Directions for making Bread, Yeast &c.
Holy Writ assures us that bread is the staff of life, and experience fully proves the assertion. Yet many of us know not how to make this needed support. Every girl, no matter what her station in life may be, should learn how to prepare it in its highest excellence.
The word bread is derived from brayed grain, from the verb to bray, or pound; indicative of the method of preparing the flour.
Dough comes from the Anglo-Saxon word deawian, to wet or moisten. Loaf is from the Anglo-Saxon lif-ian, to raise or lift up, as raised bread. Leaven is derived from the French verb lever, to raise.
Dwellers in country towns and villages are forced to prepare the leaven, or yeast; so we append a receipt which never fails to make good bread. Wash and pare six good-sized, white-fleshed potatoes, grate them raw, on a lemon grater. Pour over them three quarts of boiling water; it will thicken up like starch. Add one table-spoonful of salt and half a cup of sugar. When the mixture is lukewarm, pour in one cupful of yeast. Set the pan beside the stove, and in six hours it will be light enough to use. Let it stand over night in a cool place; next morning cork it tightly in a jug. Keep it in the cellar or ice-house; but be sure that it does not freeze—that kills the life of it. Home-made yeast requires double the quantity of baker’s yeast. One teacupful of this yeast will make three loaves of bread and a pan of biscuit.
Potatoes added to the bread increases its bulk and quality. Boil six common-sized potatoes in two quarts of water, with one table-spoon of salt. When perfectly salt, mash fine on a plate, leaving no little particles. They can be rubbed through a colander and reduced to a pulp; turn it into the bread-pan, and pour over the water in which they were boiled. Sift eight quarts of flour, and when the potato-water is cooled, so as to be a little warm to the touch, stir in half the flour; then add one teacupful of the yeast. When that is thoroughly mixed up, put in the rest of the flour, making it thick enough to knead stiffly. Do this in the evening, and place the pan in a warm room in winter, a cool one in summer. Early next morning it will be risen finely. Another pan should have been tightly covered over it, and it will rise up into the pan. Knead it thoroughly on the moulding board, chopping it with a chopping-knife, or pounding with a pestle. Bread must be kneaded for an hour at least, if one desires the best quality. Holes in the slices of bread show that it was not well made. The superiority of the French bread-makers is owing to this cause. In many bakeries the dough is prepared by machinery. After the process of kneading is finished, rolls can be made, and baked for breakfast. They are prepared by rolling the dough in the shape of a rolling-pin, then cutting off a small portion, and rolling that in the same shape. Dip the sides and tops in melted butter, place in a pan, and put them in a warm place for twenty minutes; then bake in a hot oven twenty minutes. The melted butter causes them to break apart perfectly, and to brown handsomely.
The remainder of the dough is placed near the stove to rise a second time. It must be closely watched—ten minutes’ neglect will sour it.
To be sure a teaspoonful of saleratus will sweeten it; dissolve it in warm water, and mix it in so there will be no yellow spots; but, if used, it takes away the fresh sweetness of the bread. Making bread is not like cake or pie-making—it demands close attention; will not be neglected without injury. It requires some brains to make good bread, and that is one reason why so many families rarely know what the best quality of bread is. If it sours, turn in the saleratus; if it is half-kneaded, and half-risen, and the oven is ready, why, bake it, and thus very poor bread is the result! Bread cannot be set aside for dish-washing or sweeping. It must be of the first consequence.
When it is risen for a second time, and blubbers appear, flour your moulding-board, turn out the dough, cut it into as many parts as you desire loaves of bread, and knead, pound, or cut each loaf well; then have your bread-pans buttered, and put in the dough, kneading it into the corners of the pan. Prick it all over with a fork, place near the stove for fifteen or twenty minutes, or until it has filled the pans to the brim. Have your oven so hot, that if a sprinkling of flour is thrown in, it will brown quickly, but not burn; then set in the pans. Three quarters of an hour, in a properly heated oven, will bake bread. Don’t burn your crusts, but watch the oven, and in twenty minutes after putting them in, look at them and turn the pans round, for usually one side of an oven bakes the fastest. When it is baked, take it from the pans directly, else the sides will become moistened and clammy. Spread a clean towel on the table or shelves, and stand the bread on it. If the crust is too thick and brown, wrap the loaves in a clean towel wet with cold water; this softens it.
If these directions are closely followed, and a good brand of flour is used, no girl can fail to make A No. 1 bread.
No lady can teach her servants unless she has learned the alphabet of cookery herself, and bread may be called the A B C’s of the kitchen.
1.—WAFFLES.
Take one quart of milk; melt in the milk a large spoonful of butter; beat up four eggs, and add to this mixture a little salt; add to the slightly warm milk a small gill of yeast, flour sufficient to make a batter just right for a waffle iron, or a little thinner to bake on a griddle iron. The batter for waffles is also nice baked in tins as muffins. Some elder person can direct, the first time you make this recipe, the proper thickness of the batter.
2.—A CREAM TOMATO SOUP.
Twelve tomatoes, skinned and cut up, cook thirty minutes (or a quart of canned tomatoes, ten minutes will cook it). When cooked, stir in quarter of a teaspoonful of soda; when done foaming put in two large crackers, rolled fine; one quart of milk, salt and pepper to taste; stir in a piece of butter nearly the size of an egg; let it all boil up once, then serve for dinner.
3.—BREAKFAST CAKE.
Three table-spoonsful of sugar, two of butter, two eggs, one teaspoon of soda dissolved in a cup of milk, two teaspoons of cream of tartar mixed into a pint of wheat flour, beat well and bake quickly.
4.—MOLASSES GINGERBREAD.
Three cups of flour, two of molasses, one of boiling water; dissolve in this, butter the size of an egg, half a teaspoonful of soda, dissolved in a little hot water, one large spoonful of ginger, and one of cinnamon. Bake in bread tins until done, which can be ascertained by pricking it with a broom corn; if none of the gingerbread adheres to the stick, it is done. This is the way to ascertain if any kind of cake is done.
5.—PLAIN COOKIES.
One cup of molasses, one half a cup of milk (sour if possible), dissolve a teaspoonful of soda in the milk. One table-spoonful of butter, flour sufficient to make it stiff to roll out and cut in any shape desired.
6.—MOONSHINE CRACKERS.
One quart of flour, one table-spoonful of butter, a teaspoonful of salt, rub these into the flour and turn it on to the moulding board; turn into it a small tumbler of ice-water; knead the water in little by little. Then pound it with the rolling pin fifteen minutes, roll as thin as possible, and cut out as you do cookies; round cutters are the best for crackers; mark with a jagging iron, and bake ten minutes.
7.—NEW YEAR’S COOKIES.
Rub three quarters of a pound of butter into a pound of flour. Take a half pint of boiling water and pour over a pound and a half of light brown sugar in a bowl; dissolve a small teaspoonful of soda in two large spoons of hot water. Add flour only sufficient to roll out very thin; cut it out in oblong shapes with a jagging iron; bake quickly in a hot oven. In New York they mark these cakes with mottos,—Christmas and New Year’s.
8.—SPONGE CAKE.
Two cups of fine-powdered sugar, two cups of flour, six eggs, one large lemon, or one and a half of small size; beat the yolks of the eggs and the sugar and grated peel of the lemon together; beat the whites separately, and stir into the sugar, &c., with the flour; this makes one good-sized loaf, or two small ones; be careful and not have too hot an oven.
9.—LOAF CAKE.
Two cups of light wheat dough, one of sugar, half a cup of butter, two eggs, half a teaspoonful of soda, one grated nutmeg, two teaspoonfuls of ground cloves, two of cinnamon; stoned raisins can be added, half a cupful; mix all together. This makes one loaf.
Neatness is essential in cooking. Wash your hands often. Baking badly spoils the best of cake and bread. Learn of an experienced person the proper degree of heat.