Chapter 1

not worth while to heat a brick oven for a small quantity of bread. Two or three loaves can be baked very well in a stove, (putting them into square iron pans,) or in a Dutch oven. [Footnote: If you bake bread in a Dutch oven, take off the lid when the loaf is done, and let it remain in the oven uncovered for a quarter of an hour.] If the bread has been mixed over night (which should never be done in warm weather) and is found, on tasting it, to be sour in the morning, melt a tea-spoonful of pearl-ash in a little milk-warm water, and sprinkle it over the dough; let it set half an hour, and then knead it. This will remove the acidity, and rather improve the bread in lightness. If dough is allowed to freeze it is totally spoiled. All bread that is sour, heavy, or ill-baked is not only unpalatable, but extremely unwholesome, and should never be eaten. These accidents so frequently happen when bread is made at home by careless, unpractised or incompetent persons, that families who live in cities or towns will generally risk less and save more, by obtaining their bread from a professional baker. If you like a little Indian in your wheat bread, prepare rather a larger quantity of warm water for setting the sponge; stirring into the water, while it is warming, enough of sifted Indian meal to make it like thin gruel. Warm water that has had pumpkin boiled in it is very good for bread. Strong fresh yeast from the brewery should always be used in preference to any other. If the yeast is home-made, or not very strong and fresh, double or treble the quantity mentioned in the receipt will be necessary to raise the bread. On the other hand, if too much yeast is put in, the bread will be disagreeably bitter. [Footnote: If you are obliged from its want of strength to put in a large quantity of yeast, mix with it two or three handfuls of bran; add the warm water to it, and then strain it through a sieve or cloth; or you may correct the bitterness by putting in a few bits of charcoal and then straining it.] You may take off a portion of the dough that has been prepared for bread, make it up into little round cakes or rolls, and bake them for breakfast or tea.

BRAN BREAD.

Sift into a pan three quarts of unbolted wheat meal. Stir a jill of strong yeast, and a jill of molasses into a quart of soft water, (which must be warm but not hot,) and add a small tea-spoonful of pearl-ash, or sal-aratus. Make a hole in the heap of flour, pour in the liquid, and proceed in the usual manner of making bread. This quantity may be made into two loaves. Bran bread is considered very wholesome; and is recommended to persons afflicted with dyspepsia.

RYE AND INDIAN BREAD.

Sift two quarts of rye, and two quarts of Indian meal, and mix them well together. Boil three pints of milk; pour it boiling hot upon the meal; add two tea-spoonfuls of salt, and stir the whole very hard. Let it stand till it becomes of only a lukewarm heat, and then stir in half a pint of good fresh yeast; if from the brewery and quite fresh, a smaller quantity will suffice. Knead the mixture into a stiff dough, and set it to rise in a pan. Cover it with a thick cloth that has been previously warmed, and set it near the fire. When it is quite light, and has cracked all over the top, make it into two loaves, put them into a moderate oven, and bake them two hours and a half.

COMMON YEAST.

Put a large handful of hops into two quarts of boiling water, which must then be set on the fire again, and boiled twenty minutes with the hops. Have ready in a pan three pints of sifted flour; strain the liquid, and pour half of it on the flour. Let the other half stand till it becomes cool, and then mix it gradually into the pan with the flour, &c. Then stir into it half a pint of good strong yeast, fresh from the brewery if possible; if not, use some that was left of the last making. You may increase the strength by stirring into your yeast before you bottle it, four or five large tea-spoonfuls of brown sugar, or as many table-spoonfuls of molasses.

Put it into clean bottles, and cork them loosely till the fermentation is over. Next morning put in the corks tightly, and set the bottles in a cold place. When you are going to bottle the yeast it will be an improvement to place two or three raisins at the bottom of each bottle. It is best to make yeast very frequently; as, with every precaution, it will scarcely keep good a week, even in cold weather. If you are apprehensive of its becoming sour, put into each bottle a lump of pearl-ash the size of a hazle-nut.

BRAN YEAST.

Mix a pint of wheat bran, and a handful of hops with a quart of water, and boil them together about twenty minutes. Then strain it through a sieve into a pan; when the liquid becomes only milk-warm, stir into it four table-spoonfuls of brewer's yeast, and two of brown sugar, or four of molasses. Put it into a wooden bowl, cover it, and set it near the fire for four or five hours. Then bottle it, and cork it tightly next day.

PUMPKIN YEAST.

Pare a fine ripe pumpkin, and cut it into pieces. Put them into a kettle with a large handful of hops, and as much water as will cover them. Boil them till the pumpkin is soft enough to pass through a cullender. Having done this, put the pulp into a stone jar, adding half a pint of good strong yeast to set it into a fermentation. The yeast must be well stirred into the pumpkin. Leave the jar uncovered till next day; then secure it lightly with a cork. If pumpkin yeast is well made, and of a proper consistence, neither too thick nor too thin, it will keep longer than any other.

BAKER'S YEAST.

To a gallon of soft water put two quarts of wheat bran, one quart of ground malt, (which may be obtained from a brewery,) and two handfuls of hops. Boil them together for half an hour. Then strain it through a sieve, and let it stand till it is cold; after which put to it two large tea-cups of molasses, and half a pint of strong yeast. Pour it into a stone jug, and let it stand uncorked till next morning. Then pour off the thin liquid from the top, and cork the jug tightly. When you are going to use the yeast, if it has been made two or three days, stir in a little pearl-ash dissolved in warm water, allowing a lump the size of a hickory-nut to a pint of yeast. This will correct any tendency to sourness, and make the yeast more brisk.

TO MAKE BUTTER.

Scald your milk pans every day after washing them; and let them set till the water gets cold. Then wipe them with a clean cloth. Fill them all with cold water half an hour before milking time, and do not pour it out till the moment before you are ready to use the pans. Unless all the utensils are kept perfectly sweet and nice, the cream and butter will never be good. Empty milk-pans should stand all day in the sun.

When you have strained the milk into the pans, (which should be broad and shallow,) place them in the spring-house, setting them down in the water. After the milk has stood twenty-four hours, skim off the cream, and deposits it in a large deep earthen jar, commonly called a crock, which must be kept closely covered, and stirred up with a stick at least twice a day, and whenever you add fresh cream to it. This stirring is to prevent the butter from being injured by the skin that will gather over the top of the cream.

You should churn at least twice a week, for if the cream is allowed to stand too long, the butter will inevitably have a odd taste. Add to the cream the strippings of the milk. Butter of only two or three days gathering is the best. With four or five good cows, you may easily manage to have a churning every three days. If your dairy is on a large scale, churn every two days.

Have your churn very clean, and rinse and cool it with cold water. A barrel churn is best; though a small upright one, worked by a staff or dash, will do very well where there are but one or two cows.

Strain the cream from the crock into the churn, and put on the