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Whole Wheat Bread
Prepare the sponge the same as in the first white bread formula. In the morning add three pints of warm water, two quarts of whole wheat flour, and two teaspoons of Larkin Table Salt. The quantity of flour may vary, owing to the brand used. Proceed as in any other bread.
This is the second half of a two-stage bread: the overnight sponge belongs to the white bread formula earlier in the section, and only the morning additions are given here. Read it as a large-batch bakery formula scaled for a household with a bread bowl and several loaf pans.
- The sponge is the missing halfAn overnight sponge of this period would typically be yeast dissolved in warm water with enough flour to make a thick batter, left covered overnight in a warm room, but the actual quantities are in the white bread formula this recipe points back to and are not repeated here. If you substitute modern instant yeast, about a teaspoon should be enough for an overnight ferment of this size; more will exhaust itself before morning.
- UnitsThree pints of water is 6 cups; two quarts of flour is 8 cups, or about 2 pounds of whole wheat. With the sponge included this makes a very large batch, probably three or four standard loaves, though the yield depends on the sponge, whose size is not given here.
- Salt is short by modern tasteTwo teaspoons is about 12 grams, which against this flour (plus whatever the sponge contributes) works out at roughly 1 percent or a little under. Bakers now aim for 1.5 to 2 percent of total flour weight, which for this batch is nearer 4 teaspoons.
- "The quantity of flour may vary"This is the hinge of the recipe and it is still true. Whole wheat drinks more water than white flour and modern brands vary in bran content and grind, so hold back a cup or two of flour and add it only until the dough stops sticking to the bowl. Whole wheat dough should feel slacker and tackier than white.
- Whole wheat flour then and nowTurn-of-the-century whole wheat and graham flours were often coarser and were sold with the germ intact, which makes them go rancid within a few months. Buy in small quantities, smell it before using, and keep it in the freezer.
- Don't over-proofBran cuts gluten strands, so these loaves have less rising power than white bread and will collapse if pushed. Take them to the oven when the dough has not quite doubled and springs back slowly to a fingertip.
- OvenThe recipe gives no oven directions; "proceed as in any other bread" simply sends you back to the earlier formula. For a modern oven, 400-425F for the first 15 minutes, dropping to 375F to finish, 35-45 minutes total for a 1.5-pound loaf. The loaf is done at an internal temperature of 195-205F and sounds hollow when tapped on the bottom.
"Larkin Table Salt" gives this page away: the book is a premium cookbook from the Larkin Company of Buffalo, the mail-order soap and grocery firm that built a national business on club orders and free household premiums, and its recipes name Larkin goods at every turn. The whole wheat loaf earns its place because of the health-food current running through American cooking in these decades — the graham and whole-meal enthusiasm generally traced back to Sylvester Graham's preaching in the 1830s, revived and commercialized by the breakfast-cereal and sanitarium movements by 1900. The two-stage overnight sponge here is older than either, and letting a wet batter ferment all night both stretched a small amount of yeast and gave the loaf its flavor.