If eminence of importance entitled a subject to pre-eminence of
position, that of which we are now about to speak should have stood
foremost in this work. It is not a pleasant thing to think or write
about, but it is a stubborn fact, that upon thousands of tables, in
otherwise comfortable homes, _good_ bread is an unknown phenomenon. I
say phenomenon, because it would indeed be a marvellous estrangement
of cause and effect were indifferent flour, unskillfully mixed with
flat yeast, badly risen and negligently baked, to result in that pride
of the notable housekeeper—light, sweet, wholesome bread. I know a
household where sour, stiff bread is the rule, varied several times
during the week by muffins scented and colored with soda, clammy
biscuit, and leathery griddle-cakes; another where the bread is
invariably over-risen, and consequently tasteless, sometimes slightly
acid; yet another in which home-made bread is not used at all because
it is “so troublesome and uncertain,” the mistress preferring to feed
her family, growing children and all, upon the vari-colored sponges
bought at the bakers—sponges inflated with sal volatile, flavorless,
and dry as chips when a day old, and too often betraying, in the dark
streaks running through the interior of the loaf, want of cleanliness
in the kneader. Yet these are all well-to-do people, who submit to
these abominations partly because they do not know how badly off they
are—chiefly because it is their way of doing, and they see no reason
for changing. “I have been a housekeeper for thirty years, and have
always mixed my bread just so,” retorted a mistress once, when I mildly
set forth the advantages of “setting a sponge” over-night. “I put in
flour, yeast, and milk if I have it, and give them a good stir; then
set the dough down to rise. Our folks don’t fancy very light bread.
There don’t seem to be any substance in it—so to speak. Mine generally
turns out pretty nice. It’s all luck, after all, about bread.”
“I’m told you have a receipt for making bread,” laughed another to me;
“I never heard of such a thing in my life, and I’ve been keeping house
eighteen years. So I thought I’d call and ask you for it—just as a
curiosity, you know. I want to see what it is like.”
I wisely kept _my_ thoughts to myself, and dictated the receipt, which
she jotted down in a memorandum-book laughing all the while at the
“excellent joke.”
“You really use this?” she demanded, when this was done.
“I do. I have used no other for many years.”
“And the bread I ate upon your table, the other night, was made
according to this?”
Again an affirmative answer.
“I guess your cook could tell another story,” rejoined the skeptic.
“You can’t make me believe that bread is made by rule. I put my
materials together anyhow, and I have as good luck as most of my
neighbors.”
I regarded my visitor as an impertinent simpleton; but I have been
amazed, in subsequent years, at finding that her creed is that of
hundreds of housewives more or less sensible. “Luck” rules the baking,
and upon the shoulders of this Invisible are laid the deficiencies
of the complacent cook. Cheap flour and laziness are at the bottom
of more mishaps in the bread line than any other combination of
circumstances. From the inferior grades of flour, it is possible to
make tolerable biscuit, crumpets, and muffins, plain pastry, and
very good griddle-cakes. You cannot, by any stretch of art, produce
excellent bread from poor flour. It is no economy to purchase it for
this purpose. It _is_ judicious to lay in two barrels at a time, and to
use the best only for the semi- or tri-weekly baking.
Chiefest then among the conditions to good bread, I place good
“family” flour—dry, elastic, and odorless. Whiteness is a secondary
consideration, although, to American eyes, this is a recommendation.
A little experience will teach you to detect the signs that foretell
satisfactory baking-days, and _vice versâ_. If in handling the flour
you discern a heaviness like that of ground plaster; if in squeezing
a handful tightly you discover that it retains the imprint of palm
and fingers, and rolls back into the tray a compact ball or roll;
if it is in the least musty, or sour, use it very sparingly in your
trial-baking, for the chances are as ten to one that you will head the
barrel up again and return it to your grocer.
Sometimes new flour can be ripened for use by sifting enough for each
baking into a large tray, and exposing it to the hot sun for some
hours, or by setting it upon the kitchen hearth for the same time.
And it not unfrequently happens that flour improves greatly after
the barrel has been open for several days or weeks. It dries out and
becomes lighter, more elastic. Next in importance to the quality of
the flour is that of the yeast. This should be light in color and
lively, effervescing easily when shaken, and emitting an odor like weak
ammonia. If dull or sour, it is bad. In cities it is easiest, perhaps
cheapest, to buy yeast from a brewery or bakery, exercising your
discrimination as to quality. Unless you can satisfy yourself in this
regard, you had better make your own. I can confidently recommend the
receipts given in this work as easy and safe, having tried them in my
own family.
Novices in bread-making, and many who should have learned better by
long experience, fall into a sad mistake in the consistency of the
dough. It should be mixed as _soft as it can be handled_. Bread will
rise sooner and higher, be lighter and more digestible, and keep fresh
much longer, if this rule be followed. Stiff bread is close in texture,
often waxy to the teeth, and after a day or so becomes very hard.
Set the dough to rise in a moderately warm place, and keep it in an
even temperature. There is force in the old lament—“My bread took cold,
last night.” Cold arrests the process of fermentation. There is a
chance, should this occur, that a removal to a more genial atmosphere
and careful nursing may cure the congestion, should it be only partial.
Too much heat carries forward the work too rapidly. In this case,
you will find your dough puffy and sour. Correct the latter evil by
dissolving a little soda or saleratus in hot water, and working it well
in.
Knead your bread faithfully and from all sides, until it rebounds like
india-rubber after a smart blow of the fist upon the centre of the mass.
The oven should not be too hot. If you cannot hold your bare arm within
it while you count thirty, it is too quick. Keep the heat steady after
the bread goes in. Too much fire at first, and rapidly cooling, produce
the effect upon the bread which is technically called “slack-baked,”
_i. e._, the inside of the loaf is never properly done. Practice
and intelligent observation will, in time, make you an adept in the
management of your ovens. If the bread rises rapidly while baking, and
the crust begins to form before the lower part of the loaf is baked,
cover the top with clean paper until you are ready to brown it.
Grate away the burned portions of the crust, should there be such. This
is better than chipping with a knife. One of the best bread-makers I
know bakes in round pans, each loaf by itself, and grates the whole
outer surface, top, bottom, and sides, quickly and lightly, toning down
the brown to a uniform and pleasing tint. Tilt your loaves upon the
edge, the lower part resting upon the table, the upper supported by the
wall or other upright object, and throw a coarse dry cloth over them
until they cool. This position allows the air to get at all sides, and
prevents “sweating.” A tin bread-box is best, with a cloth at bottom
and enwrapping the loaves.