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Bread with Sponge SPONGE
1 pint water 1/2 cake compressed yeast, or 1 dry yeast cake, or 1 small cup home made yeast 1 qt. sifted Gold Medal Flour or sufficient to make a medium batter Set the sponge late in the evening by dissolving the yeast in the water, then add the flour and mix until the sponge is smooth. The sponge when mixed should have a temperature of 80 degree C to 82 degree.
In the morning add to the sponge the following ingredients: 1 pint water 2 teaspoons salt 2 tablespoons sugar 2 tablespoons lard 2 qts. Gold Medal Flour or sufficient to make a medium dough Break up the sponge until the ingredients are dissolved and the batter smooth. Add the flour and knead until smooth. The temperature should be 82 degree C to 84 degree. Allow the dough to rise until light then knead down gently and allow to rise until nearly light and make into loaves. Place in pans and allow to rise to the top of the pan, then bake in a medium warm oven.
A standard overnight sponge-and-dough white bread from a flour-company pamphlet, written for cooks who already knew what bread dough should feel like. Two things need translating: the temperatures and the yeast.
- The temperatures are Fahrenheit"80 degree C to 82 degree" is a misprint; 80-82C would kill the yeast outright. These are Fahrenheit figures, the standard dough temperatures still used in bakeries. Aim for a finished sponge around 80F and a finished dough around 82F, adjusting the water temperature up or down to hit them.
- Yeast conversionHalf a cake of compressed (fresh) yeast is about 0.3 oz. In modern terms that is roughly 1 to 1 1/4 teaspoons of active dry or instant yeast. The quantity is deliberately small: the sponge works overnight, perhaps 10 to 12 hours, and more yeast would blow it out and sour it by morning.
- Homemade yeastThe third option, "1 small cup home made yeast," refers to a liquid hop or potato yeast kept going in the kitchen. It is not a sourdough starter and there is no reliable modern substitute for it; use commercial yeast and treat the cup of liquid as absent.
- Flour quantitiesA quart of sifted flour is 4 cups, about 1 lb by weight when sifted. The whole recipe runs to roughly 3 lb of flour against 1 quart (32 oz) of water, or about 65 percent hydration. As the text says, the flour figures are a guide only; go by the feel of a medium dough.
- LardTwo tablespoons of lard enriches the crumb and keeps the loaf soft a day longer. Unsalted butter or a neutral shortening substitutes directly at the same volume; the effect on flavour is small at this proportion.
- "Rise until nearly light"The distinction between "light" and "nearly light" is real: the first rise goes to roughly double, the second is stopped a little short so the dough still has strength for the pan proof. Overproofing at the second stage is the usual cause of a collapsed top.
- OvenA "medium warm" oven of this period is usually reckoned somewhere in the region of 375 to 425F. Bake 35 to 45 minutes depending on loaf size; the loaves are done at an internal temperature of 195 to 200F and should sound hollow when tapped out of the pan.
- YieldAbout 3 lb of flour and a quart of water gives a little over 5 lb of dough, or roughly three 1 1/2 lb loaves in 8 1/2 x 4 1/2 inch pans. Halve the whole recipe if you want a single day's baking.
Gold Medal was the flagship brand of the Washburn-Crosby Company of Minneapolis, the firm that later became General Mills, and cookbooks like this one were promotional literature distributed to sell hard spring-wheat flour to home bakers. The sponge method it teaches was the older of the two standard household approaches: a loose overnight batter of flour, water and a little yeast, refreshed in the morning with the salt, sugar, fat and the bulk of the flour. It survived alongside the faster straight-dough method because the long, cool ferment builds flavour and gives a more tolerant dough from flour whose strength varied from sack to sack. The alternative of "home made yeast" in the ingredient list is a marker of the period, when many households still kept a hop- or potato-based liquid yeast going in a crock; compressed yeast, sold fresh by the cake, was steadily displacing it in towns with reliable delivery.