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Bread with Mush
Pour two quarts hot corn-meal mush, made as for eating, over two quarts flour (wheat or Graham); when cool, add one quart sponge, one coffee cup molasses, one tea-spoon salt, half tea-spoon soda; mix well together; add more flour if needed, and knead thoroughly; mold into small loaves; let rise and bake in small dripping pans (a loaf in a pan), or pie-tins, in a moderate oven ; when done, rub over with butter, place on the side, wrap in a cloth, and when cold put in a jar or box. This recipe makes three goodsized loaves and keeps moist longer than all Graham bread.-Mrs. W. W. Woods, Marysville, Ohio.
A yeasted cornmeal-and-wheat loaf built on a sponge, from the era when most households kept one going. The measurements are generous and the method assumes you know what a sponge is.
- Let the mush cool firstThe instruction "when cool" is the hinge of the recipe. Hot mush poured over flour scalds the starch, which is what keeps the loaf moist, but the sponge must not go in until the mass is no warmer than lukewarm or the yeast is killed. Aim for under 100F before adding the sponge.
- SpongeA quart of sponge is a loose, actively bubbling yeast batter of flour, water and yeast, usually set the night before. A workable stand-in is about 4 cups of well-fermented, pourable starter or a poolish made with a quarter teaspoon of instant yeast, 2 cups flour and 2 cups water left 8-12 hours.
- Corn-meal mushPlain cornmeal porridge cooked in salted water until thick enough to eat with a spoon, roughly 1 part meal to 4 parts water. Two quarts is a large batch; make it in a heavy pot and stir, as it spits.
- Coffee cupA coffee cup was generally reckoned at about 8 fl oz in this period, a teacup rather less. One coffee cup of molasses is therefore roughly a full cup, which makes a dark, distinctly sweet loaf.
- Soda with molassesThe half teaspoon of soda is mainly there to neutralise the acidity of the molasses and the sponge rather than to do the leavening, though the reaction gives a little lift as well. Do not increase it or the crumb turns soapy-tasting and dingy.
- Graham flourGraham is coarse unbolted whole-wheat flour, ground with the bran and germ left in. Modern whole-wheat flour is the closest match; it drinks more water than white, so judge the dough by feel when adding the extra flour.
- Moderate oven and pansA moderate oven is usually taken as somewhere around 350F. Small dripping pans and pie tins mean shallow, wide loaves that bake through quickly; expect 45 to 60 minutes, or an internal temperature near 200F. This is a heavy, wet dough and will underbake in the centre if crowded into one large tin.
- Buttering and wrappingRubbing the hot crust with butter and wrapping the loaf in a cloth on its side softens the crust and traps steam. It is a real technique rather than a flourish, and it helps the loaf stay soft. Cool completely before storing or it will sweat and mould.
- YieldThree good-sized loaves, as stated. The full quantity is a lot of dough for a domestic mixer; halving it works without adjustment.
Mush breads belong to the long American habit of stretching wheat flour with cornmeal, which was cheaper, locally milled and abundant in Ohio when Buckeye Cookery was compiled in 1877. Cooked mush does more than pad the loaf: gelatinised corn starch holds water that free flour cannot, which is exactly the keeping quality Mrs. Woods claims over an all-Graham loaf. Graham flour itself carried a whiff of reform, named for Sylvester Graham, whose advocacy of coarse unbolted wheat had shaped American ideas about wholesome bread since the 1830s, and by the 1870s it was ordinary pantry stock rather than a fad. The contributed attribution is typical of the book, which was assembled from named housekeepers across Ohio and neighbouring states, each recipe carrying the authority of a kitchen where it had actually been baked.