This is a delicious bread, which saves the trouble of making yeast.
Twenty-five cents’ worth of Twin Brothers’ yeast will last a small
family six weeks. I would recommend Mrs. Bonner’s bread in preference to
that of the last receipt. It is cheaper and better, at last, to always
have good bread, which is insured by using fresh yeast each time.
For four loaves: At noon, boil three potatoes; mash them well; add a
little salt, and two and a half cupfuls of flour; also enough boiling
water (that in which the potatoes were boiled) to make rather a thin
batter. Let it cool, and when it is at about blood-heat, add a Twin
Brothers’ yeast-cake, soaked in half a tea-cupful of lukewarm water. One
yeast-cake will be sufficient for four loaves of bread in summer; but
use one and a half yeast-cakes in winter. Stir well, and put it in a
warm place. At night it will be light, when stir in enough flour to make
the sponge. Do not make it too stiff. If you should happen to want a
little more bread than usual, add a little warm water to the batter. Let
it remain in a warm place until morning, when it should be well kneaded
for at least twenty minutes. Half an hour or more would be better.
Return the dough to the pan, and let it rise again. When light, take it
out; add half a tea-spoonful of soda, dissolved in a table-spoonful of
water; separate it into four loaves; put them in the pans, and let it
rise again. When light, bake it an hour.
FRENCH BREAD (_Grace Melaine Lourant_).
Put a heaping table-spoonful of hops and a quart of hot water over the
fire to boil. Have ready five or six large boiled potatoes, which mash
fine. Strain the hops. Now put a pint of boiling water (that in which
the potatoes were boiled) over three cupfuls of flour; mix in the mashed
potatoes, then the quart of strained hot hop-water, a heaping
tea-spoonful of sugar, and the same of salt. When this is lukewarm, mix
in one and a half Twin Brothers’ yeast-cakes (softened). Let this stand
overnight in a warm place.
In the morning, a new process is in order: First, pour over the yeast a
table-spoonful of warm water, in which is dissolved half a spoonful of
soda; mix in lightly about ten and a half heaping tea-cupfuls of sifted
flour. No more flour is added to the bread during its kneading. Instead,
the hands are wet in lukewarm water. Now knead the dough, giving it
about eight or ten strokes; then taking it from the side next to you,
pull it up into a long length, then double it, throwing it down
_snappishly_ and heavily. Wetting the hands again, give it the same
number of strokes, or _kneads_, pulling the end toward you again, and
throwing it over the part left in the pan. Continue this process until
large bubbles are formed in the dough. It will take half an hour or
longer. The hands should be wet enough at first to make the dough rather
supple. If dexterously managed, it will not stick to the hands after a
few minutes; and when it is kneaded enough, it will be very elastic,
full of bubbles, and will not stick to the pan. When this time arrives,
put the dough away again in a warm place to rise. This will take one or
two hours.
[Illustration]
Now comes another new process. Sprinkle plenty of flour on the board,
and take out lightly enough dough to make one loaf of bread, remembering
that the French loaves are not large, nor of the same shape as the usual
home-made ones. With the thumb and forefinger gather up the sides
carefully (to prevent doubling the meshes or grain of the dough) to make
it round in shape. Flour the rolling-pin, press it in the centre,
rolling a little to give the dough the form of cut.
Now give each puffed end a roll toward the centre, lapping well the
ends. Turn the bread entirely over, pulling out the ends a little, to
give the loaf a long form, as in cut.
[Illustration]
Sprinkle plenty of flour on large baking-pans turned bottom side up,
upon which lay this and the other loaves, a little distance apart, if
there is room for two of them on one pan. Sprinkle plenty of flour on
the tops, and set the pans by the side of the fire to again rise a
little. It will take twenty-five or thirty minutes longer. Then bake.
Kneading bread in the manner just described causes the _grain_ of the
bread to run in one direction, so that it may be pealed off in layers.
Kneading with water instead of flour makes the bread moist and elastic,
rather than solid and in crumbs.