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B. F. Bread
7½ cups breakfast food 1 tablespoon brown sugar 1½ teaspoons salt 1 cake compressed yeast 1½ cups lukewarm water 1½ cups milk (scalded and cooled) 3 tablespoons lard or butter (melted).
Dissolve the yeast and sugar in lukewarm liquid. Add lard or butter, then the cereal gradually as it absorbs moisture rather slowly. Lastly, add the salt. Knead thoroughly, being sure to keep dough soft. Place in well-greased bowl, cover and set aside in a warm place, to rise for about 2 hours. When double in bulk, turn out on kneading board. Mould into loaves, place in well-greased pans, cover and set to rise again for about one hour or until light. Bake 1 hour in a slower oven than for white bread.
If wanted for over-night, use cake yeast and 1 extra teaspoon salt.
Note-As in the case of bread made from whole wheat meal, many prefer using a sponge at first. A sponge is a thick batter, not a dough we knead a dough, but beat or mix a batter.
"B. F." stands for breakfast food — the coarse wheat cereal the mill sold alongside its flour, used here as the whole of the dough rather than as an addition to white bread. Two things decide the loaf: how much cereal you actually work in, and a gentler oven than you would use for white bread.
- The hinge: add the cereal by feelCoarse cereal takes up water slowly, so a dough that seems slack at first will stiffen as it stands. Hold back the last cup or so of the 7½, and keep the dough distinctly soft — a stiff cereal dough bakes dense and dry.
- What "breakfast food" meansAlmost certainly a wheat breakfast cereal rather than a flaked one — the recipe's own note compares the loaf to bread made from whole wheat meal. Something like cracked wheat, farina or wheatlets is the closest modern stand-in; flaked cold cereals are unlikely to behave the same way.
- YeastOne cake of compressed yeast is about ⅗ oz, equivalent to roughly 2¼ teaspoons (one packet) of active dry or instant yeast. Dissolve dry yeast in the lukewarm water with the sugar as written.
- Oven temperatureThe book gives no temperatures. White bread is generally baked around 400–425F, so "a slower oven than for white bread" is usually read as roughly 350–375F. A full hour at that heat suits a large loaf; check for 200–205F in the centre.
- Salt last, and whySalt goes in at the end. One likely reason is that undissolved salt in direct contact with fresh yeast slows it; the order may also simply reflect the gradual addition of the cereal.
- Scalding the milkScalding raw milk served both to make it safe and to denature milk proteins that could weaken the dough. With pasteurized milk you mainly need it warm; scalding does no harm, and its remaining benefit is debated.
- The overnight note is ambiguousThe recipe already calls for compressed yeast, so "use cake yeast" for an overnight rise may mean the older dried yeast cake, which works much more slowly; the line is unclear. With modern yeast, do an overnight rise in the refrigerator instead and keep the extra teaspoon of salt.
- YieldEnough for two standard 9x5 loaves, or three smaller ones. Grease the pans well; whole-grain cereal doughs stick.
- The sponge optionThe recipe's note explains only that a sponge is a thick beaten batter rather than a kneaded dough. In practice that means beating the yeast, liquids and part of the cereal to a batter, letting it rise until bubbly, then working in the rest with the fat and salt — at the cost of a few extra hours.
The Five Roses Cook Book was published by the Lake of the Woods Milling Company of Montreal, which built it largely from recipes sent in by users of the brand's flour — hence the abbreviated, slightly telegraphic style and the assumption that a reader already knows what "breakfast food" is. A bread made entirely of the cereal fits a period in which whole-grain baking was being promoted on health grounds. The note comparing it to "whole wheat meal" bread, and the small lesson at the end distinguishing a beaten sponge from a kneaded dough, suggest the book expected readers for whom anything but white bread was still unfamiliar territory.