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Sticks
1 cup scalded milk 1/4 cup butter 1 1/2 tablespoons sugar 1/2 teaspoon salt 1 yeast cake dissolved in 1/4 cup lukewarm water White 1 egg 3 3/4 cups flour Add butter, sugar, and salt to milk; when lukewarm, add dissolved yeast cake, white of egg well beaten, and flour. Knead, let rise, shape, let rise again, and start baking in a hot oven, reducing heat, that sticks may be crisp and dry. To shape sticks, first shape as small biscuits, roll on board (where there is no flour) with hands until eight inches in length, keeping of uniform size and rounded ends, which may be done by bringing fingers close to, but not over, ends of sticks.
A lean-ish enriched dough shaped into long thin bread sticks, baked hot then dried out at lower heat. The whole point is the two-stage bake, and the rolling surface must stay bare.
- Yeast cakeCompressed yeast cakes of this period varied in size, commonly somewhere between about 0.6 and 1 oz. One packet of active dry yeast (2 1/4 teaspoons) is a reasonable substitute; dissolve it in the 1/4 cup of lukewarm water as written, ideally around 105F.
- Scalded milkScalding was standard practice with raw milk; it was done to kill bacteria, and is also explained as destroying milk components thought to weaken gluten. With pasteurized milk it is largely unnecessary, though heating and cooling to lukewarm still brings the dough up to working temperature. Do not add the yeast until the mixture is below about 110F or you will kill it.
- The oven, in numbersThe recipe gives no temperatures or times. A "hot oven" is generally taken as roughly 400-450F; start there until the sticks are set and colored, then reduce to somewhere around 300-325F and leave them long enough to dry through. Sticks pulled at the end of the hot stage will be soft in the middle.
- The bare boardThe instruction to roll where there is no flour is the hinge of the recipe. A lightly tacky dough grips the bare wood and elongates evenly; flour makes it skid and the stick tapers or tears.
- Rounded endsKeeping the fingers just inside the ends, never past them, prevents the tips from thinning into points that scorch in the initial hot oven.
- Rising timesNo times are given. Expect roughly 1 to 1 1/2 hours for the first rise until doubled, and 30-40 minutes for the shaped sticks, which should look puffed but not fully doubled.
- Egg whiteThe beaten white lightens the crumb and helps the crust dry crisp. Reserve the yolk for something else, or brush it thinned with water over the shaped sticks if you want a glossier finish.
- YieldAbout 24 to 30 sticks eight inches long. Stored airtight once completely cool, they keep crisp for several days; refresh in a 300F oven for five minutes.