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Plum Loaf, Plain

Put two pounds of best flour into a bowl, and mix with it half a tea-spoonful of salt, half a pound of picked and dried currants, four ounces of moist sugar, and half a nutmeg, grated. Dissolve half an ounce of German yeast very gradually in three-quarters of a pint of lukewarm milk, in which has been dissolved four ounces of butter or good beef dripping. Stir this into the flour, and knead it to a smooth paste. Put a cover over the bowl, and set the dough to rise for about an hour. Make it up into a loaf, put it into a buttered tin, and bake in a moderate oven. If preferred, a table-spoonful of solid brewer's yeast or two dessert-spoonfuls of baking-powder may be used instead of the German yeast. In order to ascertain whether the loaf is sufficiently baked, put a skewer into it; if it comes out clean and dry, the cake is done. It is perhaps a better plan to knead in the sugar, currants, and spice after the dough has risen (as in PLUM CAKE, PLAIN).