Vienna Bread
Formula Hard wheat flour, 100 lbs.
Water, 56 lbs. (variable).
Salt, 1¾ lbs.
Yeast, 1¼ lbs. • Condensed milk, 5 lbs.
Shortening, 2 lbs.
Method Dissolve 12 ozs. of yeast in 2 qts. of water and place to one side. Put 26 lbs. of water (13 qts.) into the mixer, add 50 lbs. of flour and then dissolve the yeast and mix until smooth. Put this sponge into a suitable trough, allow it to ferment until it begins to come to the second rising. The sponge should have a temperature of 78 to 80 degrees when mixed. After the sponge has been sufficiently fermented, dissolve the balance of the yeast in 1 qt. of water and place to one side. Put the balance of the water, the salt and sweetened condensed milk into the mixer and stir. Now add the sponge and break it up. Then add the balance of the flour, begin mixing and add the yeast. After these ingredients have been incorporated, add the shortening and continue mixing until the dough is smooth. The dough should have a temperature of 78 to 80 degrees when mixed. Allow the dough to ferment until it comes to one rising, cut it over, allow it to rest about 10 minutes, when it should be divided.
The 5 lbs. of sweetened condensed milk mentioned in the formula will furnish approximately 2 lbs. of added sugar, which will be sufficient for Vienna dough.
This is a wholesale bakery formula written in baker's pounds for a mixer and a dough trough; it converts cleanly to a home batch if you treat the flour weight as 100 percent and divide throughout.
- Scale it downDivide every weight by 100 to get a single-loaf batch: 1 lb (about 3 1/2 cups) hard wheat flour, 9 oz water, 1/4 oz salt, 3/4 oz sweetened condensed milk, 1/3 oz shortening, plus yeast as below. That gives roughly a 1 lb 10 oz dough, enough for one large loaf or six rolls.
- The yeast figure is a misprintThe formula lists 1/4 lb yeast, but the method uses 12 oz in the sponge and then "the balance" in the dough — so the intended total is almost certainly 1 1/4 lbs, printed with the fraction bar lost, exactly as happened to the salt ("13/4 lbs" is 1 3/4 lbs). At 1 1/4 percent of the flour this is compressed fresh yeast; use about one third that weight of instant dry yeast.
- Sponge and dough in trade termsThe sponge is half the flour, roughly half the water and most of the yeast. "Comes to the second rising" means the sponge has domed, fallen back and started to rise again; the formula gives no clock time for this, only the 78 to 80 degree temperature. "Cut it over" is a punch down and fold, not a divide.
- Dough temperature is the controlBoth mixes are specified at 78 to 80F, and in a formula with no clock times that temperature is what makes the fermentation predictable. Adjust the water temperature to hit it rather than guessing, and keep the trough or bowl in a draught-free spot.
- Sweetened condensed milk, not evaporatedThe final line makes clear this is the sweetened kind: 5 lbs of it supplies the 2 lbs of sugar the dough needs, so it is doing double duty as dairy and sweetener. Evaporated milk is unsweetened, so substituting it would drop the sugar the formula counts on.
- "Water, variable"56 percent hydration is on the stiff side, which is right for a bread that has to hold a slashed shape. The formula itself flags the water as variable, so adjust to the flour in hand.
- Baking is not givenThe formula stops at dividing; it specifies no oven temperature, time or steaming. Vienna bread of this type was shaped into long loaves or rolls, proofed, slashed and baked with steam. As a modern working guide, a hot oven of around 425 to 450F, roughly 25 to 30 minutes for a large loaf and less for rolls, will suit; steam early in the bake is what produces the thin glossy crust the style is known for.
Vienna bread is the American bakery descendant of the Austrian *Kaisersemmel* and its kin, which made their reputation at the 1873 Vienna Exposition and, in the popular account, at the Vienna bakery shown in Paris in 1867 — the same moment that gave English and American bakers the term "Vienna" for a lean, milk-enriched, steam-baked crusty loaf. What distinguished it in trade practice was less the shaping than the oven: steam injected at the start of the bake to keep the surface elastic and set a thin, brittle, glazed crust. By the time formulas like this one appeared in the American baking press, condensed milk was one common way to get dairy solids and sugar into a large dough without handling fresh milk in a hot bakeshop, and the long half-flour sponge appears to have been unremarkable commercial method rather than a special technique — which is why the writer spends more words on fermentation stages and dough temperature than on anything a home cook would think to ask about.