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Bread-Making
ing which decomposition actually takes place, and the delicate, foamy loaves, "yeasted to death," which so many families now use and call the "staff of life," will give place to the sweet, substantial home-made loaves, such as our good mothers and grandmothers kneaded with their own skilled hands.
Take care that the yeast is good and "lively," for, without this, failure is certain. To make three loaves of bread, warm and lightly grease the baking-pans, sift three quarts or more of flour into the bread-pan, press down the middle, and into it put two small tablespoons of fine salt; pour in slowly one quart of milk-warm water, constantly stirring with one hand in the flour, until a thin batter is formed; add a pint or more of potato yeast or one tea-cup of hop yeast. (If compressed yeast is used, a yeast cake, dissolved in warm water, or a piece of compressed yeast as large as a walnut, dissolved in the same manner, is sufficient.) Mix thoroughly, adding more and more flour, until a stiff dough is formed; place on the bread-board, knead vigorously for twenty minutes or more, flouring the board frequently to prevent the dough from sticking to it, divide into loaves of a size to suit pans, mold into a comely shape, place in pans, rub over the top a light coating of sweet, drawn butter, set in a warm, not too hot place to rise, cover lightly to keep off dust and air, watch and occasionally turn the pans around when necessary to make the loaves rise evenly; when risen to about double the original size, draw across the top of each lengthwise with a sharp knife, making a slit half an inch deep, place them in a moderately heated oven, and bake one hour, watching carefully from time to make certain that a proper degree of heat is kept up. Before browning they will rise to double the size of loaf which was placed in the oven, and pans must be provided deep enough to retain them in shape. Bake until well done and nicely browned. Nothing adds more to the sweetness and digestibility of wheaten bread than thorough baking. When done, remove from pans immediately, to prevent the sweating and softening of the crust.-Mrs. L. B. Lyman, Antioch, Cal.
A standard nineteenth-century straight-dough loaf, written for a cook who kept her own yeast going in a crock. The quantities are large and the method skips a step modern bakers take for granted.
- Only one riseThe dough is kneaded, shaped and panned immediately, with no bulk fermentation. That works, but the crumb will be coarser and the flavour flatter than a loaf given an hour in the bowl first. If you want a finer crumb, let the mixed dough rise once in the bowl, knock it back, then shape.
- YeastPotato yeast and hop yeast were homemade liquid barms of unpredictable strength, which is why the recipe insists it be "lively." A walnut-sized piece of compressed (fresh) yeast is roughly 15-20 g, which corresponds to about 1 1/2 to 2 tsp of active dry or instant yeast -- rather less than a full packet.
- Flour and waterThree quarts of sifted flour is roughly 12 cups, or about 1.5 kg; one quart of water is 4 cups. That starting ratio makes a slack batter, and "adding more and more flour" means the final quantity is yours to judge. Expect to finish somewhere near 13-14 cups.
- Milk-warmBlood heat, about 98-105F. Hotter than that with modern yeast is wasteful rather than fatal, but water above 130F will kill it outright.
- SaltTwo "small tablespoons" of fine salt for this quantity of flour is about 30 g, which is in the normal modern range of roughly 2 percent of flour weight. Weigh it if using coarse salt, as volume measures are not interchangeable.
- Drawn butterHere it simply means melted butter, brushed on the shaped loaves to stop a skin forming as they rise. Not the flour-thickened drawn butter sauce that appears elsewhere in the book.
- Oven and timeA moderately heated oven is usually read today as somewhere around 350-375F; the book gives no figure. An hour is long for a modern loaf pan; check at 35-40 minutes and pull the bread when the internal temperature reaches 195-205F. The insistence on "thorough baking" reflects a period belief that underbaked bread was indigestible.
- KneadingTwenty minutes by hand is genuine and produces a well-developed dough; a stand mixer with a dough hook gets there in 8-10 minutes on medium-low. The dough is stiff, so mix in two batches if your machine is small.
- YieldThree loaves; 9x5-inch pans are a reasonable modern choice, though the recipe leaves the size to the cook. The note about deep pans is worth heeding, as the loaves double again in the oven.
Buckeye Cookery and Practical Housekeeping came out of Ohio in the 1870s and was assembled from contributions by named women across the country, which is why this entry carries Mrs. L. B. Lyman's name and her town in California. The scolding tone at the opening about loaves "yeasted to death" may belong to a long-running argument of the period: commercial compressed yeast, sold in cakes from the late 1860s onward, was fast and reliable, and traditionalists complained it produced airy, quick-souring bread compared with the slower work of a homemade potato or hop barm, though the passage itself does not say what the complaint is aimed at. The recipe hedges by giving both, listing the old yeasts first and the compressed cake in parentheses. The emphasis on kneading time, thorough baking and turning the loaves out at once reflects a skill assumed rather than taught.