Making Bread—Oven and Hearth-baked Bread—Patent Yeasts for
Travellers’ Use—Quick Bread; the Damper, Pancake, Flapjack, Chupatty,
etc.—Dumplings and Pie-crusts—Uses for Dry Bread, etc.
Bread is one of those things for which civilized man craves, and even
in the most out-of-the-way places he is loth to exist without it. The
many substitutes for bread rarely satisfy an Englishman, and he is
driven to find some way of making a solid loaf. Nevertheless to bake
bread presents a difficulty which can only be overcome by building an
oven such as before described, or by using hot flat stones; the latter
way of baking is as good as any when a little practice has shown how
to do it skilfully. But the baking is only one difficulty; another
and more serious one is to find a yeast wherewith to make a dough.
German and other dried yeasts are usually to be bought in towns or from
stores, and wherever there is a brewery barm can be got, but there are
also dried and compressed yeasts that are put up in cakes for the use
of travellers, which the outgoing colonist might procure, probably,
at a ship chandler’s stores. Yeatman’s Yeast Powder is one of these.
But failing any way of procuring dried yeasts there is another way of
making a liquid yeast that is sure of producing a sweet and wholesome
bread. For this the dried Bavarian hops are required, which are to be
bought in packets from the chief English stores (they are known as
the Phœnix brand), a packet of which will last a considerable time.
A handful of these hops is boiled in water in a saucepan until the
goodness has been extracted, then strained off, the hops thrown away,
and the liquid returned to the pan with a spoonful of sugar, salt, and
one or two tablespoonfuls of flour. These are stirred together and
boiled up—never mind if it is a little lumpy—and then left to ferment.
The mixture is ready for use the following day and will keep good for
about ten days or a fortnight. In using, mix enough of this liquid
with sufficient flour to make a small soft ball—technically called a
“sponge,” setting this in the middle of the panful of flour which is
intended for the bread. When this sponge has risen a little make the
dough by adding to it warm water slightly salted, and working in the
rest of the flour gradually until it can be kneaded with the hand and
forms a large ball of dough, not too stiff and yet not too soft. This
is then set to rise again in a warm place, and will take some five or
six hours. Some people mix up the yeast and flour and water straight
away and let one rising suffice. Either way should produce a light
and wholesome dough. About four tablespoonfuls of the liquid yeast (or
an ounce of dried compressed yeast of another kind, stirred to smooth
paste with water), a large tablespoonful of salt and four pounds of
flour, will make a nice quantity of bread. The amount of water depends
a good deal on the kind of flour, but the result must be a rather firm
dough; if too little water is put in the bread will be stiff and dry,
if too much it will be puffy and full of holes.
The dough can be mixed in the evening and left to rise all night,
provided the pan containing it be set in a warm, sheltered place. The
next morning, as soon as the oven has been made hot, or as soon as the
hot stones of the hearth are ready, take up the dough, divide it and
shape lightly with floured hands into loaves and bake them. The point
to bear in mind is that while dough takes several hours to rise, it
takes little harm by waiting until the oven is ready for it; but as
yeast after it has been mixed with water ferments very quickly, the
dough itself should not be made till the whole process of making it can
be done right away. The science of the thing is that the introduction
of yeast into the moistened flour causes carbonic gas to form, and
the formation of these bubbles makes the dough swell out until the
fermentation being finished the gas would cease to form and the dough
would sink back, having lost its lightness. When the dough has about
doubled its proportions, we stop the formation of the gas by baking
the bread. Patent dried yeasts operate more quickly than do liquid
home-made yeasts, and six hours is quite long enough to allow for the
rising. Liquid yeasts might be given a little longer.
If bread is made twice a week, the loaves should be made larger, and
for taking out on journeys round flat cakes, made not too thick, are a
convenient form; likewise for baking on the hearth these will be the
handiest and cook the best. A round and rather thick ball of dough, cut
across the top with a blunt knife, will give the Coburg loaf, which is
a good shape for baking in an oven.
Combinations of flour and maize meal, or of rice and flour, oatmeal and
flour, and so on can be tried when a change is wanted. Where eggs and
milk are procurable, there is a delicious American bread which is made
by mixing two cupfuls of maize meal with every one of ordinary white
flour, adding a little salt, two eggs and a cupful of milk to every
three cups of the combined flours, with a spoonful of baking-powder
rubbed in before moisture is added. This mixture is shaped into loaves
and baked in tins—old biscuit tins floured inside will do quite well.
The same mixture could be transformed into a cake of quite excellent
quality by rubbing into the flour a little butter or lard, and a few
raisins and spice and sugar.
Excellent light buns for supper are quickly made by rubbing a little
baking-powder into flour, adding salt, sugar and a few currants and
spice, mixing with milk to a stiff dough, rolling out on a board,
cutting into triangles and baking on flat hot stones, on both sides. Or
if the milk has soured, mix a little soda with it and make up into a
dough with flour alone and bake in the same way.
The Australian Damper is really a thick, plain pancake, often merely a
handful of flour made into a stiffish batter with water and a little
salt and baked over the embers of a wood fire or on the hot stones.
But the correct way of making Damper is to take a flat board or a
dried sheepskin on which to knead. On this the flour is poured from
the sack and sprinkled with salt. A hole is made in the middle of the
heap of flour into which water is slowly poured, the right hand being
kept moving round and round working the flour and water together to a
thick, adhesive dough. This is then kneaded on the floured board until
a firm ball is the result, and then with the hands a flat pancake is
made about two inches thick. The embers are cleared away to leave a
flat, bare place and the damper is lightly dropped upon it and covered
with leaves, then the embers are raked back and it is left for about
an hour, when it will be baked crisp and brown. A frying-pan without
a handle might be inverted over the damper if the ashes were dirty.
Fresh eggs beaten up with milk and used instead of water would make a
richer and crisper and more nourishing damper. Scotch oatmeal added to
a little flour, or the oatmeal alone mixed as for dry oatcake and baked
on the hot stones, would be a more nourishing substitute for bread than
is damper alone.
The Flapjack is a similar kind of thing to the damper, but it is fried
in a pan, with very little fat, that is to say, only enough to grease
the pan, and fried on both sides. If made with cornmeal or buckwheat
and mixed with milk and eggs, it becomes a very palatable thing, and
has the merit of being quickly prepared. These pan cakes are just the
thing for eating with sugar-cane syrup or molasses.
A Cornmeal Pone is made with a quart of Indian meal, a teaspoonful of
salt, a little melted lard and enough tepid water to make a soft dough.
It is moulded lightly with the hands into an oblong mound, higher in
the middle than at the sides, is brushed over with melted lard and dry
flour, and is baked in hot oven rather crisply and broken into pieces,
not cut. A broad leaf is laid over and under the pone if it is baked in
the ashes.
A Johnny Cake requires two cupfuls of buttermilk, a teaspoonful of
soda, and two of salt, a good bit of butter melted soft, and enough
Indian meal to make the cake so that it can be rolled out on a board
to an inch in thickness. It is baked on the stones or in the oven in a
shallow pan, and is then broken into pieces and eaten with butter.
Buckwheat Cakes want the true Buckwheat flour, and to every four
cupfuls a little salt and enough milk to make a thin batter, also a
spoonful of yeast to every cupful of flour. The mixture is beaten well
and left to rise overnight, and is then fried in greased pans on both
sides, and eaten with syrup.
The Chupatty is another form of thin or hastily made bread, and is
generally made with Indian meal. If made with ordinary white flour,
rub in a saltspoonful of salt to every half-pound, and mix to a light
dough with cold milk. Cut this dough into pieces about the size of an
egg, roll each piece into long, thin strips not more than an eighth of
an inch thick. This is best done with the help of a floured board and a
rolling-pin or smooth bottle, as the secret of making nice chupatties
lies in the rolling. It should be rolled out at least six times, then
the strips are placed on a baking tin and baked in a hot oven for
about ten minutes. This is as crisp as water biscuit, and is very
digestible. Where a dry biscuit or cake is wanted for a journey the
chupatty is very useful.
Any bread that has become stale can be freshened by dipping it in water
and putting into a hot oven to steam through for a few minutes.