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Whole-Wheat Bread
Dissolve a cake of yeast in a cupful of warm water. Measure out 2 cupfuls of milk, and pour onto this 2 cupfuls of boiling water. Add to this by stirring a teaspoonful of salt and of sugar. When these are at about 98 degree temperature add the yeast. Then add a quart of whole-wheat flour, or enough to make a good batter. Beat for five minutes as hard as you can, and add flour until you can handle it--no more. Knead this for ten minutes and set for three hours, to let it rise. Then knead for five minutes more and, after making it into loaves, let it rise again; then bake. Small loaves will bake in three-quarters of an hour.
A plain straight-dough whole-wheat loaf from the era when yeast came in a cake and ovens had no dial. The proportions work; the omissions are the oven temperature and the yield.
- YeastA cake of compressed yeast was commonly around 0.6 oz, though cake sizes varied. One packet of active dry yeast (2 1/4 teaspoons) or instant yeast stands in for it. Dry yeast prefers water at 105-110F rather than the 98F specified here, which was correct for the fresh cake.
- The 98 degreesThat is body temperature. Check the liquid before adding the yeast; if it is above about 120F it will damage it.
- Milk unscaldedThe recipe does not scald the milk; boiling water is poured onto it instead. Scalding was a common instruction in period bread recipes, and with pasteurized milk it is not necessary.
- A quart of flourFour cups by volume. Considerably more flour is worked in during the second stage; "until you can handle it, no more" is the real instruction, and whole-wheat dough should stay slightly tacky.
- SaltOne teaspoon for four cups of liquid and eight-plus cups of flour is very low by current taste. Two to three teaspoons gives a loaf that does not read as flat.
- Oven heatNo temperature is given because the book assumes a wood or coal range. Bake at 375F. Small loaves in three-quarters of an hour is accurate; test for an internal temperature of 195-205F rather than relying on the clock.
- The three-hour riseThat reflects a cool kitchen and a modest yeast dose. In a 70F room this dough will double in 1 1/2 to 2 hours. Judge by volume, not by the stated time, or it will over-proof and collapse in the pan.
- YieldThe second rise in the pans takes 45 to 60 minutes.