[Illustration: BAKING OVEN AND KNEADING TROUGH.]
Of all the trades that are carried on in large towns there is none more
important than that of the Baker. In some parts of the country, where
people make their own bread at home, or at all events have all the
materials for making it, and know how to mix the different ingredients,
it is of less consequence; but only imagine what would be our dismay
in London, if we got up some morning and heard that all the bakers had
agreed not to send in the rolls for breakfast, and that we must be
satisfied to live upon puddings and vegetables until they set to work
again to make bread.
And yet, in the early part of their history, several nations of which
we read at school had no knowledge of the trade of a Baker. Until they
discovered the art of making proper bread, and somebody showed them the
use of an oven, the Romans made their meal into a sort of porridge, or
knew no better than to mix it into flat cakes, which they cooked on hot
stones or in the wood ashes of their fires. The Anglo-Saxons were a
little better off, for they mixed leaven with their dough, to make the
cakes lighter and better; but you will remember—by the story of King
Alfred, who when he was in disguise and going to watch the Danish camp,
was left in the neatherd’s hut to watch the cooking of the cakes—that
they were baked in the embers of burnt wood upon the hearth.
In many parts of Europe they still use a sort of cake-bread or rolls
instead of loaves; and in some parts of northern Germany and Russia the
bread of the peasants is nearly black, and is so coarse and sour that few
English people could eat it, especially as it is kept till it grows quite
hard, and sometimes has to be cut with a saw.
The Eastern nations understood the use of ovens, however, and the Jews
especially were very good Bakers, as were probably the Egyptians, for we
read of Pharaoh’s Baker, whose dream Joseph interpreted. The trade of
baking was held in very high esteem amongst the nations of antiquity, and
included not only the making of bread, but of those cakes and sweetmeats
of which all Oriental people, and some European people too, are so
fond. By reading the history of the Jews and the Egyptians we learn that
fermented or leavened bread was in common use amongst them, at a very
early period of their history, so that the pulse-eating people, or the
people of Europe who could only eat grain made into porridge, or simply
cooked, were for a long time behind the Orientals in this respect. It
was not till 600 years after the establishment of the Roman state that
a public bakery was opened in Rome itself, and before this time, which
was about 167 years before the birth of Christ, all the baking and bread
making was done, amongst the rest of the family cooking, in the kitchens
of private houses.
When the public bakeries were established, however, those who followed
the trade were held in great respect, and a code of laws was made to
regulate the manner in which their business should be conducted. The
same importance was given to the trade in England, when Bakers first set
up business in the large towns, and people began to buy their loaves
instead of making them at home. The early statutes and laws place Bakers
above mere handicraftsmen, and ranked them with gentlemen, and very
severe punishments were inflicted on fraudulent Bakers, who neglected
to mark their loaves so that “wheaten” bread might be distinguished
from “household;” the same laws condemned that Baker to the pillory who
gave short weight, even by so much as the fraction of an ounce, and the
bakehouses were placed under the control of the magistrates.
There are many people who think that some such stringent laws might be
usefully employed now, and there can be no doubt that the Baker has too
many opportunities of adulterating his bread, or sending short weight:
the first seriously injuring the health, and the second the pockets,
of his customers. One of the worst features of the Baker’s trade in our
time, however, is the dirty condition of the bakehouses and places where
bread is made, the filthy habits which such places give rise to, and the
very long hours during which journeymen Bakers are at work. All these
matters have lately been made the subject of inquiry, and it may be hoped
that they will be greatly improved.
[Illustration: Egg Whisk. Flour Basket and Scoop. Egg Brush.]
[Illustration: Sieve. Brush. Rasp. Cleaning Net. Paste Cutter. Biscuit
Marker. Knife. Iron Peel. Wooden Peel.]
The tools that are used in most bakeries are, beside the _oven_, where
the bread is baked, and the _kneading trough_, in which the dough is
mixed: a _seasoning tub_ for mixing other ingredients to be mingled with
the dough, a _wire sieve_ for sifting the flour, and a _seasoning sieve_
made of tin pierced with small holes; a _flour basket_ lined with tin,
and a _flour scoop_, a _pail_, a _bowl_, a _salt-bin_, which should be
near the oven, a _yeast tub_, a _dough knife_, _scales_ and _weights_
for weighing the dough before it is moulded into a loaf, a _scraper_ for
removing the dough from the trough and the board where the loaves are
shaped, wooden and iron _peels_, a sort of shovels with long handles,
for placing the bread in the oven or removing loaves, dishes and cakes,
after they are baked, a _rasp_, like a coarse broad file with a bent
handle, for rasping off any portion of burnt crust; a _dusting brush_ for
sweeping away refuse of flour or dust from the boards where the loaves
are made or placed after baking, an _egg whisk_ for beating eggs used in
pastry, and an _egg brush_ for putting a glazing of egg on the outside of
buns or cakes, differently shaped _tins_ or _moulds_ for rolls or other
articles of fancy bakery, coarse squares of _baize_ or _flannel_ for
covering the dough or the newly-made bread, and a _scuttle_, _swabber_,
or _cleaning net_, made of a quantity of rough netting fastened on the
end of a pole, and which, after being wetted, is used for the final
removal of all dirt from the oven just before “setting the batch,” or
placing the loaves for baking. Beside these there are in most bakehouses
_set ups_, or oblong pieces of beech wood, to be placed in the oven for
the purpose of keeping the loaves in their places.
[Illustration: Tin for French Rolls. Tin for Sponge Cakes.]
[Illustration: Scales and Weights.]
It would be impossible to give instructions here how to make the various
sorts of bread, but the ordinary kind sold by London Bakers is made much
in the following way:—
Suppose that the Baker desires to make up a sack of flour; he empties it
into the kneading trough, and then proceeds to sift it, in order to make
it lie more lightly and to break up any lumps.
He then takes from eight to ten pounds of potatoes and boils them,
without removing the skins, afterwards mashing them in the seasoning tub,
with about half the quantity of flour, and adding a couple of pails of
water. To this mixture he pours about two quarts of yeast, made from the
liquor of boiled hops, malt, and patent yeast already made and sold for
the purpose. This is the leaven, which makes the difference between bread
and meal-cake, or the English loaf and the Australian “damper,” which
is made only of flour and water, and baked at a bush fire; the yeast or
leaven is, in fact, meal in its early state of decomposition.
This mixture then is left in the seasoning tub, covered with a sack for
several hours, and allowed to ferment. Then the Baker separates about
a quarter of the flour in the trough by means of a board, and piles it
up at one end apart from the larger quantity, and it is upon this that
he pours the contents of the seasoning tub, taking care that it passes
through a sieve placed on a couple of sticks across the trough.
This portion upon which the liquor has been poured is called the
_sponge_, and he proceeds to “set it” by thoroughly mixing, and finally
giving it a dust of flour at the top, after which it is kept for five or
six hours, or until it has twice “risen,” or puffed out by means of the
fermenting liquor within it.
Just as it has risen a second time, and air bubbles are breaking through
it to the surface, about three more pailfuls of water are poured upon
it, and in this water about three pounds of salt have been dissolved;
this is well mixed with the sponge, and then, the board being removed,
the sponge and the rest of the flour is worked into one mass. It is this
kneading and breaking up the sponge which is the hard labour of the
Baker, and that it is hard labour may be known from the fact that he
works nearly naked, and that, as he lifts and pummels the tenacious mass,
he heaves great sighs and groans like those with which paviors ram down
the stones in the roads. In many of the best bakehouses now a machine is
used, which supersedes this manual labour; the mass of dough being placed
in a cylinder, within which an axle fitted with bent blades, or arms of
iron, revolves, passing through and through the dough as it moves from
end to end.
By another system (that of Dr. Dauglish) the use of yeast is dispensed
with, and the bread, made by machinery, is leavened by carbonic acid
gas, which is forced into the cylinder after the atmospheric air is
pumped out, and so goes through the dough and produces the results of
fermentation.
The dough having been thoroughly mixed in the trough, is left for an hour
or two to “prove,” and then, after being sprinkled with flour to prevent
its sticking, is thrown out upon a board, or the lid of the next trough,
and cut into pieces which are weighed, and afterwards moulded into
loaves. The moulding is only learnt by practice. The piece of dough is
cut in half and shaped according to the kind of loaf required, one piece
forming the top of the loaf, being laid in a hollow of that which is to
be the bottom, and the joint made by a skilful turn of the knuckles.
The loaves are placed in the oven by means of the peel, and are packed
at the back and sides as closely as possible, the cottage bread only
being separate, that it may be crusted all round. The batch takes about
two hours to bake. Biscuits are now mostly made by machinery, which in
large establishments turns them out ready for the oven; but when they are
wholly or partially made by hand, the dough is prepared and afterwards
moulded into shapes, and each shape pricked with the _docker_, before
being placed in the oven.
[Illustration: Cornfield.]