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Indian Cornflour Bread
Take Indian maize and fine wheaten flour in the proportions of two pounds of the former to four pounds of the latter. Mix in an earthen pan, with a little salt to flavour. Make a hollow in the centre, and put into it two table-spoonfuls of yeast stirred into half a pint of warm water; make a batter of it and the surrounding flour; cover lightly with flour and with a warm woollen cloth, and place before the fire to rise for an hour or more. When well risen, knead the flour into a smooth dough with as much more warm water as will be necessary, and then make it into loaves, which should be allowed to rise for nearly half an hour before being baked. Time, an hour and three-quarters to two hours. Sufficient for two loaves. INDIAN CORNFLOUR BREAD (another way). (See BREAD, INDIAN CORN.)
A straightforward sponge-and-dough bread at a scale suited to a Victorian household. The proportions work; the quantities and the fire-side proofing need translating.
- Indian maize means cornmeal"Indian" in nineteenth-century cookery books signals maize rather than anything from India, and "Indian cornflour" here is finely ground yellow cornmeal, not modern cornflour/cornstarch. Fine or medium grind works; coarse polenta meal will give a gritty crumb unless you scald it first with some of the water and let it cool.
- Scale it downSix pounds of flour is roughly twenty-odd cups and, at the hydration suggested below, yields something like 9 1/2 to 10 lb of dough. A quarter batch — 8 oz cornmeal to 1 lb wheat flour, about 2 tsp salt — gives one generous loaf and is far easier to handle.
- The yeast is ambiguousTwo tablespoons of the period's liquid brewer's yeast or barm is not directly convertible. For the full 6 lb of flour, about 4 tsp instant or 1 oz fresh yeast is in the right range; for a quarter batch, 1 tsp instant.
- The sponge is the pointMixing yeast, half a pint (1 cup) of warm water and only the surrounding flour into a loose batter, then leaving it an hour, is a sponge. Note that the maize is already mixed with the wheat before the hollow is made, so the sponge contains both. It builds flavour and gives the fermentation a long head start in a dough where a third of the flour contributes no gluten. Do not shortcut it.
- Total water"As much more warm water as will be necessary" is left open, as period bread recipes usually are, and cornmeal does absorb unpredictably. Expect around 60–65 percent of the combined flour weight in total liquid, sponge included, and add the last of it slowly.
- Rising before the fireAn open hearth gave radiant heat on one side only, hence the woollen cloth and the hour-plus. A 75–80F kitchen counter does the same job; the sponge will be ready in about an hour, the shaped loaves in 30–45 minutes rather than the "nearly half an hour" a hot hearth allowed.
- Oven heat, which the recipe omitsBake at 425F for the first 15 minutes, then drop to 375F; a loaf of a couple of pounds takes around 45–55 minutes, and the crumb is done at an internal 200–205F. What the stated "hour and three-quarters to two hours" covers is unclear — it may be the bake for loaves of the size six pounds of flour would make, or the process from mixing onward.
- Texture to expectAt a third corn by weight the loaf rises noticeably less than an all-wheat bread and keeps a slightly crumbly, faintly sweet crumb. It stales quickly — best on the day, and excellent toasted after.
Maize-and-wheat breads like this one sat at the meeting point of economy and fashion in Victorian Britain. American cornmeal arrived in quantity from the 1840s onward, promoted hard during the Irish famine years as a cheap substitute for wheat, and it lingered in British cookbooks long afterward as a way of stretching flour. Because maize contains no gluten, it had to be blended with wheat flour — enough for the sweet flavour and yellow crumb without a loaf that refuses to rise. Cassell's treats it as a sound everyday loaf, cheaper than pure wheaten bread, and as one of several corn entries the dictionary cross-references to a fuller recipe elsewhere.