Enquire Within Upon Everything Part 98

1009. To make Bread with German Yeast.

To one quartern of flour add a dessertspoonful of salt as before; dissolve one ounce of dried German yeast in about three tablespoonfuls of cold water, add to this one pint and a half of water a little warm, and pour the whole into the flour; knead it well immediately, and let it stand as before directed for one hour: then bake at pleasure. It will not hurt if you make up a peck of flour at once, and bake three or four loaves in succession, provided you do not keep the dough too warm. German yeast may be obtained at almost any corn-chandler's in the metropolis and suburbs. In winter it will keep good for a week in a dry place, and in summer it should be kept in cold water, and the water changed every day. Wheat meal requires a little more yeast than fine flour, or a longer time to stand in the dough for rising.

1010. Unfermented Bread.

Three pounds wheat meal, or four pounds of white flour, two heaped tablespoonfuls of baking powder, a tablespoonful of salt, and about two and a half pints of lukewarm water, or just sufficient to bring the flour to a proper consistence for bread-making; water about a quart. The way of making is as follows:

First mix the baking powder, the salt, and about three fourths of the flour well together by rubbing in a pan; then pour the water over the flour, and mix well by stirring. Then add most of the remainder of the flour, and work up the dough with the hand to the required consistence, which is indicated by the smoothness of the dough, and its not sticking to the hands or the sides of the pan when kneaded.

The rest of the flour must then be added to stiffen the dough, which may then be placed in tins or formed by the hand into any shape that may be preferred and placed on flat tins for baking.

The tins should be well floured. Put the loaves at once into a well-heated oven. After they have been in the oven about a quarter of an hour open the ventilator to slacken the heat and allow the steam to escape. In an hour the process of baking will be completed. Bread made in this way keeps moist longer than bread made with yeast, and is far more sweet and digestible. This is especially recommended to persons who suffer from indigestion, who will find the brown bread invaluable.

1011. Baking Powders and Egg Powders.

These useful preparations are now much used in making bread and pastry of all kinds, and have the merit of being both cheap and wholesome.

They may be procured of all grocers and oilmen. The basis of all baking powders consists of carbonate of soda and tartaric acid or cream of tartar, and egg powders are made of the same materials, with a little harmless colouring matter such as turmeric. By the action of these substances, carbonic acid is generated in the dough, which causes it to rise in the same manner as the so-called "aerated bread"

made on Dr. Dauglish's system, by which carbonic acid is forced into the dough before baking.

[NEVER PUT OFF TILL TO-MORROW WHAT YOU CAN DO TO-DAY.]

1012. How to Use Baking Powder, &c.

Baking powder may be used instead of yeast in making all kinds of bread, cake, teacakes, &c., and for biscuits and pastry, either without or in combination with b.u.t.ter, suet, &c. Bread, &c., made with baking powder is never placed before the fire to rise as when made with yeast, but the dough may be shaped and put into the oven as soon as it is made. The chief points to bear in remembrance are that in making bread two teaspoonfuls of baking powder should be used to every pound of flour, but for pastry, cakes, buns, &c., three teaspoonfuls should be used. The ingredients should always be thoroughly incorporated by mixing; the tins on which or in which the dough is placed to bake should be well floured, and not greased; and the oven should always be very hot, so that the baking may be effected as rapidly as possible.

1013. Bread (Cheap and Excellent).

Simmer slowly, over a gentle fire, a pound of rice in three quarts of water, till the rice has become perfectly soft, and the water is either evaporated or imbibed by the rice: let it become cool, but not cold, and mix it completely with four pounds of flour; add to it some salt, and about four tablespoonfuls of yeast. Knead it very thoroughly, for on this depends whether or not your good materials produce a superior article. Next let it rise well before the fire, make it up into loaves with a little of the flour--which, for that purpose, you must reserve from your four pounds--and bake it rather long. This is an exceedingly good and cheap bread.

1014. Economical and Nourishing Bread.

Suffer the miller to remove from the flour only the coa.r.s.e flake bran.

Of this bran, boil five or six pounds in four and a half gallons of water; when the goodness is extracted from the bran,--during which time the liquor will waste half or three-quarters of a gallon,--strain it and let it cool. When it has cooled down to the temperature of new milk, mix it with fifty-six pounds of flour and as much salt and yeast as would be used for other bread; knead it exceedingly well; let it rise before the fire, and bake it in small loaves: small loaves are preferable to large ones, because they take the heat more equally.

There are two advantages in making bread with bran water instead of plain water; the one being that there is considerable nourishment in bran, which is thus extracted and added to the bread; the other, that flour imbibes much more of bran water than it does of plain water; so much more, as to give in the bread produced almost a fifth in weight more than the quant.i.ty of flour made up with plain water would have done. These are important considerations to the poor. Fifty-six pounds of flour, made with plain water, would produce sixty-nine and a half pounds of bread; made with bran water, it will produce eighty-three and a half pounds.

1015. Use Bran-Water.

A great increase on Home-made Bread, even equal to one-fifth, may be produced by using bran water for kneading the dough. The proportion is three pounds of bran for every twenty-eight pounds of flour, to be boiled for an hour, and then strained through a hair sieve.

1016. Rye and Wheat Flour.

Rye and wheat flour, in equal quant.i.ties, make an excellent and economical bread.

1017. Potatoes in Bread.

Place in a large dish fifteen pounds of flour near the fire to warm; take five pounds of good potatoes, those of a mealy kind being preferable, peel and boil them as if for the table, mash them fine, and then mix with them as much cold water as will allow all except small lumps to pa.s.s through a coa.r.s.e sieve into the flour, which will now be ready to receive them; add yeast, &c., and mix for bread in the usual way. This plan has been followed for some years: finding that bread made according to it is much superior to that made of flour only, and on this ground alone we recommend its adoption; but in addition to this, taking the high price of flour, and moderately low price of potatoes, here is a saving of over twenty per cent., which is surely an object worth attending to by those of limited means.

[ALL THINGS HAVE A BEGINNING, G.o.d EXCEPTED.]

1018. Use of Lime Water in making Bread.

It has lately been found that water saturated with lime produces in bread the same whiteness, softness, and capacity of retaining moisture, as results from the use of alum; while the former removes all acidity from the dough, and supplies an ingredient needed in the structure of the bones, but which is deficient in the _cerealia_. The best proportion to use is, five pounds of water saturated with lime, to every nineteen pounds of flour. No change is required in the process of baking. The lime most effectually coagulates the gluten, and the bread weighs well; bakers must therefore approve of its introduction, which is not injurious to the system, like alum, &c.

1019. Rice Bread.

Take one pound and a half of rice, and boil it gently over a slow fire in three quarts of water about five hours, stirring it, and afterwards beating it up into a smooth paste. Mix this, while warm, into two gallons or four pounds of flour, adding at the same time the usual quant.i.ty of yeast. Allow the dough to work a certain time near the fire, after which divide it into loaves, and it will be found, when baked, to produce twenty-eight or thirty pounds of excellent white bread.

1020. Apple Bread.

A very light, pleasant bread is made in France by a mixture of apples and flour, in the proportion of one of the former to two of the latter. The usual quant.i.ty of yeast is employed, as in making common bread, and is beaten with flour and warm pulp of the apples after they have boiled, and the dough is then considered as set; it is then put in a proper vessel, and allowed to rise for eight or twelve hours, and then baked in long loaves. Very little water is requisite: none, generally, if the apples are very fresh.

1021. Pulled Bread.

Take from the oven an ordinary loaf when it is about _half baked_, and with the fingers, while the bread is yet hot, dexterously pull the half-set dough into pieces of irregular shape, about the size of an egg. Don't attempt to smooth or flatten them--the rougher their shapes the better. Set upon tins, place in a very slow oven, and bake to a rich brown. This forms a deliciously crisp crust for cheese. If you do not bake at home, your baker will prepare it for you, if ordered.

Pulled bread may be made in the revolving ovens. It is very nice with wine instead of biscuits.

1022. French Bread and Rolls.

Take a pint and a half of milk; make it quite warm; half a pint of small-beer yeast; add sufficient flour to make it as thick as batter; put it into a pan; cover it over, and keep it warm: when it has risen as high as it will, add a quarter of a pint of warm water, and half an ounce of salt,--mix them well together,--rub into a little flour two ounces of b.u.t.ter; then make your dough, not quite so stiff as for your bread; let it stand for three-quarters of an hour, and it will be ready to make into rolls, &c.:--let them stand till they have risen, and bake them in a quick oven.

1023. Rolls.

Mix the salt with the flour. Make a deep hole in the middle. Stir the warm water into the yeast, and pour it into the hole in the flour.

Stir it with a spoon just enough to make a thin batter, and sprinkle some flour over the top. Cover the pan, and set it in a warm place for several hours. When it is light, add half a pint more of lukewarm water, and make it, with a little more flour, into a dough. Knead it very well for ten minutes. Then divide it into small pieces, and knead each separately. Make them into round cakes or rolls. Cover them, and set them to rise about an hour and a half. Bake them, and, when done, let them remain in the oven, without the lid, for about ten minutes.

[G.o.d IS THE FIRST OF ALL.]

1024. Sally Lunn Tea Cakes.

Take one pint of milk quite warm, a quarter of a pint of thick small-beer yeast; put them into a pan with flour sufficient to make it as thick as batter,--cover it over, and let it stand till it has risen as high as it will, i. e., about two hours: add two ounces of lump sugar, dissolved in a quarter of a pint of warm milk, a quarter of a pound of b.u.t.ter rubbed into the flour very fine,--then make the dough the same as for French rolls, &c.; let it stand half an hour; then make up the cakes, and put them on tins:--when they have stood to rise, bake them in a quick oven. Care should be taken never to mix the yeast with water or milk too hot or too cold, as either extreme will destroy the fermentation. In summer it should he lukewarm,--in winter a little warmer,--and in very cold weather, warmer still. When it has first risen, if you are not prepared, it will not harm if it stand an hour.