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Bread with Buttermilk
The evening before baking, bring to the boiling point two quarts of buttermilk (or boil sour milk and take the same quantity of the whey), and pour into a crock in which a scant tea-cup of sifted flour has been placed. Let stand till sufficiently cool, then add half a cup of yeast, and flour to make a thick batter; the better and longer the sponge is stirred the whiter will be the bread. In the morning sift the flour into the bread-pan, pour the sponge in the center, stir in some of the flour, and let stand until after breakfast; then mix, kneading for about half an hour, the longer the better; when light, mold into loaves, this time kneading as little as possible. The secret of good bread is having good yeast, and not baking too hard. This makes four loaves and forty biscuit. -Mrs. M. C. Moore,
A long-sponge buttermilk bread from the era before packaged yeast, written for a household baking a week's supply at once. Two things need attention before anything else: the half cup of "yeast" is a liquid homemade starter, not a modern packet, and the recipe never mentions salt.
- The yeastHalf a cup of nineteenth-century liquid yeast (typically a flour-and-water or hop ferment) is usually reckoned to be roughly equivalent in leavening power to a packet of active dry or about 2 teaspoons of instant yeast, though it also contributed sourness and liquid. Slacken the sponge with a little extra water if you swap in dry yeast.
- Add saltAs written there is none; whether it was assumed or simply left out cannot be told from the text. Figure 1 to 1 1/2 teaspoons per loaf, worked in when you mix the dough in the morning, not into the overnight sponge.
- Scalding the buttermilkBringing buttermilk to the boiling point makes it curdle and separate, which is expected here — the hot liquid is poured over a scant tea-cup of flour and scalds it. Modern cultured buttermilk behaves the same way. The alternative given, boiled sour milk strained for its whey, is the same idea with the curds discarded.
- The crockAny heatproof non-reactive bowl or pot; with two quarts of liquid plus the flour beaten in, allow something like 8 quarts of capacity so the sponge has room to rise overnight.
- Cooling before the yeast"Sufficiently cool" means under about 110F. Two quarts of just-boiled liquid in a crock will take a couple of hours, so start early in the evening.
- KneadingHalf an hour of hand kneading suggests a softer flour and a wetter sponge than modern bread flour gives. With modern bread flour, 10 to 12 minutes by hand or 6 to 8 in a stand mixer on low should reach the same point. The instruction to knead as little as possible when shaping still holds.
- "Not baking too hard"Take this as 375F to 400F for loaves, about 40 to 45 minutes, until the internal temperature reads 195F to 200F. The biscuits — meaning small yeast rolls here, not baking-powder biscuits — want 400F for 15 to 20 minutes.
- Scaling downFour loaves plus forty rolls needs something on the order of 5 to 6 pounds of flour. For a quarter batch — one loaf and ten rolls — use 2 cups buttermilk, about 3 tablespoons flour in the crock for the scald, and roughly 1 1/4 to 1 1/2 pounds of flour in all.
Before commercial yeast was reliably and evenly distributed, a kitchen kept its leaven alive from bake to bake, and recipes like this one exist to feed and stretch it. The overnight sponge does two jobs: it multiplies a small quantity of weak yeast into enough to raise six pounds of flour, and the scalded buttermilk gives the ferment sugar and acid to work in while contributing the tang and tender crumb that buttermilk breads are prized for. The confident aside that "the secret of good bread is having good yeast" is the voice of a cook whose bread depended on a starter she tended herself. The instruction to let the sponge stand "until after breakfast" is a reminder that these timings were set by the rhythm of the day rather than the clock.