Prune Bread
Formula No. 1 Hard wheat flour, 100 lbs.
Water, 60 lbs. to 62 lbs. (variable).
Salt, 1¾ lbs.
Sugar, 2 lbs.
Malt, 1½ lbs.
Yeast, 2 lbs.
Powdered milk, 2½ lbs.
Shortening, 2 lbs.
Prunes, pitted, 20 lbs.
Formula No. 2 Hard wheat flour, 100 lbs.
Water, 60 to 62 lbs.
Salt, 1¾ lbs.
Molasses, 3 lbs.
Malt, 2 lbs.
Yeast, 2 lbs.
Milk powder, 2½ lbs.
Shortening, 2 lbs.
Prunes, pitted, 45 lbs.
Method Dissolve the yeast and half of the malt extract and place it to one side. Now put the salt, sugar or molasses, milk powder and balance of the malt extract into the mixer and stir to dissolve the ingredients. Then add the flour and continue mixing until these ingredients have been incorporated. Add the shortening and mix until the dough is smooth. While the dough is being mixed, the pitted prunes may be separated and put into the mixer, after which the dough should be mixed just long enough to incorporate the prunes.
Fermentation If a four and a half hour fermentation period is employed, it may be divided as follows: First rising, 2½ hours; second rising, 1¼ hours; third rising, 1/2 hour. Allow the dough to rest 15 minutes, when it can be divided. The dough should be approximately 80 degrees when mixed.
The dough may be scaled round, run through automatic proofing cabinet, put in the pans and proofed in the same way as an ordinary bread dough, after which the dough can be baked in the usual manner.
This is a commercial bakeshop formula built on 100 lbs of flour, so every quantity is effectively a baker's percentage. Divide throughout by whatever factor gets you to a home-scale batch.
- Scaling downTreat flour as 100% and divide by 100 for a single-pound batch: 1 lb flour (about 3½ cups), 9½–10 oz water, ¼ oz salt, ⅓ oz sugar, ¼ oz malt, ⅓ oz yeast, ⅖ oz milk powder, ⅓ oz shortening, 3¼ oz pitted prunes. A scale is not optional at these proportions.
- Yeast quantityTwo pounds per 100 lbs flour is compressed (fresh) cake yeast, standard in a commercial shop of the period. Instant dry yeast is roughly a third as much by weight.
- MaltThe malt here is presumably diastatic malt extract, a thick syrup used to boost crumb colour, crust and gas production. Most modern bread flour is already malted; if yours is not, malt syrup or diastatic malt powder from a baking supplier does the same work.
- Milk powderNon-fat dry milk. Milk solids were valued for keeping quality and crust colour as much as for flavour, and they add to how fast the loaf browns.
- Where the water goesThe method as printed never states when to add the bulk of the water, nor when the yeast set aside goes back in. The sensible reading is that the water goes into the mixer with the salt, sugar and milk powder before the flour, with the dissolved yeast and reserved malt following.
- Two very different loavesFormula No. 1 at 20% prunes gives a fruited sandwich bread. Formula No. 2 at 45% prunes, sweetened with molasses instead of sugar, is close to half fruit by flour weight and bakes dark, dense and moist. Expect it to feel slack and sticky in the mixer.
- Prunes last, and brieflyThe hinge of the whole formula. Prunes go in only after the dough is smooth and are mixed just long enough to distribute. Overmixing tears them into paste, which stains and weakens the crumb and slows the rise.
- Dough temperature and fermentationAim for 80F out of the mixer; adjust the water temperature to hit it. The four-and-a-half hour bulk period is punched down twice, with a short rest before dividing — a straight-dough schedule that suits a shop clock more than a home one, and a cooler, longer rise works just as well.
- BakingNo oven figure is given because a shop oven was assumed. A 1 lb pan loaf of this type bakes at 400–425F for 30–35 minutes; the sugar and prunes darken it fast, so tent the top if it colours before the centre reaches about 200F.
Trade formulas of this kind were printed as percentages rather than recipes: a hundred pounds of flour as the base, everything else as a proportion of it, so a foreman could scale to his mixer and his day's orders. Prune bread belongs to a long run of fruited variety breads that American bakers pushed in the first half of the twentieth century, when dried California prunes were cheap and shipped nationwide in bulk boxes. Fruit loaves let a shop sell a higher-priced bread from the same flour, salt and yeast already on hand, and the molasses version here reads as a deliberately dark, keeping loaf — dried fruit and molasses both hold moisture, so it would stay saleable longer than a plain white pan bread.