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Whole-Wheat Bread
1 cake compressed yeast 3 level tablespoons brown sugar 3 tablespoons melted lard 1½ cups lukewarm water 7½ cups whole-wheat flour 1½ cups milk, scalded and cooled 1 teaspoon salt Dissolve the yeast and sugar in lukewarm liquid; add lard or butter; then flour, gradually, as whole wheat flour absorbs moisture slowly, and last the salt. Knead thoroughly, being sure to keep dough soft; place in well-greased bowl, cover and set aside in warm place, to rise for about two hours. When double in bulk, turn out on kneading board. Mold into loaves; place in well-greased pans; cover and set to rise again for about one hour, or until light. Bake one hour, in a slower oven than for white bread. •
A straight-dough whole-wheat loaf from the era of fresh yeast cakes. The instructions are sound; only the yeast, the oven language and the yield need translating.
- The yeast cakeOne cake of compressed yeast is roughly 0.6 oz fresh yeast, equivalent to about 2 1/4 teaspoons (one packet) of active dry or instant yeast. Dissolve dry yeast in the lukewarm water with the sugar as written; instant can simply be mixed into the flour.
- "A slower oven than for white bread"The book gives no temperatures. Period white bread was generally baked in a hot oven; for this loaf a moderate oven, roughly 350-375F, is a reasonable modern reading. Whole wheat's bran and the brown sugar darken the crust faster than white dough, so a full hour in a genuinely hot oven risks scorching.
- Adding flour graduallyThis is the hinge. Whole-wheat flour hydrates slowly, so dough that feels correct after five minutes of mixing will be stiff twenty minutes later. Hold back the last cup of the 7 1/2 and add it only if the dough is still slack after kneading.
- Salt lastThe order is deliberate rather than fussy — salt slows yeast on direct contact. Adding it after the flour is in keeps the ferment brisk. Do not omit the teaspoon; whole wheat without salt tastes flat and bready.
- LardThree tablespoons of melted lard gives a soft crumb and keeps well. Butter, as the method allows, or a neutral oil substitutes measure for measure, with a slight loss of tenderness.
- Scalded milkWith raw milk, scalding dealt with souring organisms; it is also generally credited with denaturing whey proteins that would otherwise slacken the dough, so it is not simply redundant with pasteurized milk. Either scald and cool to blood heat as the recipe directs, or warm the milk to lukewarm and accept a slightly softer dough. Never let hot milk meet the yeast.
- Rising timesTwo hours for the bulk and one hour in the pan assume a warm kitchen. Judge by the dough — doubled in the bowl, and risen just above the rim of the pan. Whole wheat has weaker gluten than white flour and collapses if pushed past that point.
- Yield and pansThe recipe says only "mold into loaves." The quantity of flour and liquid suggests three standard 8 1/2 x 4 1/2 inch loaves, or two large ones. Bake to an internal temperature near 200F if you want certainty.
Whole-wheat bread occupied an odd position in American cookbooks of the early twentieth century: technically the older, plainer bread, but by 1900 it was often marketed as the health-conscious choice against the fine white loaf that roller milling had made cheap and universal. The reform tradition running back to Sylvester Graham in the 1830s had argued for the whole grain on moral and digestive grounds, and by the author's day that argument had settled into ordinary domestic-science advice about bran and "bulk." The compressed yeast cake dates the recipe as firmly as anything else -- commercial fresh yeast, sold in cakes at the grocer, had largely displaced the homemade hop-and-potato ferments that filled bread chapters a generation earlier, which is why the method here can simply begin "dissolve the yeast" and get on with it.