Common Sense in the Household 47

Common Sense in the Household 47

FAMILY BREAD (_White._) ✠

 

Having set your sponge over night, or, if you bake late in the

afternoon, early in the morning, sift dry flour into a deep bread-tray,

and strew a few spoonfuls of fine salt over it. The question of the

quantity of flour is a delicate one, requiring judgment and experience.

Various brands of flour are so unequal with respect to the quantity

of gluten they contain, that it is impossible to give any invariable

rule on this subject. It will be safe, however, to sift two quarts and

a pint, if you have set the potato-sponge; two quarts for the plain.

This will make two good-sized loaves. Make a hole in the middle of the

heap, pour in the risen sponge (which should be very light and seamed

in many places on the top), and work down the flour into it with your

hands. If too soft, add more flour. If you can mould it at all, it is

not too soft. If stiff, rinse out the bowl in which the sponge was set

with a little lukewarm water, and work this in. When you have it in

manageable shape, begin to knead. Work the mass into a ball—your hands

having been well floured from the first; detach it from the tray, and

lift it in your left hand, while you sprinkle flour with the right

thickly over the bottom and sides of the tray. Toss back the ball

into this, and knead hard—always toward the centre of the mass, which

should be repeatedly turned over and around, that every portion may be

manipulated. Brisk and long kneading makes the pores fine and regular.

Gaping holes of diverse sizes are an unerring tell-tale of a careless

cook. Spend at least twenty minutes—half an hour is better—in this kind

of useful gymnastics. It is grand exercise for arms and chest. This

done, work the dough into a shapely ball in the centre of the tray,

sprinkle flour over the top; throw a cloth over all and leave it on the

kitchen-table to rise, taking care it is not in a draught of cold air.

In summer, it will rise in four or five hours—in winter, six are often

necessary. It should come up steadily until it at least trebles its

original bulk and the floured surface cracks all over. Knead again for

ten or fifteen minutes. Then, divide it into as many parts as you wish

loaves, and put these in well-greased pans for the final rising. In a

large household baking, it is customary to mould the dough into oblong

rolls, three or four, according to the number of loaves you desire,

and to lay these close together in one large pan. The second kneading

is done upon a floured board, and should be thorough as the first, the

dough being continually shifted and turned. Set the pans in a warm

place for an hour longer, with a cloth thrown over them to keep out the

air and dust. Then bake, heeding the directions set down in the article

upon bread in general. If your ovens are in good condition, one hour

should bake the above quantity of bread. But here again experience must

be your guide. Note carefully for yourself how long a time is required

for your first successful baking, as also how much dry flour you have

worked into your sponge, and let these data regulate future action. I

have known a variation of two quarts in a large baking, over the usual

measure of flour. I need not tell you that you had better shun a brand

that requires such an excessive quantity to bring the dough to the

right consistency. It is neither nutritious nor economical. When you

make out the loaves, prick the top with the fork.

 

Do not make your first baking too large. Practice is requisite to

the management of an unwieldy mass of dough. Let your trial-loaf be

with say half the quantity of sponge and flour I have set down, and

increase these as skill and occasion require, carefully preserving the

proportions. Seven or eight quarts of flour will be needed for the

semi-weekly baking of a family of moderate size.

 

If I have seemed needlessly minute in the directions I have laid down,

it is because I wish to be a guide, not a betrayer, and because I am

deeply impressed with the worth of such advice as may tend to diminish

the number of those who know not for themselves the comfort and delight

of eating from day to day, and year to year, good family bread.

 

 

FAMILY BREAD (_Brown._) ✠

 

I wish it were in my power, by much and earnest speaking and writing,

to induce every housekeeper to make brown bread—that is, bread made

of unbolted, usually called Graham flour—a staple article of diet in

her family. I only repeat the declaration of a majority of our best

chemists and physicians when I say that our American fondness for fine

white bread is a serious injury to our health. We bolt and rebolt

our flour until we extract from it three-quarters of its nutritive

qualities, leaving little strength in it except what lies in gluten or

starch, and consign that which makes bone and tissue, which regulates

the digestive organs, and leaves the blood pure, the brain clear, to

the lower animals. Growing children especially should eat brown bread

daily. It supplies the needed phosphate to the tender teeth and bones.

If properly made, it soon commends itself to their taste, and white

becomes insipid in comparison. Dyspeptics have long been familiar

with its dietetic virtues, and, were the use of it more general, we

should have fewer wretches to mourn over the destroyed coats of their

stomachs. It is wholesome, sweet, honest, and should be popular.

 

Prepare a sponge as for white bread, using potatoes or while flour. My

rule is to take out a certain quantity of the risen sponge on baking

day, and set aside for brown bread. Put into a tray two parts Graham

flour, one-third white, and to every quart of this allow a handful of

Indian meal, with a teaspoonful of salt. Wet this up with the sponge,

and when it is mixed, add, for a loaf of fair size, half a teacupful

of molasses. The dough should be _very_ soft. If there is not enough

of the sponge to reduce it to the desired consistency, add a little

blood-warm water. Knead it diligently and long. It will not rise so

rapidly as the white flour, having more “body” to carry. Let it take

its time; make into round, comfortable loaves, and set down again for

the second rising, when you have again kneaded it. Bake steadily,

taking care it does not burn, and do not cut while hot. The result will

well repay you for your trouble. It will take a longer time to bake

than white bread. Brown flour should not be sifted.

 

 

BOSTON BROWN BREAD.

 

Set a sponge over night, with potatoes or white flour, in the following

proportions:—

 

1 cup yeast.

6 potatoes, mashed fine with three cups of flour.

1 quart warm water.

2 tablespoonfuls lard (_or_, if you leave out the potatoes, one

quart of warm water to three pints of flour).

2 tablespoonfuls brown sugar.

 

Beat up well and let it rise five or six hours.

 

When light, sift into the bread-tray—

 

1 quart rye-flour.

2 quarts Indian meal.

1 tablespoonful salt.

1 teaspoonful soda, or saleratus.

 

Mix this up very soft with the risen sponge, adding warm water, if

needed, and working in gradually

 

Half a teacupful of molasses.

 

Knead well, and let it rise from six to seven hours. Then work over

again, and divide into loaves, putting these in well-greased, round,

deep pans. The second rising should last an hour, at the end of which

time bake in a moderate oven about four hours. Rapid baking will ruin

it. If put in late in the day, let it stay in the oven all night.

 

 

RYE BREAD.

 

Set a sponge, as above, but with half the quantity of water.

 

In the morning mix with this:

 

1 quart warm milk.

1 tablespoonful salt.

1 cup Indian meal.

And enough rye flour to make it into pliable dough.

 

Proceed as with wheat bread, baking it a little longer.

 

It is a mistake to suppose that acidity, greater or less, is the normal

state of rye bread. If you find your dough in the slightest degree

sour, correct by adding a teaspoonful of soda dissolved in warm water.

It is safest to add this always in warm weather.

 

 

MILK BREAD.

 

1 quart of milk.

½ teacupful of yeast.

¼ lb. butter, one tablespoonful white sugar.

 

Stir into the milk, which should be made blood-warm, a pint of flour,

the sugar, lastly the yeast. Beat all together well, and let them rise

five or six hours. Then melt the butter, and add with a little salt.

Work in flour enough to make a stiff dough; let this rise four hours,

and make into small loaves. Set near the fire for half an hour, and

bake.

 

In warm weather, add a teaspoonful of soda, dissolved in warm water, to

the risen sponge, as all bread mixed with milk is apt to sour.

 

 

BUTTERMILK BREAD.

 

1 pint buttermilk heated to scalding.

 

Stir in, while it is hot, enough flour to make a tolerably thick

batter. Add half a gill of yeast, and let it rise five or six hours.

If you make it over night you need not add the yeast, but put in,

instead, a tablespoonful of white sugar. In the morning, stir into

the sponge a tablespoonful of soda, dissolved in hot water, a little

salt, and two tablespoonfuls melted butter. Work in just flour enough

to enable you to handle the dough comfortably; knead well, make into

loaves, and let it rise until light.

 

This makes very white and wholesome bread.

 

 

RICE BREAD.

 

Make a sponge of—

 

1 quart warm water.

1 teacupful yeast.

1 tablespoonful white sugar.

2 tablespoonfuls lard.

1 quart wheat flour.

 

Beat well together, and when it has risen, which will be in about five

hours, add three pints of warm milk and three teacupfuls rice-flour wet

to a thin paste with cold milk, and boiled four minutes as you would

starch. This should be a little more than blood-warm when it is stirred

into the batter. If not thick enough to make out into dough, add a

little wheat-flour. Knead thoroughly, and treat as you would wheat

bread in the matter of the two risings and baking.

 

This is nice and delicate for invalids, and keeps well. If you cannot procure the rice-flour, boil one cup of whole rice to a thin paste, mashing and beating it smooth.