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Rolls (Cake comp yeast C milk scalded)
1 cake comp, yeast ½ C milk, scalded and cooled 1/2 C lukewarm water 1 T sugar Mrs. A. M. Casey. 3½ C sifted flour (Club House) 1 scant t salt 2 T lard or butter, melted Dissolve the yeast and sugar in lukewarm liquid. Add lard or butter and half the flour. Beat until smooth. Add salt and the rest of flour, or enough to make a moderately firm dough. Knead thoroughly. Roll out and cut with a large biscuit cutter or cookie cutter. Place in well-greased shallow pans, or cookie sheets, a slight distance apart; cover and set to rise about two hours or until doubled in bulk. When light, bake in a hot oven ten minutes. 1/2 C sugar 1 t salt 1/2 C shortening 2 C warm milk
A plain milk roll of the kind that filled church-supper bread baskets, complicated only by the way the page was set: the ingredient column, the cook's name and a stray list from a neighbouring recipe all run together in the original.
- Read the ingredient list firstThe working recipe appears to be 1 cake compressed yeast, 1½ C scalded and cooled milk, ½ C lukewarm water, 1 T sugar, 3½ C sifted flour, 1 scant t salt, 2 T melted lard or butter. The trailing "½ C sugar, 1 t salt, ½ C shortening, 2 C warm milk" is not used by the method and looks like a fragment of a neighbouring recipe; how it got there cannot be established from the page. Ignore it.
- Compressed yeastCakes of compressed (fresh) yeast were sold in several sizes; the small household cake was commonly about ⅔ oz (0.6 oz). One packet of active dry or instant yeast, roughly 2¼ teaspoons, is the usual stand-in. Dissolve dry yeast in the lukewarm water with the sugar and let it stand a few minutes before proceeding.
- Scalding the milkMilk was scalded on the understanding that something in unheated milk slackened gluten (traditionally described as an enzyme; whey proteins are the modern explanation), and to destroy stray bacteria in raw milk. Pasteurised milk needs neither, though warming it to blood heat still speeds the first rise. Cooled means genuinely lukewarm, not warm enough to check the yeast.
- Club House flourA brand name the cook expected her neighbours to recognise; nothing on the page identifies it further. Ordinary all-purpose works. Because the flour is called for sifted, measure by weight if you can: 3½ C sifted is roughly 12-12½ oz / 350 g, and scooping unsifted flour will give you a stiff, dry dough.
- A hot ovenThe recipe gives no temperature; 'hot oven' is generally read as 400-425F. Ten minutes suits that heat for a thin rolled-and-cut roll; watch for pale gold rather than deep brown, since the crumb dries quickly at this size.
- Rolled, not shapedCutting rounds with a biscuit cutter gives a flat-topped roll, closer to a raised biscuit than a dinner roll. Re-rolled scraps will be tougher, so cut economically the first time.
- Two hours is a guide, not a ruleThe instruction "about two hours or until doubled" suits a kitchen cooler than most modern ones. In a warm modern room with commercial yeast, shaped rolls of this size will usually be ready well before two hours. Judge by the dough.
- YieldHard to pin down, since the recipe tells you to add enough flour to make a moderately firm dough. Expect roughly 18 rolls from a 2½-inch cutter, fewer from a larger one.
Compressed yeast in cakes reached American home kitchens in quantity in the last quarter of the nineteenth century. The recipe is short, and where an older cook might have described keeping a starter alive, this one says only "1 cake." The attribution to Mrs. A. M. Casey and the brand name Club House sitting unexplained in the flour line suggest a book compiled from members' handwritten cards and sold locally. Cooks were writing for neighbours who shopped at the same store and needed no elaboration.