heap into a trough or tub; then dilute two pints of yeast with three or
four pints of warm water, and add to this mixture from eight to ten
ounces of salt. Make a hole in the middle of the heap of flour, pour the
mixture of yeast, salt, and water into it, and knead the whole into an
uniform stiff dough, with such an additional quantity of water as is
requisite for that purpose, and suffer the dough to rise in a warm
place.
When the dough has risen, and just begins again to subside, add to it
gradually the remaining one third part of the flour; knead it again
thoroughly, taking care to add gradually so much warm water as is
sufficient to form the whole into a stiff tenaceous dough, and continue
the kneading. At first the mass is very adhesive and clings to the
fingers, but it becomes less so the longer the kneading is continued;
and when the fist, on being withdrawn, leaves its perfect impression in
the dough, none of it adhering to the fingers, the kneading may be
discontinued. The dough may be then divided into loaf pieces, (of about
5lb. in weight). Knead each piece once more separately, and having made
it up in the proper form, put it in a warm place, cover it up with a
blanket to promote the last rising; and when this has taken place, put
it into the oven. When the loaves are withdrawn they should be covered
up with a blanket to cool as slowly as possible.
To make Pan Bread.
Mix up the flour, salt, and yeast, (See page 97), with the requisite
portion of warm water, into a moderately stiff paste; but instead of
causing part of the flour to ferment, (or setting the sponge), as stated
in the preceding process, suffer the whole mass to rise at once. Then
divide it into earthenware pans, or sheet iron moulds, and bake the
loaves till nearly done, in a quick oven; at that time remove them out
of the pans, or moulds, and set them on tins for a few minutes, in order
that the crust may become brown, and when done wrap them up in flannel,
and rasp them when cold.
Bread made in this manner is much more spongy or honeycombed, than bread
made in the common way. It is essential that the dough be not so stiff,
as when intended for common bread, moulded by the hand.
Brown Wheaten Bread.
Suppose a Winchester bushel of good wheat weighs fifty-nine pounds, let
it be sent to the mill and ground; including the bran, the meal will
weigh fifty-eight pounds, for not more than a pound will be lost in
grinding.
Mix it up with water, yeast, and salt, like the dough of common bread,
(See page 97); the mass, before it is put into the oven, will weigh
about eighty-eight pounds.
Divide it into eighteen loaves, and put them into the oven; when
thoroughly baked, and after they are drawn out and left two hours to
cool, they will weigh seventy-four pounds and a half.
Mixed Wheaten Bread.
Take a peck of wheaten flour, the same quantity of oatmeal, and half a
peck of boiled potatoes, skinned and mashed; let the mass be kneaded
into a dough, with a proper quantity of yeast, salt, and warm milk; make
the dough into loaves, and put them into the oven to bake.
The bread, thus prepared, rises well in the oven, is of a light brown
colour, and by no means of an unpleasant flavour; it tastes so little of
the oatmeal, as to be taken, by those who are unacquainted with its
composition, for barley or rye bread. It is sufficiently moist, and, if
put in a proper place, keeps well for a week.
Rolls, French Bread, Muffins and Crumpets.
The dough of which rolls are made by the generality of the London
bakers, is suffered to _prove_, that is to rise more, than dough
intended to be made into loaf-bread. It is, therefore, left in the
kneading trough, whilst the loaves made of the same dough are in the
oven. During this period it rises more, and the fermentation is further
promoted, by placing the rolls, when moulded, in a warm place, to cause
the dough to expand as much as possible. When this has taken place, they
are put in the oven to be baked, which is effected in about twenty or
thirty minutes. When taken out of the oven they are slightly brushed
over with a buttered brush, which gives the top crust a shining
appearance, they are then covered up with flannel to cool gradually.
I have witnessed at a baker’s, who has the reputation for making
excellent rolls, forty-eight pounds of dough moulded into one hundred
(penny) rolls; they weighed, when drawn out of the oven, twenty-six
pounds.
The bread called in this metropolis French rolls, and French bread, is
made precisely in the same manner, namely, from common bread dough, but
of a less stiff consistence; they are suffered to rise to a greater
extent than dough intended for loaf-bread.
Some bakers make rolls and French bread of a superior kind, for private
families, in the following manner:
Put a peck of flour into the kneading trough, and sift it through a wire
sieve, then rub in three quarters of a pound of butter, and, when it is
intimately blended with the flour, mix up with it two quarts of warm
milk, a quarter of a pound of salt, and a pint of yeast; let these be
mixed with the flour, and a sufficient quantity of warm water to knead
it into a dough; suffer it to stand two hours to prove, and then mould
it into rolls, which are to be placed on tins, and set for an hour near
the fire or in the proving closet. They are then put into a brisk oven
for about twenty minutes, and when drawn, the crust is rasped.
The cakes, called in this metropolis, _muffins_ and _crumpets_, are
baked, not in an oven, but on a hot iron plate.
For muffins, wheaten flour is made with water, or milk, into a batter or
dough. To a quarter of a peck of flour is usually added three quarters
of a pint of yeast, four ounces of salt, and so much water (or milk)
slightly warmed, as is sufficient to form a dough of rather a soft
consistence. Small portions of the dough are then put into holes,
previously made in a layer of flour, about two inches thick, placed on a
board, and the whole is covered up with a blanket and suffered to stand
near a fire, to cause the muffin dough to rise. When this has been
effected, the small cakes will exhibit a semi-globular shape. They are
then carefully transferred on the heated iron plate to be baked, and
when the bottom of the muffin begins to acquire a brown colour, they are
turned and baked on the opposite side.
_Crumpets_ are made of a batter composed of flour, water (or milk), and
a small quantity of yeast. To one pound of the best wheaten flour is
usually added three table-spoonsful of yeast. A portion of the liquid
paste, after having been suffered to rise, is poured on a heated iron
plate, and quickly baked, like pancakes in a frying pan.
Barley Bread.
Barley, next to wheat, is the most profitable of the farinaceous grains,
and when mixed with a small proportion of wheat flour, may be made into
bread. Barley bread is not spongy, and feels heavier in the hand than
wheaten bread.
To remedy this defect in part, it is always best to set the _sponge_
with wheat flour only, for barley flour does not readily ferment with
yeast, and adding the barley flour, when the dough is intended to be
made. Bread made in this way requires to be kept a longer time in the
oven than wheaten bread, and the heat of the oven should also be
somewhat greater; but barley bread is sometimes made without the
addition of wheaten flour.
Suppose a bushel of barley to weigh fifty-two pounds and a half to be
made into bread; let it be sent to the mill, and have the bran taken
out, which, with what is lost in grinding and dressing, will probably
reduce it to forty-four pounds. If the meal be kneaded into dough, with
water, yeast, and salt, suffered to rise, and then divided into eight
loaves, and thoroughly baked, they will weigh about sixty pounds, after
drawn out of the oven, and left two hours to cool.
Barley bread is eaten by many of the farmers and labourers in husbandry,
also by the miners in Devonshire and Cornwall.
Mixed Barley Bread.
Take four bushels of wheat ground to form one sort of flour, extracting
only a very small quantity of the coarser bran.[6] Add to it three
bushels and a half of barley flour, mix up the flour into a dough in the
usual manner, with salt, yeast, and warm water, (See page 97), let it be
divided into loaves, and put them into the oven made hotter than it
would be for baking wheaten bread. Let them remain in the oven three
hours and a half. In Yorkshire, bread made from a mixture of these
grains is esteemed more wholesome to those who are used to it, than
bread made from wheat alone.
Footnote 6:
From the Reports of the Board of Agriculture.
Rye Bread.
Rye is a grain whose cultivation is not much encouraged in this kingdom,
but in the northern parts of Europe it is in very extensive use as a
nourishing food for mankind. When made into bread alone, it is of a dark
brown colour, and sweetish taste, and if eat by people unaccustomed to
its use, it is found to have a laxative effect. In some parts of this
kingdom, a mixture of rye and wheat is reckoned an excellent bread. In
Yorkshire, bread made from a mixture of these two grains is esteemed.
The following method of making household rye bread, has been recommended
by the board of agriculture.[7]
Footnote 7:
Account of Experiments tried by the Board of Agriculture, p. 12.
Suppose a bushel of rye to weigh sixty pounds, add to it a fourth part,
or fifteen pounds of rice; this when ground has only the broad bran
taken out, which seldom exceeds four and a half or five pounds for that
quantity; it is thus directed to be prepared for household rye bread.
Take fourteen pounds of the mixed flour, a sufficient quantity of yeast,
salt, and warm water, and let it be made in a dough, and baked in the
usual way. It will produce twenty-two pounds weight of bread, which is a
surplus of three pounds and a half in fourteen pounds, over and above
what is usually produced in the common process of converting household
wheat flour into bread.
Turnip Bread.
A very good turnip bread may be made by the following process: Let the
turnips be pared and boiled. When they are soft enough, for being
mashed, the greater part of the water should be pressed out of them, and
they should be mixed with an equal quantity in weight of wheat flour.
The dough may then be made in the usual manner, with yeast, salt, and
warm water. It will rise well in the trough, and after being kneaded, it
may be formed into loaves, and put into the oven. It requires to be
baked rather longer than ordinary bread, and when taken from the oven is
equally light and white, rather sweeter, with a slight but not
disagreeable taste of the turnip. After it has been allowed to stand
twelve hours, this taste is scarcely perceptible, and the smell is
totally lost, and after an interval of twenty-four hours, it cannot be
known that it has turnips in its composition, although it has still a
peculiar sweetish taste, but by no means unpalatable. It keeps for
upwards of a week.
Rice Bread.
Rice, though one of the roughest and driest of farinaceous vegetables,
is converted by the Americans into a very pleasant fermented bread. The
process is as follows: The grain is first washed by pouring water upon
it, then stirring it, and changing the water until it be sufficiently
cleansed. The water is afterwards drawn off, and the rice, being
sufficiently drained, is put, while yet damp, into a mortar, and beaten
to powder; it is now completely dried, and passed through a common hair
sieve. The flour, thus obtained, is generally kneaded with a small
proportion of Indian corn meal, and boiled into a thickish consistence;
or sometimes it is mixed with boiled potatoes, and a small quantity of
leaven, or yeast, is added to the mass. When it has fermented,
sufficiently, the dough is put into pans, and placed in an oven. The
bread made by this process is light and wholesome, pleasing to the eye,
and agreeable to the taste. But rice flour will make excellent bread,
without the addition of either potatoes, or any kind of meal. Let a
sufficient quantity of the flour be put into a kneading trough; and at
the same time let a due proportion of water be boiled in a cauldron,
into which throw a few handfuls of rice in grain, and boil it till it
break. This forms a thick and viscous substance, which is poured upon
the flour, and the whole kneaded with a mixture of salt and yeast; the
dough is then covered with warm clothes, and left to rise. In the
process of fermentation, this dough, firm at first, becomes liquid as
soup, and seems quite incapable of being wrought by the hand. To obviate
this inconvenience, the oven is heated while the dough is rising; and
when it has attained a proper temperature, a tinned box is taken,
furnished with a handle long enough to reach to the end of the oven; a
little water is poured into this box, which is then filled with dough,
and covered with cabbage leaves and a leaf of paper. The box is thus
committed to the oven, and suddenly reversed. The heat of the oven
prevents the dough from spreading, and keeps it in the form which the
box has given it. This bread is both beautiful and good; but when it
becomes a little stale, loses much of its excellence. It comes out of
the oven of a fine yellow colour, like pastry which has yolks of eggs in
it. Other methods of making rice bread are the following:
1. Boil a quarter of a pound of rice till it is quite soft; then put it
on the back part of a sieve to drain, and when it is cool, mix it up
with three quarters of a pound of wheaten flour, a spoonful of yeast,
and two ounces of salt. Let it stand for three hours, then knead it
well, and roll it in about a handful of wheaten flour, so as to make the
outside dry enough to put it in the oven. About an hour and a quarter
will bake it, and it will produce one pound fourteen ounces of very good
white bread, but it should not be cut till it is two days old. Another
way is the following:
2. Take half a peck of rice flour, and one peck of wheaten flour, mix
them together and knead the dough up with a sufficient quantity of salt,
yeast, and warm water, as stated in page 97. Suffer it to ferment,
divide it into eight loaves, and bake them.
3. Take a peck of rice, boil it over night till it becomes soft, then
put it in a pan, and the next morning it will be found to have swelled
prodigiously. A peck of potatoes should now be boiled, skinned, and
mashed into a fine pulp, and while hot, be well kneaded up with the
rice, and a peck of wheaten flour; a sufficient quantity of yeast and
salt must now be added, and the dough left in the kneading trough to
prove or ferment; and when well risen it may be divided into loaves and
baked in the usual way.
Potatoe Bread.
Potatoes, mixed in various quantities, with flour, make a wholesome,
nutritive, and pleasant bread. Various methods are employed for
preparing the potatoes.
1. Pare a peck of potatoes, put them into a proper quantity of water,
and boil them till they are reduced to a pulp, then beat them up into a
smooth mass with the water they boiled in, and knead the mass, with two
pecks of wheaten flour, with a sufficient quantity of yeast and salt,
into a dough; cover it up, and allow it to ferment like common wheaten
bread, then make it up into loaves and bake them. Another method is the
following:
2. Take twelve pounds of the most mealy sort of peeled potatoes, boil
and press them through a fine wire sieve, in such a manner as to reduce
the roots, as nearly as possible, to a state of dry flour. Mix it up
with twenty pounds of wheaten flour; and of this mixture make, and set
the dough in the same manner as if the whole were wheaten flour. See
page 97.
3. Take three pounds of potatoes, boil, skin, and mash them, and whilst
warm, bruise them with a spoon, and put them into a dish before the
fire, to let the moisture evaporate, stirring them frequently, that no
part grows hard; when dry, rub them as fine as possible and add nine
pounds of wheaten flour, and with a sufficient quantity of yeast and
salt, knead it up as other dough; lay it a little while before the fire
to ferment, and then divide it into loaves and bake them in a very hot
oven. Another method is the following:
4. Boil and peel the potatoes as for eating, reduce them without any
water to a fine meal or stiff paste. Add to two parts by weight of the
paste, one part of potatoe starch, and half a part of wheaten flour, and
having added to it salt and yeast, suffer it to ferment; mould the dough
into loaves, and bake them in the usual manner.
M. Parmentier found, from a variety of experiments, that good bread
might be made from a mixture of raw potatoe-pulp and wheaten meal, with
the addition of yeast and salt; and Dr. Darwin asserts, that if eight
pounds of good raw potatoes be grated into cold water, and after
stirring the mixture the starch be left to subside, and when collected,
mixed with eight pounds of boiled potatoes, the mass will make as good
bread as that from the best wheaten flour.
Potatoe Rolls.
Bruise four pounds of boiled and skinned potatoes, with as much milk as
will just produce a mass, which readily may be squeezed through a
cullender, add this mass to wheaten flour paste of a middling stiffness,
obtained from six pounds of wheaten flour; put it before a fire to rise,
make it into rolls, and bake them in a quick oven. The rolls thus made
will be more porous and light than common rolls.
Apple Bread.
M. Duduit de Maizieres, a French officer of the king’s household, has
invented and practised with great success, a method of making bread of
common apples, very far superior to potatoe bread. After having boiled
one third of peeled apples, he bruised them, while quite warm, into
two-thirds of flour, including the proper quantity of yeast, and kneaded
the whole without water, the juice of the fruit being quite sufficient.
When this mixture had acquired the consistency of paste, he put it into
a vessel, in which he allowed it to rise for about twelve hours. By this
process he obtained a very excellent bread, full of eyes, and extremely
palatable and light.
Domestic Oven for Baking Bread.
The figure on the title page exhibits a convenient culinary oven for
families who bake their own bread. It is usually erected on one side of
the kitchen fire-place, and heated by a flue that passes from the
fire-grate under the bottom of the oven. Although this is in many
respects a convenient and neat way of heating the oven, yet the manner
of managing the fire renders it only economical in families where a
large fire is always kept up in the kitchen-grate. In small families it
is far more economical to heat the oven by means of a separate
fire-place built underneath it. A fire-place six inches wide, nine
inches long, and six inches deep, is sufficient to heat an oven eighteen
inches wide, twenty-four inches long, and from twelve to fifteen inches
high, which is a convenient size for the baking of bread. The grate
should be placed at least twelve inches below the bottom of the oven
when the fuel employed is pit-coal; and, in order to prevent the fire
from operating with too much violence upon any part of the oven, the
brick-work should be sloped outwards and upwards on every side, from the
top of the burning fuel, to the ends and sides of the bottom of the
oven, that the whole may be exposed to the direct rays of the fire. If
the fire-place be built in this manner, and properly managed, it is
almost incredible how small a quantity of fuel will answer for heating
the oven, and keeping it hot. In this small fire-place there is always a
very strong draft of air passing into it, and this circumstance, which
is unavoidable, renders it necessary to keep the fire-place door
constantly closed, and to leave but a small opening, for the passage of
the air, through the ash-pit. If these precautions are neglected, the
fuel will be consumed very rapidly, the bottom of the oven will be
burnt, and the oven get chilled as soon as the fire-place ceases to be
filled with burning fuel. In an oven of this description, I have baked
two loaves, each weighing five pounds, and fifteen rolls weighing two
pounds, by means of half a peck (ten pounds) of coal.
The figures on the plate facing the titlepage[See Note] exhibit an oven
to be heated with pit-coal for baking bread, now generally employed in
this metropolis.
The oven from which this design has been made, is eight feet wide, and
seven deep. The fire-place, called by the bakers, the furnace, for
heating the oven, is placed at the side, and enters the oven diagonally;
it is furnished with a grate, ash holes, and iron door, similar to a
common fire-place for heating a boiler, but having a partition to
separate it from the oven, and to allow the fire to enter into the oven;
it, therefore, forms a canal, by which the flame is directed into the
oven. Over the fire-place or furnace is erected, and lets into the
brick-work, a boiler furnished with a pipe, to supply warm water as
occasion may require.
When the oven is required to be heated, the boiler is filled with water,
and the fire being kindled in the furnace, the flame passes into the
oven, and the smoke escapes into the chimney.
The sides of the oven are nearly straight, and turned as sharp as
possible at the shoulder, for this form has been found better calculated
to retain the heat than any other.
The flues to carry off the smoke is over the entrance door, as shown by
the dotted line _a_ of the figure here exhibited, exhibiting the plan of
the oven.
[Illustration]
A piece of cast iron covers the space before the door of the oven,
exactly level with its floor; the opening underneath is applied to no
particular use, but is generally made a receptacle for coal.
_Fig. 1_, is an _elevation_ of the oven. The mouth is closed with a cast
iron door, in which is a small sight-hole with a slide valve. To heat
the oven, the door is thrown back, and a _blower_ is applied to the
mouth, so contrived, as not only to cover the mouth of the oven
completely, but to enclose also the throat of the chimney; by this
contrivance the draft is quickly so much increased, that the oven
becomes speedily heated, and if at anytime it is too hot, it is only
necessary to throw open the door of the fire place, and to put up the
_blower_ for a few minutes; the current of cool air which is thus made
to pass through it, soon lowers the heat to the temperature required. In
the _blower_ is also an opening of the same kind as that in the oven
door, which may be opened and shut at pleasure; the course of the flue
is described by the dotted lines at (_b_).
_Fig. 2_, is the _blower_ before mentioned for regulating the heat of
the oven.
_Fig. 3_, is a transverse section from _A_ to _B_ on the plan, looking
towards the opening, the fire-place entering the oven at _c_, the crown
of the oven is turned with the bricks on end, and in building the oven
instead of centering the arch, the whole space is filled with sand,
which is well trod down and shaped to the shape which it is intended the
crown of the oven shall be of. When the upper work is finished, the sand
is dug out at the mouth of the oven.
_Fig. 4_, is a longitudinal section of the oven from _C_ to _D_. In this
sketch the situation of the flue is evident, and the sectional line of
the _blower_, fig. 2, when in its place, is shown by the dotted line
_d_, the open space _a_, under the oven, has been before spoken of.
Popular Errors concerning the Quality of Bread.
The great advantage of eating pure and genuine bread must be obvious.
Every part of the wheat, which may be called flour, was not only
intended to be eaten by man, but it really makes the best bread. The
delusion, however, by which so many persons are misled to think that
even the whole flour is not good enough, obliges them to pay much dearer
for their bread than they need, to gratify a perverted and fanciful
appetite. Had it not been for the custom of eating whiter bread than the
whole of the _flour_ can make, the miller and baker would not have
employed their art to render the bread as white as possible, and to make
the consumer pay for the artificial whiteness. The average quantity of
flour, from an unvaried series of experiments, made from age to age,
through the course of many hundred years, appears to be three-fourth
parts in weight of the whole grain of wheat, taking all wheats together,
being more in the finer sorts, and less in the coarser; and the bread
made from this flour has always been deemed the standard of the food of
bread corn. But, by insensible degrees, the manufacture of bread became
separated into two distinct employments.