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Gluten Bread
One quart of milk; whites of two eggs; one cake of compressed yeast and a teaspoon of salt. Scald the milk, dissolve yeast cake in a little water, add the salt, and, when milk is lukewarm stir together, and add, gradually, one quart of gluten flour. Add the slightly beaten whites of the two eggs. It should be of a consistency to drop from the spoon rather than pour and should be baked in greased pans filled about half full. Bake one hour.
A yeasted batter bread from the era when "gluten flour" was sold as a low-starch bread for diabetics. The flour is the whole problem: what that name meant in 1911 is not what it means on a bag today.
- Gluten flour then and nowGluten flour -- Early 1900s gluten flour was wheat flour with much of its starch washed out; the protein content of commercial brands varied widely and was frequently lower than the label claimed, but it still behaved like flour. The modern equivalent sold as vital wheat gluten is about 75-80 percent protein and cannot be used quart for quart here; a full quart of it would set into something closer to seitan than bread. A workable stand-in is high-protein bread flour with vital wheat gluten blended in at about 1 part gluten to 4 parts flour.
- The quart of flourMeasured by volume, a quart is 4 cups, or roughly 1 lb of flour. Treat the quart as a starting point and stop adding when the batter just drops from the spoon rather than pours, which is the test the recipe itself gives.
- Compressed yeastOne cake was about 0.6 oz of fresh yeast. Substitute 2 1/4 teaspoons of active dry or instant yeast. If using active dry, dissolve it in the little water as directed; instant can go straight into the flour.
- Scalding the milkScalding was standard with raw milk and is usually explained as denaturing whey proteins that would otherwise slacken the dough. Many bakers skip it with modern pasteurized milk, though the point is disputed; either way the milk must be cooled to lukewarm, about 105-110F, before it meets the yeast.
- The rise the recipe omitsNo proofing time is given, which the period assumed the cook knew. Let the batter rise in the greased pans until it has nearly doubled and reaches the rim, 45 minutes to an hour and a half depending on the room, then bake. Baking straight from mixing gives a dense, damp loaf.
- Oven temperatureThe recipe gives no oven temperature. A moderate oven, 350-375F, suits the hour's bake specified; for two loaves in 8x4-inch pans, test for doneness at 200-205F internal rather than by the clock alone.
- Egg whitesThe whites are for lift and a paler crumb, not richness, so they are folded in last and only slightly beaten. Do not whip them to peaks -- this is a batter, not a sponge cake, and stiff foam will simply deflate as the gluten hydrates.
- YieldA quart of liquid and a quart of flour makes roughly two standard loaves, or one large one plus a small pan. Filling pans half full, as instructed, is what keeps a batter this slack from spilling over during the rise.
Gluten bread belongs to the pre-insulin diabetic diet, when starch restriction was the only treatment physicians could offer and "gluten flour" was a commercial product sold on the promise that its starch had been removed. Analyses published in medical journals of the 1890s and 1900s repeatedly found that the branded gluten flours contained far more starch than advertised. Its appearance in a general household manual like the Butterick book shows how far invalid cookery had moved into the mainstream kitchen. The batter method here, mixed and poured rather than kneaded, may suggest that de-starched flour would not form a workable dough in the ordinary way.