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Buttermilk Bread
Take one quart of buttermilk, set it over the fire until it is scalded (but not boiling), then stir in flour enough to make it thick as for griddlecakes, and set it in a warm place to rise; when it is light, put in one-half teaspoonful of soda, and as much salt, stir or knead it again and let it rise. When light, knead and put into loaves, and when it has come up again, bake.
This is a sponge-risen bread with no yeast in the ingredient list, which is the whole difficulty and the whole interest. Everything depends on the buttermilk being alive.
- The hinge: living buttermilkThe hinge: what actually leavens it -- Genuine churned or unpasteurised buttermilk carries wild yeasts and lactic bacteria, but the recipe's own instruction to scald the milk would kill most of them, so the rise likely owes as much to wild yeast in the flour and the kitchen air. Some commercial cultured buttermilk is heat-treated after culturing and will not leaven at all. If the sponge shows no activity in 8-12 hours, add a teaspoon of instant yeast and treat it as a straight buttermilk dough.
- Scalded, not boilingScalding is conventionally around 180F, where the milk steams and curdles at the edges but does not roll. Let it cool to blood heat before stirring in the flour, so the heat does not scald the flour or kill any yeast that comes into the sponge.
- QuantitiesA quart is 4 cups. Flour "thick as for griddlecakes" means a batter sponge, roughly 3 to 4 cups; you will work in another 3 to 4 cups when you knead it into dough. The soda is half a teaspoon for the whole batch, which neutralizes the sourness rather than acting as the main leavener.
- Salt is under-measuredHalf a teaspoon of salt for two loaves is very little by current taste. Around 2 teaspoons total is normal for this weight of flour.
- TimingsThe original gives none because they varied by kitchen. Expect 8-12 hours for the first sponge in a warm spot, 1-2 hours for the second rise, and 45-90 minutes in the pans. Judge by volume, not the clock.
- OvenBake at 400F for 30-40 minutes, or until the loaves read 200-205F inside. "Bake" in a book of this date assumed a wood or coal range judged by hand; a loaf is done when it sounds hollow and the crust is deep brown.
- YieldTwo standard 8x4 loaves, or one large round on a sheet pan.
- Texture to expectA close, faintly tangy crumb, denser than modern sandwich bread. Do not knead the soda in aggressively at the sponge stage; it works fast in an acid dough and its lift is spent within minutes.
Before packaged yeast was cheap and reliable, a great many American households leavened bread with whatever was already fermenting in the kitchen: hop yeast kept in a jug, a saved piece of dough, potato water, or, as here, buttermilk. Buttermilk was a byproduct rather than a purchase — the thin, sour liquid left after churning butter — so recipes like this one belong to a farm economy where it appeared weekly and had to be used. The small amount of soda is the nineteenth-century compromise: it tames the acid the bacteria produce, sweetening the flavor and giving a little extra gas, and its widespread use in home baking follows the general availability of cheap saleratus and then bicarbonate through the 1800s. Compressed yeast cakes are often said to have displaced such methods in towns, though without a date for this book it is hard to say where it falls in that shift; the brevity of the instructions suggests the author assumed anyone still making buttermilk bread had made it many times before.