Gluten Bread
Formula No. 1 Gluten flour, 10 lbs.
Water, 6 to 8 lbs.
Shortening, 1/2 lb.
Salt, 3 ozs.
Yeast, 4 ozs.
Method Dissolve the yeast in the water, add 7 lbs. of gluten flour and mix to a smooth batter. Allow this sponge to rise until it begins to come to the second rising.
Doughing Dissolve the salt in a little water, add it to the sponge, then add the shortening and balance of the gluten flour and mix to a smooth firm batter. The dough should not be too stiff, as a stiff dough will bind and produce a very small solid loaf. You will notice that 6 to 8 lbs. of water is mentioned in the formula. This is mentioned because the gluten flour sold on the market varies considerably.
Formula No. 2 Gluten flour, 10 lbs.
Eggs, 10.
Water, 6 lbs.
Salt, 2 ozs.
Butter, 6 ozs.
Baking powder, 6 ozs.
Method Whip the eggs to a frothy consistency then add the water and salt and stir. Now add the gluten flour and baking powder. Melt the butter, add it to the mass and mix to a smooth and stiff batter. Put the batter in slightly greased pans and bake at 385 degrees F.
Two bakery formulas scaled for a shop, not a household: 10 lbs of flour is roughly eight 2-lb loaves. Divide everything by eight or ten for a home batch, and keep the ratios by weight rather than trying to convert to cups.
- What "gluten flour" meantIn trade usage this was wheat flour with much of the starch washed out, sold under brand names and, as the text admits, wildly inconsistent from bag to bag. The nearest modern equivalent is bread flour cut with vital wheat gluten, roughly 3 parts flour to 1 part gluten; pure vital wheat gluten alone will give you something closer to seitan than bread.
- The water range is the real instruction6 to 8 lbs of water on 10 lbs of flour is 60 to 80 percent hydration, an enormous spread. Hold back the last pound and add it only as the dough tells you, and err wet: the warning about a stiff dough binding into a small solid loaf is the single most useful line in the formula.
- Yeast conversion4 ozs of yeast means compressed fresh yeast. That is about 1.5 ozs of instant dry yeast for the full 10-lb batch, or a scant 1/4 oz if you scale down to a single loaf.
- "Comes to the second rising"Most likely old shop language for a sponge that has risen, begun to fall, and is starting up again. Take it when the surface just begins to crack and sink; left longer it will sour.
- Shortening and butterThe 1/2 lb of shortening in Formula 1 would most likely have been lard or a compound vegetable fat. Butter, lard or a neutral oil all work; the fat is there to soften a naturally tough crumb, so do not leave it out.
- Baking powder in Formula 26 ozs on 10 lbs of flour is close to 4 percent of the flour weight, at the high end of the usual range for a chemically leavened batter. With a current double-acting powder you may get a chemical aftertaste, in which case cut it back.
- Bake temperature and timing385F is given for Formula 2 and is a sound figure for Formula 1 as well. A 2-lb pan loaf needs about 40 to 50 minutes; gluten breads brown early and can look done long before the centre is set, so bake to an internal 200-205F rather than by colour.
- Formula 2 goes straight to the ovenIt is chemically leavened, with the whipped eggs doing structural work. Pan it and bake at once. Any resting time costs you lift and gives a dense, damp loaf.
Gluten bread belongs to the era before insulin, when a low-starch diet was essentially the only treatment offered for diabetes. From the later nineteenth century onward bakers and pharmacists sold "gluten flour" and "diabetic bread" made from wheat flour whose starch had been partly washed out, and baking trade papers carried formulas so that ordinary shops could supply the demand. The frank note that market gluten flour "varies considerably" chimes with contemporary complaints: analyses published in the medical and food-adulteration literature reported commercial gluten flours containing more starch than their labels claimed, which made the bread of little use for its intended purpose. After insulin came into clinical use in the early 1920s the medical urgency faded, and gluten flour survived mainly as a strengthener for bread dough, which is the role vital wheat gluten still plays on the supermarket shelf.