understand the three, and you understand the bread.

Choose your flour with care

Wheat and rye suit leavened bread best "because of their gluten content." But her recommendation is clear, and fits the war years as well as today: "Bread of wholemeal flour should become our most common, daily bread" – it satisfies, does not tire you over time, and is richer in nourishment.

Give the yeast the right conditions

For the yeast to work, it needs "protein, sugar, warmth of around 30–35 degrees, and moisture." The dough can be set cold in the evening to rise slowly overnight, or warmer for a faster rise.

Work the dough well

"The dough must be worked – beaten for a quarter of an hour."

Knead it again after an hour to bring in air, and again after half an hour. But do not overwork it – then it loses its strength.

A properly hot oven is everything

"A properly hot oven is of the greatest importance."

If the oven is too hot, the crust forms too early, the bread cannot rise, and it turns heavy and doughy. Fully risen bread bakes at around 250 °C.

Let the bread rest

Bread "must be kept in a dry place" – soft bread under a lid somewhere cold, hard bread airy and at room temperature. And a rule many break: "all bread should be at least a day old" before it is cut; entirely fresh cake-bread is heavy on the stomach.

Bake it yourself

Try Erken's own baking: crisp double-baked flatbread and pea flatbread, rusks, or the war years' blood bread, waffles and lomper. See all of Little Cookbook (1943) and Good, cheap daily fare (1941).