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Bread, Rice
Allow one pound of rice to four pounds of wheat flour. The rice must be first boiled in milk or water, and while warm added to the flour, but care must be taken to see that the rice is thoroughly done. Mix all into a dough with a little yeast, a quarter of an ounce of salt, and sufficient warm water for the required consistency. When it has risen before the fire a proper time, make into loaves of any shape, and bake according to size. This bread is very delicious made with a mixture of milk. Probable cost, 8d. per four-pound loaf.
A wheat loaf extended with cooked rice, in the proportion of one part rice to four parts flour by weight. The rice must be soft and still warm when it goes into the flour, or the dough will fight you.
- The hinge: cook the rice to collapseUnderdone grains will not absorb into the dough and leave hard flecks that stay hard after baking. Simmer the rice in plenty of milk or water until it is soft enough to crush against the side of the pan with a spoon, then add it warm, not hot, so it does not kill the yeast.
- Scale in modern termsFour pounds of flour is about 1.8 kg and one pound of rice about 450 g dry weight, which is a very large batch giving three or four loaves. Halving or quartering the whole recipe works without adjustment.
- Water is unmeasurable here for a reasonBoiled rice carries a great deal of liquid with it, and how much depends on how you cooked it. Add the warm water in stages and stop when the dough is soft and slightly tacky rather than aiming at a fixed hydration.
- "A little yeast"Victorian brewer's or barm yeast varied in strength, so quantities were judged by the baker rather than measured. For 4 lb of flour, 2 teaspoons of instant dried yeast or about 25 g of fresh yeast is a reasonable equivalent; less will simply mean a longer rise.
- The salt is lowA quarter of an ounce is roughly 7 g for nearly two kilos of flour, about a fifth of what modern bakers use. Bread at that level tastes flat; around 2 percent of the flour weight, some 35 g, is the current norm.
- Rising "before the fire"This means a warm spot, not a hot one, around 24-27C. Rice-enriched doughs are heavy and slack, so judge by the dough roughly doubling rather than by the clock.
- OvenThe recipe says only to bake according to size. Bake at 220C/425F for the first 15 minutes, then drop to 200C/400F; a 2 lb loaf takes 35-45 minutes and should read about 96C/205F internally.
- Milk versionBoiling the rice in milk, as suggested, gives a softer crumb and a browner crust because of the milk sugars. Watch the crust in the last ten minutes and cover with foil if it colours too fast.
- KeepingThe cooked rice holds moisture, so this loaf may stay fresh a little longer than a plain wheat loaf, and it toasts well once past its first day.
Rice bread belongs to a long line of English "mixed" or extended loaves, in which a cheaper starch was used to stretch expensive wheat flour. Potato, barley, bean and rice breads all appear in cookery and household literature from the late eighteenth century onward, and were promoted with particular energy during periods of high grain prices and wartime shortage. Cassell's gives the game away with its closing note of probable cost per four-pound loaf: the four-pound loaf was the standard commercial unit of bread in Britain, its price a matter of public concern, and a household dictionary was expected to tell a reader whether baking at home was worth the trouble. Rice was by then cheap and widely imported, and the practical discovery, whatever the economics, was that boiled rice worked into a dough gives a moist crumb and better keeping quality, which is why versions of this loaf survived long after the thrift that produced them had passed.