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Entire Wheat Bread
For two large loaves allow two quarts of entire wheat flour; one and one-half pints of warm water; one tablespoon of sugar; one tablespoon of butter; one-half tablespoon of salt; one-half cake of compressed yeast, or one half cup of home-made yeast. Measure the flour before sifting; then sift it into a bowl, setting aside one cup to be used in kneading the bread later on. Add the sugar and salt to the flour, dissolve the yeast (if the compressed is used) in a little of the water, and pour it and the rest of the water into the bowl; lastly add the butter, slightly softened. Beat the dough vigorously with a spoon; and when it is smooth and light, sprinkle the board with some of the flour reserved, turn out the dough upon it, and knead it for twenty minutes. Return the dough to the bowl and set it to rise over night. This will take six or eight hours if the bread is started in the morning. When the dough is light turn it out upon the board, divide it into two loaves, mold them smooth, place them in well-greased pans, and set them in a warm place. When the loaves have doubled in size, bake for one hour.
A straightforward overnight whole-wheat loaf, but the original assumes a cook who knows her own oven and her own yeast. The two things it leaves out are the baking temperature and how much yeast a modern packet represents.
- Entire wheat flour"Entire wheat" is whole-wheat flour — the whole kernel ground fine, as distinct from the coarser Graham flour of the same period. Modern stone-ground whole wheat is a fair match; two quarts is 8 cups, roughly 2 lb or 950 g.
- Water measureOne and a half pints is 3 cups (about 710 ml). Against 7 cups of working flour that is a slack, sticky dough by hand-kneading standards, which is why a cup is held back for the board.
- Compressed yeastA cake of compressed (fresh) yeast of this period was commonly somewhere between half and two-thirds of an ounce, so half a cake is on the order of 1/3 oz fresh — near enough 1 teaspoon of instant dry yeast. Do not substitute a full modern packet; at 2 1/4 teaspoons the dough is likely to blow past its peak during an eight-hour rise.
- Home-made yeastThe half cup of home-made yeast is a liquid barm kept going in the household, not a sourdough starter as now understood. Its strength varied week to week, so rise times with it were unpredictable.
- Oven temperatureNone is given. A moderate oven, in the range of 350–375°F, is the sensible modern reading, and an hour at that heat suits two large loaves. The interior should read about 200°F.
- KneadingTwenty minutes by hand is not an exaggeration for whole-wheat dough, which develops slowly because the bran cuts gluten strands. A stand mixer with a dough hook does the same work in 8 to 10 minutes on medium-low.
- The overnight riseSet the bowl somewhere genuinely cool — a modern heated kitchen at 72°F will overproof this dough well before morning. A 60–65°F spot, or the refrigerator with a longer schedule, is closer to what an unheated pantry would have offered.
- Pans and yield'Two large loaves' is not defined, but the quantity of dough suits two 9x5-inch tins, well greased. Expect a dozen or so slices each; the crumb is dense and close by modern sandwich-bread standards.
Whole-wheat bread appears in American cookbooks of the 1890s and 1900s as much for reasons of health as of economy. The Graham movement of the earlier nineteenth century had made a moral case for unbolted flour, and by the time Butterick issued its cook book in 1911 the argument had cooled into ordinary dietary advice: entire wheat was held to be more nourishing and more "wholesome" than the increasingly white, roller-milled flour that had taken over commercial baking. The recipe also marks a technological moment. It offers compressed yeast and home-made yeast as equal alternatives, which tells you that reliable manufactured yeast was widely available but that plenty of households still kept their own barm going.