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Whole Wheat Bread
1 cake FLEISCHMANN'S YEAST 1 cup milk, scalded and cooled 4 tablespoonfuls light brown sugar or molasses 1 cup lukewarm water 2 tablespoonfuls lard or butter, melted 4 cups graham flour 1 cup sifted white flour 1 teaspoonful salt Dissolve yeast and sugar, or molasses, in lukewarm liquid. Add lard or butter, then flour gradually. or enough to make a dough that can be handled, and the salt. Knead thoroughly, or "throw and roll," being sure to keep dough soft.
Cover and set aside in a warm place to rise for about two hours.
When double in bulk, turn out on kneading board, mould into loaves, and place in well-greased pans, cover and set to rise again-about one hour, or until light. Bake one hour, in a slower oven than for white bread.
If wanted for over night, use one-half cake of yeast and an extra half-teaspoonful salt.
A straightforward sponge-free yeast dough from a Fleischmann's promotional booklet, written when a "cake" of yeast was the standard unit and graham flour was on every shelf. Two things need translating: the yeast and the oven.
- The yeast cakeOne cake of Fleischmann's household compressed yeast was small; the familiar foil-wrapped cake is 0.6 oz, though cake sizes varied over the years. A packet (2 1/4 teaspoons) of active dry or instant yeast is the usual substitute. The overnight variation halving the yeast follows the same logic: less yeast, longer rise.
- Graham flourGraham flour is coarsely milled whole wheat with the bran and germ returned. Modern stone-ground whole wheat flour is the closest match; standard whole wheat works but gives a finer crumb.
- "A slower oven than for white bread"The recipe gives no temperatures, only this comparison; in modern terms it points to a moderate oven, around 350F, rather than the hotter oven a white loaf takes. Whole wheat loaves darken faster because of the bran and the molasses or brown sugar, which is the likely reason for the gentler heat over a full hour.
- Judge by temperature, not the clockAn hour is right for a large loaf in a heavy tin, but check the centre: 190-200F on an instant-read thermometer, and the bottom should sound hollow when tapped.
- Salt goes in with the flourThe original adds salt last, which is fine. Mixing salt through the flour rather than onto the yeast liquid is a common modern precaution, though the recipe's own order -- liquid, then flour, then salt -- already keeps concentrated yeast and salt apart.
- "Throw and roll"Presumably shorthand for slapping the dough down on the board and folding it over rather than pushing it; the recipe does not explain the term. The instruction to keep the dough soft matters more than the method; whole wheat absorbs water slowly and a dough that feels right at first will stiffen as it rests.
- Lard or butterEither works at 2 tablespoons; lard gives a softer crumb and longer keeping. Vegetable shortening or oil is an acceptable stand-in.
- YieldFive cups of flour with two cups of liquid is a large batch, and the recipe says "loaves", plural; it will fill two pans more comfortably than one, and two will bake more evenly in an hour at this heat.
Graham flour takes its name from Sylvester Graham, the 1830s American temperance and dietary reformer who campaigned against finely bolted white flour and urged householders to bake coarse whole-meal bread at home. By the time this booklet appeared, "graham" had long since detached from his preaching and become simply a grocery term for whole wheat flour. The recipe itself comes from the era when the Fleischmann company distributed free cookbooks built entirely around its compressed yeast cakes, sold fresh and door-to-door. The note about using half a cake for an overnight rise reflects a kitchen where bread was fitted around the day rather than the reverse.