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Bran Bread (Mrs F B Wilson cakes comp)
Mrs. F. B. Wilson. 2 cakes comp. yeast 1 C lukewarm water 1/2 C molasses 7 C flour 2 C milk, scalded and cooled 5 C bran 4 T lard or butter 2 t salt The addition of one cup of raisins affords a pleasant change. Dissolve yeast in lukewarm liquid, add molasses and four cups of flour; beat well. Then add bran, lard or butter, balance of flour and the salt. Knead well, let rise until double in bulk. Divide into three loaves, let rise again. Bake forty-five minutes in a moderate oven.
A large, straightforward yeasted bran loaf that makes three pans at once. The proportions are sound; only the yeast, the oven description and the meaning of "bran" need translating.
- Compressed yeastTwo cakes of compressed (fresh) yeast is about 1.2 oz. Substitute two 1/4-oz packets of active dry yeast, roughly 4 1/2 teaspoons, dissolved in the cup of lukewarm water as directed.
- "Moderate oven"350F. Forty-five minutes suits a standard 9x5 loaf pan; the loaves are done at an internal temperature of 195-200F and should sound hollow when tapped out of the pan.
- What bran meantPlain unprocessed wheat bran, the flaky mill by-product sold loose. Not bran flakes, not bran cereal, and not oat bran, which is finer and absorbs water differently.
- AbbreviationsC is a cup, T a tablespoon, t a teaspoon. Five cups of bran is bulky but light, only about 10 oz by weight against roughly 2 lb of flour.
- Scalding the milkScalding was standard practice when milk was raw; the usual explanation is that it deactivates components in the milk that slacken dough, though keeping quality and safety were also reasons given. With pasteurized milk it is generally treated as unnecessary; simply warm it to lukewarm and proceed.
- Salt goes in lateSalt is not added until after the first four cups of flour have been beaten with the yeast and liquid, going in with the bran, fat and remaining flour. Whatever the intention, the effect is that the yeast gets a head start without salt slowing fermentation.
- Dough feelBran drinks water slowly, so a dough that seems right at the end of kneading will stiffen as it rests. Err on the slack side and give the mixed dough ten minutes before judging whether it needs more flour.
- Yield and risesThree loaves. First rise until doubled, around an hour in a warm room; the shaped loaves need a second rise until they crown the pan rims, usually 45 minutes to an hour.
- RaisinsIf using the cup of raisins, work them in at the final kneading rather than at the sponge stage; they are easier to distribute and less disruptive to the dough that way.
Bran bread belongs to the long American enthusiasm for "coarse" breads that ran from Sylvester Graham's 1830s campaign against fine white flour through the breakfast-cereal and sanitarium culture of the 1890s and 1900s, by which time bran was being sold back to households as a health food rather than fed to livestock. A loaf like this one sits comfortably between the two impulses at work in a church cook book: it is thrifty, using a cheap mill by-product and molasses instead of sugar, and it is virtuous, in the digestive sense that period cookery writing discussed with some frankness. The three-loaf yield is typical of a contribution meant for a family that baked once or twice a week, and the note about raisins "affording a pleasant change" is the sort of aside that marks these books as written by cooks for cooks who already knew what they were doing.