[Sidenote: The fire.]
[Sidenote: Time.]
Care in baking is even more essential than care in mixing and raising the bread. Test the oven by putting in a teaspoonful of flour. If it browns the flour in five minutes the heat is right. Have the fire prepared so it will not need replenishing during the hour required for the baking. The bread rises after it goes in the oven, and is likely to rise unevenly if the oven is hotter on one side than the other; therefore it should be watched and turned carefully if necessary. At the end of ten to fifteen minutes the top should be browned, and this will arrest the rising. If the oven is too cool, the bread is likely to rise so much as to run over the pan, or to have a hole in the center. If the oven is too hot it will make a crust too soon, the centre be underdone, and the crust be too thick. One hour is the time required for baking the ordinary sized loaf.
[Sidenote: Care of bread after it is baked.]
When the bread is taken from the oven turn it out of the pans and support the loaves in such a way that the air will reach all sides. If the loaves stand flat the bottom crust will become moist. If wrapped in cloth it will do the same and give a soft crust, which, however, some prefer to have.
It should not be put in the bread-box until entirely cold.
[Sidenote: Baking bread rolls.]
For baking rolls the rule is different from that for bread.
Rolls should rise, to be very light, more than double their original size, and the oven be hot enough to form a crust at once. It should brown flour in one minute and bake the rolls in fifteen to twenty minutes.
[Sidenote: Flour.]
The ordinary white flour of best quality is nearly all starch, the nourishing parts of the wheat having been mostly all removed by the bolting to make it white. The whole wheat flour makes a much more nourishing and health-giving bread, and when the habit of eating it is once formed, bread made of the white flour is no longer liked.
[Sidenote: Pans.]
[Sidenote: Different shapes for variety.]
There is a variety of bread-pans giving loaves of different shapes to be used for different purposes. Besides the square tin which gives the ordinary square loaf, there is a sheet iron rounded pan open at the ends. The dough for this pan is made into a long roll a little thicker in the middle than at the ends. It gives the shape of the Vienna loaf. After the bread has risen cut it across the top in three diagonal slashes with a sharp knife; when it is nearly baked brush over the top with a thin boiled cornstarch, and it will further resemble the Vienna loaf. For dinner bread, there is a pan a foot long of two flutes, about two inches each across and open at the ends; for this roll the dough long and round, or make two smaller rolls and twist them together; bake in a hot oven like biscuits. This gives a long, round crusty loaf like the French bread. A pan of small flutes is used for dinner sticks or finger rolls, giving a pencil of bread three quarters of an inch thick and five inches long. Bread made in different shapes gives a pleasant variety and often seems like a different article when baked so as to give more or less crust.
[Ill.u.s.tration: BREAD AND ROLL TINS.]
=WATER BREAD No. 1=
(TWO SMALL LOAVES)
2 cupfuls of tepid water.
1 teaspoonful of salt.
1/2 compressed yeast cake.
6 to 7 cupfuls of flour.
For mixing, kneading, and baking, see general directions given at head of chapter.
=WATER BREAD No. 2=
(TWO SMALL LOAVES)
2 cupfuls of tepid water.
1/2 cake of compressed yeast.
1 teaspoonful of salt.
6 to 7 cupfuls of flour.
1 tablespoonful of sugar.
1 tablespoonful of b.u.t.ter, lard, drippings, or cottolene.
For mixing, kneading, and baking, see general directions given at head of chapter.
=MILK BREAD=
Make the same as Water Bread No. 2, but use milk in place of the water, or use half milk and half water.
=POTATO BREAD=
Add one medium-sized mashed boiled potato to the sponge of any of the foregoing receipts. Potato gives a more moist bread, which retains its freshness longer.
=RECEIPT FOR ONE LOAF OF BREAD OR ONE PAN OF BISCUITS TO BE MADE IN TWO HOURS=
1 cupful of scalded milk.
1/4 cupful of b.u.t.ter.
3 yeast cakes.
1 tablespoonful of sugar 1/2 teaspoonful of salt.
White of one egg.
3 to 4 cupfuls of flour.
Make a sponge; let it stand in a warm place in a pan of warm water until full of bubbles; then add the flour, knead it for twenty minutes, mold into loaf, and let it rise in the baking-pan until double in size, and bake.
=BREAD MADE WITH BAKING-POWDER=
Add to four quarts of flour a teaspoonful of salt and six teaspoonfuls of baking-powder. Sift them three times so as to thoroughly mix them, and then add slowly a quart of cold water, or enough to make a dough of the right consistency. Mold it quickly into four loaves, and put at once into a moderate oven for one and a quarter hours.
=BREAD MADE OF WHOLE WHEAT FLOUR=
Dissolve a yeast cake in two tablespoonfuls of tepid water. Put into a bowl a pint of milk; add to it a pint of boiling water, and let it stand until it is lukewarm; then add the dissolved yeast, a teaspoonful of salt, and enough whole wheat flour to make a thick batter. The batter should drop, but not run off the spoon. Beat this batter with a spoon for fifteen minutes. It becomes quite soft and liquid by beating. Add enough more flour to make a dough; turn it onto the board and knead it a few minutes; return it to pan, and let rise for three hours, or until light. Mold it into small loaves; let it rise again, and bake in moderate oven thirty to forty-five minutes.
=GRAHAM BREAD=
Dissolve a half teaspoonful of soda in a cupful of lukewarm water. Put a tablespoonful of b.u.t.ter into a tablespoonful and a half of mola.s.ses, and let them warm until the b.u.t.ter is melted. Add to it the dissolved soda and water, and a half teaspoonful of salt. Stir this mixture into a cupful of light white bread sponge, and add enough Graham flour to make a stiff batter, or very thin dough. Turn into a greased pan. Let it rise until even with the top of the pan, and bake in a moderate oven an hour or an hour and a quarter. Use a spoon, and not the hands, for mixing Graham flour. A little white flour may be mixed with the Graham flour if a lighter colored and dryer bread is preferred.
=GLUTEN BREAD=
Pour a pint of boiling water into a pint of milk; add a teaspoonful of b.u.t.ter and a teaspoonful of salt. Let it stand until it is lukewarm; then add a well-beaten egg, a quarter of a yeast-cake dissolved, and enough gluten to make a soft batter. Cover and stand in a warm place to rise; then add enough gluten to make a soft dough, and knead it well.
Form it into four loaves, and let rise again. Bake for one hour.
Gluten bread requires less yeast and less time to rise than ordinary bread.