Part 19

Having set your sponge over night, or, if you bake late in the afternoon, early in the morning, sift dry flour into a deep bread-tray, and strew a few spoonfuls of fine salt over it. The question of the quantity of flour is a delicate one, requiring judgment and experience. Various brands of flour are so unequal with respect to the quantity of gluten they contain, that it is impossible to give any invariable rule on this subject. It will be safe, however, to sift two quarts and a pint, if you have set the potato-sponge; two quarts for the plain. This will make two good-sized loaves. Make a hole in the middle of the heap, pour in the risen sponge (which should be very light and seamed in many places on the top), and work down the flour into it with your hands. If too soft, add more flour. If you can mould it at all, it is not too soft. If stiff, rinse out the bowl in which the sponge was set with a little lukewarm water, and work this in. When you have it in manageable shape, begin to knead. Work the mass into a ball—your hands having been well floured from the first; detach it from the tray, and lift it in your left hand, while you sprinkle flour with the right thickly over the bottom and sides of the tray. Toss back the ball into this, and knead hard—always toward the centre of the mass, which should be repeatedly turned over and around, that every portion may be manipulated. Brisk and long kneading makes the pores fine and regular. Gaping holes of diverse sizes are an unerring tell-tale of a careless cook. Spend at least twenty minutes—half an hour is better—in this kind of useful gymnastics. It is grand exercise for arms and chest. This done, work the dough into a shapely ball in the centre of the tray, sprinkle flour over the top; throw a cloth over all and leave it on the kitchen-table to rise, taking care it is not in a draught of cold air. In summer, it will rise in four or five hours—in winter, six are often necessary. It should come up steadily until it at least trebles its original bulk and the floured surface cracks all over. Knead again for ten or fifteen minutes. Then, divide it into as many parts as you wish loaves, and put these in well-greased pans for the final rising. In a large household baking, it is customary to mould the dough into oblong rolls, three or four, according to the number of loaves you desire, and to lay these close together in one large pan. The second kneading is done upon a floured board, and should be thorough as the first, the dough being continually shifted and turned. Set the pans in a warm place for an hour longer, with a cloth thrown over them to keep out the air and dust. Then bake, heeding the directions set down in the article upon bread in general. If your ovens are in good condition, one hour should bake the above quantity of bread. But here again experience must be your guide. Note carefully for yourself how long a time is required for your first successful baking, as also how much dry flour you have worked into your sponge, and let these data regulate future action. I have known a variation of two quarts in a large baking, over the usual measure of flour. I need not tell you that you had better shun a brand that requires such an excessive quantity to bring the dough to the right consistency. It is neither nutritious nor economical. When you make out the loaves, prick the top with the fork.

Do not make your first baking too large. Practice is requisite to the management of an unwieldy mass of dough. Let your trial-loaf be with say half the quantity of sponge and flour I have set down, and increase these as skill and occasion require, carefully preserving the proportions. Seven or eight quarts of flour will be needed for the semi-weekly baking of a family of moderate size.

If I have seemed needlessly minute in the directions I have laid down, it is because I wish to be a guide, not a betrayer, and because I am deeply impressed with the worth of such advice as may tend to diminish the number of those who know not for themselves the comfort and delight of eating from day to day, and year to year, good family bread.

FAMILY BREAD (_Brown._) ✠

I wish it were in my power, by much and earnest speaking and writing, to induce every housekeeper to make brown bread—that is, bread made of unbolted, usually called Graham flour—a staple article of diet in her family. I only repeat the declaration of a majority of our best chemists and physicians when I say that our American fondness for fine white bread is a serious injury to our health. We bolt and rebolt our flour until we extract from it three-quarters of its nutritive qualities, leaving little strength in it except what lies in gluten or starch, and consign that which makes bone and tissue, which regulates the digestive organs, and leaves the blood pure, the brain clear, to the lower animals. Growing children especially should eat brown bread daily. It supplies the needed phosphate to the tender teeth and bones. If properly made, it soon commends itself to their taste, and white becomes insipid in comparison. Dyspeptics have long been familiar with its dietetic virtues, and, were the use of it more general, we should have fewer wretches to mourn over the destroyed coats of their stomachs. It is wholesome, sweet, honest, and should be popular.

Prepare a sponge as for white bread, using potatoes or while flour. My rule is to take out a certain quantity of the risen sponge on baking day, and set aside for brown bread. Put into a tray two parts Graham flour, one-third white, and to every quart of this allow a handful of Indian meal, with a teaspoonful of salt. Wet this up with the sponge, and when it is mixed, add, for a loaf of fair size, half a teacupful of molasses. The dough should be _very_ soft. If there is not enough of the sponge to reduce it to the desired consistency, add a little blood-warm water. Knead it diligently and long. It will not rise so rapidly as the white flour, having more “body” to carry. Let it take its time; make into round, comfortable loaves, and set down again for the second rising, when you have again kneaded it. Bake steadily, taking care it does not burn, and do not cut while hot. The result will well repay you for your trouble. It will take a longer time to bake than white bread. Brown flour should not be sifted.

BOSTON BROWN BREAD.

Set a sponge over night, with potatoes or white flour, in the following proportions:—

1 cup yeast. 6 potatoes, mashed fine with three cups of flour. 1 quart warm water. 2 tablespoonfuls lard (_or_, if you leave out the potatoes, one quart of warm water to three pints of flour). 2 tablespoonfuls brown sugar.

Beat up well and let it rise five or six hours.

When light, sift into the bread-tray—

1 quart rye-flour. 2 quarts Indian meal. 1 tablespoonful salt. 1 teaspoonful soda, or saleratus.

Mix this up very soft with the risen sponge, adding warm water, if needed, and working in gradually

Half a teacupful of molasses.

Knead well, and let it rise from six to seven hours. Then work over again, and divide into loaves, putting these in well-greased, round, deep pans. The second rising should last an hour, at the end of which time bake in a moderate oven about four hours. Rapid baking will ruin it. If put in late in the day, let it stay in the oven all night.

RYE BREAD.

Set a sponge, as above, but with half the quantity of water.

In the morning mix with this:

1 quart warm milk. 1 tablespoonful salt. 1 cup Indian meal. And enough rye flour to make it into pliable dough.

Proceed as with wheat bread, baking it a little longer.

It is a mistake to suppose that acidity, greater or less, is the normal state of rye bread. If you find your dough in the slightest degree sour, correct by adding a teaspoonful of soda dissolved in warm water. It is safest to add this always in warm weather.

MILK BREAD.

1 quart of milk. ½ teacupful of yeast. ¼ lb. butter, one tablespoonful white sugar.

Stir into the milk, which should be made blood-warm, a pint of flour, the sugar, lastly the yeast. Beat all together well, and let them rise five or six hours. Then melt the butter, and add with a little salt. Work in flour enough to make a stiff dough; let this rise four hours, and make into small loaves. Set near the fire for half an hour, and bake.

In warm weather, add a teaspoonful of soda, dissolved in warm water, to the risen sponge, as all bread mixed with milk is apt to sour.

BUTTERMILK BREAD.

1 pint buttermilk heated to scalding.

Stir in, while it is hot, enough flour to make a tolerably thick batter. Add half a gill of yeast, and let it rise five or six hours. If you make it over night you need not add the yeast, but put in, instead, a tablespoonful of white sugar. In the morning, stir into the sponge a tablespoonful of soda, dissolved in hot water, a little salt, and two tablespoonfuls melted butter. Work in just flour enough to enable you to handle the dough comfortably; knead well, make into loaves, and let it rise until light.

This makes very white and wholesome bread.

RICE BREAD.

Make a sponge of—

1 quart warm water. 1 teacupful yeast. 1 tablespoonful white sugar. 2 tablespoonfuls lard. 1 quart wheat flour.

Beat well together, and when it has risen, which will be in about five hours, add three pints of warm milk and three teacupfuls rice-flour wet to a thin paste with cold milk, and boiled four minutes as you would starch. This should be a little more than blood-warm when it is stirred into the batter. If not thick enough to make out into dough, add a little wheat-flour. Knead thoroughly, and treat as you would wheat bread in the matter of the two risings and baking.

This is nice and delicate for invalids, and keeps well. If you cannot procure the rice-flour, boil one cup of whole rice to a thin paste, mashing and beating it smooth.

FRENCH ROLLS. (_No. 1._) ✠

In kneading dough for the day’s baking, after adding and working in the risen sponge, set aside enough for a loaf of tea-rolls. Work into this a heaping tablespoonful of lard or butter, and let it stand in a tolerably cool place (not a cold or draughty one) for four hours. Knead it again, and let it alone for three hours longer. Then make into rolls, by rolling out, _very_ lightly, pieces of the dough into round cakes, and folding these, not quite in the centre, like turn-overs. The third rising will be for one hour, then bake steadily half an hour or less, if the oven is quick.

Having seen these rolls, smoking, light, and delicious, upon my own table, at least twice a week for ten years, with scarcely a failure in the mixing or baking, I can confidently recommend the receipt and the product. You can make out part of your Graham dough in the same manner.

FRENCH ROLLS. (_No. 2._)

1 quart milk; new, warm milk is best. 1 teacup yeast. 1 quart and a pint of flour.

When this sponge is light, work in a well-beaten egg and two tablespoonfuls melted butter, with a teaspoonful of salt, half a teaspoonful soda dissolved in hot water, one tablespoonful white sugar and enough white flour to make a soft dough. Let this stand four or five hours, roll out into round cakes and fold as in No. 1, or shape with your hands into balls. Set these closely together in the baking-pan; let them rise one hour, and just before putting them into the oven, cut deeply across each ball with a sharp knife. This will make the cleft roll, so familiar to us in French restaurants. Bake half an hour.

RISEN BISCUIT. ✠

1 quart milk. ¾ cup lard or butter—half-and-half is a good rule. ¾ cup of yeast. 2 tablespoonfuls white sugar. 1 teaspoonful salt. Flour to make a soft dough.

Mix over night, warming the milk slightly and melting the lard or butter. In the morning, roll out into a sheet three-quarters of an inch in thickness; cut into round cakes, set these closely together in a pan, let them rise for twenty minutes, and bake twenty minutes.

These delightful biscuits are even better if the above ingredients be set with half as much flour, in the form of a thin sponge, and the rest of the flour be worked in five hours later. Let this rise five hours more, and proceed as already directed. This is the best plan if the biscuits are intended for tea.

SALLY LUNN. (_No. 1._) ✠

1 quart of flour. 4 eggs. ½ cup melted butter. 1 cup warm milk. 1 cup warm water. 4 tablespoonfuls yeast. 1 teaspoonful salt. ½ teaspoonful soda, dissolved in hot water.

Beat the eggs to a stiff froth, add the milk, water, butter, soda, and salt; stir in the flour to a smooth batter, and beat the yeast in well. Set to rise in a buttered pudding-dish, in which it must be baked and sent to table. Or, if you wish to turn it out, set to rise in a _well_-buttered mould. It will not be light under six hours. Bake steadily three-quarters of an hour, or until a straw thrust into it comes up clean. Eat while hot.

This is the genuine old-fashioned Sally Lunn, and will hardly give place even yet to the newer and faster compounds known under the same name.

SALLY LUNN. (_No. 2._) ✠

1 scant quart flour. 4 eggs. 1 teacupful milk. 1 teacupful lard and butter mixed. 1 teaspoonful cream-tartar. ½ teaspoonful soda, dissolved in hot water. 1 teaspoonful salt.

Beat the eggs very light, yolks and whites separately, melt the shortening, sift the cream-tartar into the flour; add the whites the last thing.

POTATO BISCUIT.

8 potatoes of medium size, mashed very fine. 4 tablespoonfuls butter, melted. 2 cups milk, blood-warm. 1 cup yeast. Flour to make a thin batter. 2 tablespoonfuls white sugar.

Stir all the above ingredients together except the butter, and let the sponge rise until light—four or five hours will do; then add the melted butter with a little salt and flour, enough to make soft dough. Set aside this for four hours longer, roll out in a sheet three-quarters of an inch thick, cut into cakes; let these rise one hour, and bake.

MRS. E——‘S BISCUIT (_Soda._) ✠

1 quart flour. 2 heaping tablespoonfuls of lard. 2 cups sweet—if you can get it—_new_ milk. 1 teaspoonful soda. 2 teaspoonful cream-tartar. 1 saltspoonful of salt.

Rub the soda and cream-tartar into the flour, and sift all together before they are wet; then put in the salt; next the lard, rubbed into the prepared flour quickly and lightly; lastly, pour in the milk. Work out the dough rapidly, kneading with as few strokes as possible, since handling injures the biscuit. If properly prepared the dough will have a rough surface and the biscuit be flaky. The dough should also be _very_ soft. If the flour stiffen it too much, add more milk. Roll out lightly, cut into cakes at least half an inch thick, and bake in a quick oven. The biscuit made by the friend from whom I had this receipt were marvels of lightness and sweetness. I have often thought of them since with regretful longing, when set down to so-called “soda-biscuit,” marbled with greenish-yellow streaks, and emitting, when split, an odor which was in itself an eloquent dissuasive to an educated appetite. Few cooks make really good, quick biscuit—why, I am unable to say, unless upon the principle of “brains will tell.” I have had more than one in my kitchen, who, admirable in almost every other respect, were absolutely unfit to be intrusted with this simple yet delicate manufacture. The common fault is to have too “heavy a hand” with soda, and to “guess at” the quantities, instead of measuring them. Eat while warm.

GRAHAM BISCUIT. ✠

3 cups Graham flour. 1 cup white flour. 3 cups milk. 2 tablespoonfuls lard. 1 heaping tablespoonful white sugar. 1 saltspoonful of salt. 1 teaspoonful of soda. 2 teaspoonfuls cream-tartar.

Mix and bake as you do the white soda-biscuit (Mrs. E——‘s). They are good cold as well as hot.

MINUTE BISCUIT.

1 pint sour, or buttermilk. 1 teaspoonful soda. 2 teaspoonfuls melted butter.

Flour to make soft dough—just stiff enough to handle. Mix, roll, and cut out rapidly, with as little handling as may be, and bake in a quick oven.

GRAHAM WHEATLETS.

1 pint Graham flour. Nearly a quart of boiling water or milk. 1 teaspoonful salt.

Scald the flour, when you have salted it, into as soft dough as you can handle. Roll it nearly an inch thick, cut in round cakes, lay upon a hot buttered tin or pan, and bake them in the hottest oven you can get ready. Everything depends upon heat in the manufacture of these. Some cooks spread them on a hot tin, and set this upon a red-hot stove. Properly scalded and cooked, they are light as puffs, and very good; otherwise they are flat and tough. Split and butter while hot.

SWEET RUSK. ✠

1 pint warm milk. ½ cup of butter. 1 cup of sugar. 2 eggs. 1 teaspoonful of salt. 2 tablespoonfuls yeast.

Make a sponge with the milk, yeast, and enough flour for a thin batter, and let it rise over night. In the morning add the butter, eggs, and sugar, previously beaten up well together, the salt, and flour enough to make a soft dough. Mould with the hands into balls of uniform size, set close together in a pan, and let them rise until very light. After baking, wash the tops with a clean soft cloth dipped in molasses and water.

DRIED RUSK. ✠

1 pint of warm milk. 2 eggs. ½ teacup of butter. Half a cup of yeast. 1 teaspoonful salt.

Set a sponge with these ingredients, leaving out the eggs, and stirring in flour until you have a thick batter. Early next morning add the well-beaten eggs, and flour enough to enable you to roll out the dough. Let this rise in the bread-bowl two hours. Roll into a sheet nearly an inch thick, cut into round cakes, and arrange in your baking-pan two deep, laying one upon the other carefully. Let these stand for another half-hour, and bake.

These are now very nice for eating, and you may, if you like, reserve a plateful for tea; but the rule for the many, handed down through, I am afraid to say how many generations, in the family where I first ate this novel and delightful biscuit, is to divide the twins, thus leaving one side of each cake soft, and piling them loosely in the pan, set them in the oven when the fire is declining for the night, and leave them in until morning. Then, still obeying the traditions of revered elders, put them in a clean muslin bag, and hang them up in the kitchen. They will be fit to eat upon the third day. Put as many as you need in a deep dish, and pour over them iced milk, or water, if you cannot easily procure the former. Let them soak until soft, take them out, drain them for a minute in a shallow plate, and eat with butter. Invalids and children crave them eagerly. Indeed, I have seen few refuse them who had ever tasted them before. There is a pastoral flavor about the pleasant dish, eaten with the accompaniment of fresh berries, on a summer evening, that appeals to the better impulses of one’s appetite.

Try my soaked rusk—not forgetting to ice the milk—and you will find out for yourself what I mean, but cannot quite express.

Dried rusk will keep for weeks, and grow better every day. The only risk is in their being eaten up before they attain maturity.

BUTTER CRACKERS.

1 quart of flour. 3 tablespoonfuls butter. ½ teaspoonful soda, dissolved in hot water. 1 saltspoonful salt. 2 cups sweet milk.

Rub the butter into the flour, or, what is better, cut it up with a knife or chopper, as you do in pastry; add the salt, milk, and soda, mixing well. Work into a ball, lay upon a floured board, and beat with a rolling-pin half an hour, turning and shifting the mass often. Roll into an even sheet, a quarter of an inch thick, or less, prick deeply with a fork, and bake hard in a moderate oven. Hang them up in a muslin bag in the kitchen for two days to dry.

WAFERS. ✠

1 pound of flour. 2 tablespoonfuls butter. A little salt.

Mix with sweet milk into a stiff dough, roll out very thin, cut into round cakes, and again roll these as thin as they can be handled. Lift them carefully, lay in a pan, and bake very quickly.

These are extremely nice, especially for invalids. They should be hardly thicker than writing-paper. Flour the baking-pan instead of greasing.

CRUMPETS (_Sweet._)

1 pint raised dough. 3 eggs. 3 tablespoonfuls butter. ½ cup white sugar.

When your bread has passed its second rising, work into the above-named quantity the melted butter, then the eggs and sugar, beaten together until very light. Bake in muffin-rings about twenty minutes.

CRUMPETS (_Plain._) ✠

3 cups warm milk. ½ cup yeast. 2 tablespoonfuls melted butter. 1 saltspoonful salt, and the same of soda, dissolved in hot water. Flour to make good batter.

Set these ingredients—leaving out the butter and soda—as a sponge. When very light, beat in the melted butter, with a _very_ little flour, to prevent the butter from thinning the batter too much; stir in the soda hard, fill pattypans or muffin-rings with the mixture, and let them stand fifteen minutes before baking.

This is an excellent, easy, and economical receipt.

GRAHAM MUFFINS. ✠

3 cups Graham flour. 1 cup white flour. 1 quart of milk. ¾ cup yeast. 1 tablespoonful lard or butter. 1 teaspoonful salt. 2 tablespoonfuls sugar.

Set to rise over night, and bake in muffin-rings twenty minutes in a quick oven. Eat hot.

QUEEN MUFFINS. ✠

1 quart of milk. ¾ cup of yeast. 2 tablespoonfuls white sugar. 1 tablespoonful of lard or butter. 1 teaspoonful salt. Flour to make a good batter. 4 eggs.

Set the batter—leaving out the eggs—to rise over night. In the morning beat the eggs very light, stir into the batter, and bake in muffin-rings twenty minutes in a quick oven.

CREAM MUFFINS. ✠

1 quart sweet milk (half-cream, if you can get it). 1 quart flour—heaping. 6 eggs. 1 tablespoonful butter, and the same of lard—melted together.

Beat the eggs light—the yolks and whites separately; add the milk, with a little salt, then the shortening, lastly the flour, stirring in lightly. Bake immediately in well-greased rings half-filled with the batter. Your oven should be hot, and the muffins sent to table so soon as they are taken up.

BUTTERMILK MUFFINS.

1 quart buttermilk, or “loppered” sweet milk. 2 eggs. 1 teaspoonful soda, dissolved in hot water. 1 teaspoonful salt. Flour to make good batter.

Beat the eggs well and stir them into the milk, beating hard all the while; add the flour and salt, and at the last the soda. Bake at once in a quick oven.

“MOTHER’S” MUFFINS. ✠

1 pint milk. 1 egg. 1 tablespoonful lard. ½ cup yeast. Flour for stiff batter. 1 teaspoonful salt.

Set to rise over night.

CHARLOTTE MUFFINS. ✠

1 quart of flour. 3 eggs—the whites and yolks beaten separately and until stiff. 3 cups of milk. If sour, no disadvantage, if soda be added. A little salt.

The excellence of these depends upon thorough beating and quick baking.

RICE MUFFINS. ✠

1 cup cold boiled rice. 1 pint of flour. 2 eggs. 1 quart of milk, or enough to make thin batter. 1 tablespoonful lard or butter. 1 teaspoonful salt.

Beat hard and bake quickly.

HOMINY MUFFINS. ✠

2 cups fine hominy—boiled and cold. 3 eggs. 3 cups sour milk. If sweet, add one teaspoonful cream tartar. ½ cup melted butter. 2 teaspoonfuls salt. 2 tablespoonfuls white sugar. 1 large cup flour. 1 teaspoonful soda.

Beat the hominy smooth; stir in the milk, then the butter, salt, and sugar; next the eggs, which should first be well beaten; then the soda, dissolved in hot water; lastly the flour.

There are no more delicious or wholesome muffins than these, if rightly mixed and quickly baked.

BELLE’S MUFFINS.