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To Make Brown Bread Crumbs
Take the crusty part of some stale bread, put it into a moderate oven to dry, and bake a golden brown shade; crush with a rolling pin or in a mortar, pass through a fine sieve. These may be kept for a long time if put into a jar or bottle and well covered.
A pantry staple rather than a dish: dried, browned crumbs for coating cutlets, topping a casserole, or thickening a stuffing. The whole thing hinges on getting the bread bone-dry before it colours.
- Oven temperatureA moderate oven in books of this period is usually reckoned somewhere around 325-375F. For crumbs, err low, 300-325F, so the crust dries through before the surface takes colour; browned outside and still leathery within, the crumbs will not store well.
- Dry, then brownSpread the crusts in a single layer and leave them until they snap cleanly rather than bend. Any residual moisture is what turns a stored jar of crumbs musty or mouldy.
- Brown crumbs vs. whiteThese are what older books also call raspings, and they are not interchangeable with the soft fresh crumbs used in bread sauce or forcemeat. Brown crumbs are for coating and for gratin tops, where they are already cooked and only need to crisp.
- CrushingA rolling pin between two sheets of paper, or a few pulses in a food processor, replaces the mortar. Sieving is still worth doing if the crumbs are for coating fried food, since large shards scorch in the fat before the small ones colour.
- The bread itselfThe recipe says only "stale bread," and presumably assumes an ordinary plain loaf with a thick, dry crust. Modern soft sandwich bread gives poor yield; a lean white or country loaf, at least a day or two old, works far better. Skip enriched or sweetened breads, which burn.
- Yield and storageCooled completely and sealed in a jar they keep for months in a cool cupboard, which is the point of the original's "kept for a long time if put into a jar or bottle and well covered"; the freezer keeps them longer still. Discard any that smell stale or rancid.
Stale crust was among the more useful leftovers in a Victorian or Edwardian kitchen. Browned and sieved raspings appear often in cookery of the period: dusted over the top of a casserole or macaroni, pressed onto cutlets and croquettes before frying, sprinkled on a boiled ham, or stirred into stuffings. The word raspings is generally taken to be literal, from the older practice of rasping the burnt or blackened crust off a loaf with a coarse rasp before it went to table, the scrapings being saved rather than wasted. A cook who kept a bottle of them on the shelf could put a crust on almost anything at short notice.