BREAD raised with what is known to bakers as a “sponge,” requires more
time and a trifle more work than the simpler form for which I have just
already given directions. But it keeps fresh longer, is softer and more
nutritious, and a second-rate brand of flour thus treated produces a
better loaf than when mixed up with yeast and water only. Sponge-making
is, therefore, an important if not an essential accomplishment in a
cook, be she novice or veteran.
Bread Sponge.
Three potatoes of fair size, peeled and boiled mealy.
Five tablespoonfuls of yeast.
One tablespoonful of white sugar.
One tablespoonful of butter.
Three cups of lukewarm water in which the potatoes were
boiled—strained through a coarse cloth.
One heaping cup of sifted flour.
Put the potatoes into a large bowl or tray and mash them to powder with
a potato beetle, or a wooden spoon. While still hot, mix in the sugar
and butter, beating all to a lumpless cream.
Add a _few_ spoonfuls at a time, the potato-water alternately with the
flour by the handful, beating the batter smooth as you go on until
all of the liquid and flour has gone in. Beat hard one minute before
pouring in the yeast. In hot weather, it is well to stir into the
yeast a bit of soda no larger than a grain of corn already wet up in a
teaspoonful of boiling water.
Now whip up the batter with a wooden spoon for another minute, and the
sponge is made.
Throw a cloth over the bowl and set by for five or six hours to rise.
If you intend to bake in the forenoon, make the sponge at bedtime. If
in the afternoon, early in the morning.
When the sponge is light sift a quart and a cup of flour into a bowl or
tray with two teaspoonfuls of salt. Into a hollow, like a crater in the
middle of the flour, empty your sponge-bowl, and work the flour down
into it. Wash out the bowl with a little lukewarm water and add this to
the dough. If it should prove too soft, work in, cautiously, a little
more flour. If too stiff, warm water, a spoonful at a time until you
can handle the paste easily. _The danger is in getting it too stiff._
Now, knead and set for risings first and second, as you have already
been instructed. This sponge will be found especially useful in making
Graham Bread.
One quart of Graham flour, one cup of white flour.
One half cup of Indian meal.
One half cup of molasses.
Two teaspoonfuls of salt.
Soda, the size of a pea.
Half the quantity of sponge given in preceding receipt.
Warm water for rinsing bowl—about half a cup.
Put the brown or Graham flour _unsifted_ into the bread-bowl. Sift
into it white flour, meal and salt, and stir up well while dry. Into
the “crater” dug out in the middle, pour the sponge, warm water, the
molasses, and soda dissolved in hot water. Knead as you would white
bread, and set aside for the rising. It will not swell so fast as the
white, so give yourself more time for making it.
When light, knead well and long; make into two loaves, then put into
well-greased pans and leave for an hour, or until it becomes more than
twice the original size of the dough.
Take care that it does not burn in baking. The molasses renders it
liable to scorching. The oven must be steady, but not so hot as for
white bread, nor will the Graham bread be done quite so soon as that
made of bolted flour. Turn the pans once while baking, moving them as
gently as possible. If rudely shaken or jarred, there will be heavy
streaks in the loaves.
Graham bread is wholesome and sweet, and ought to be eaten frequently
in every family, particularly by young people whose bones and teeth are
in forming.
The phosphates which the process of “bolting” removes to a large extent
from white flour, go directly to the manufacture of bone, and these
also tend to nourish and strengthen the brain.
Tea-Rolls.
After mixing your bread in the morning either with sponge or with
yeast, divide the kneaded dough into two portions. Mould one into a
round ball, and set aside for a loaf as already directed. Make a hole
in the middle of the other batch and pour into it a tablespoonful of
butter, just melted, but not hot. Close the dough over it, dust your
hands and kneading-board with flour and work in the shortening until
the dough is elastic and ceases to be sticky. Put it into a floured
bowl, cover with a cloth and set away out of draught and undue heat,
for three hours. Knead it again, then, and wait upon its rising for
another three hours. The dough should be as soft as can be handled.
When it is light for the second time flour your board, rubbing in the
flour and blowing lightly away what does not adhere to the surface.
Toss the lump dough upon it and knead thoroughly for five minutes.
Flour a rolling-pin and roll the dough into a sheet not more than half
an inch thick. Cut this into round cakes with a biscuit-cutter or a
sharp-edged tumbler and fold, not quite in the middle, in the form of
turnovers, pinching the corners of the fold pretty hard to hinder the
flap of dough from flying up as the rising proceeds. Rub the bottom and
sides of a baking-pan with sweet lard or butter. Do this with a bit of
clean soft rag or tissue-paper, visiting every corner of the pan, but
not leaving thick layers and streaks of grease after it. Arrange the
rolls in regular rows in the pan about a quarter of an inch apart.
Cover with a cloth and set nearer the fire than you dared trust the
dough, and let them rise for an hour. Peep under the cloth two or three
times to see whether they rise evenly, and turn the pan around once
that all may be equally exposed to the heat.
When the time is up and the rolls are puffy and promising, set them in
a pretty quick oven and bake half an hour, turning the pan once in this
time, and covering with clean—never printed—paper, should they brown
too fast. Break the rolls apart from one another and eat warm. They are
also good cold, and if the directions be followed implicitly, very good
always.