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Bread with Mush
Pour two quarts hot corn-meal mush, made as for eating, over two quarts flour (wheat or Graham); when cool, add one quart sponge, one coffee-cup molasses, one tea-spoon salt, half tea-spoon soda; mix well together; add more flour if needed, and knead thoroughly; mold into small loaves; let rise and bake in small dripping pans (a loaf in a pan), or pie-tins, in a moderate oven;. when done, rub over with butter, place on the side, wrap in a cloth , and when cold put in a jar or box. This recipe makes three goodsized loaves and keeps moist longer than all Graham bread. -Mrs .
W. W. Woods.
A yeasted cornmeal loaf leavened from a wheat sponge rather than packaged yeast, and the instructions assume you already have that sponge going. The one thing to get right is the temperature of the mush when the sponge goes in.
- Wait for the mush to coolTwo quarts of hot mush poured over flour will hold enough heat to kill yeast. Let the mixture come down to about 100F before adding the sponge; lukewarm to the wrist, not warm to the palm.
- What a sponge isA quart of loose, actively bubbling batter of flour, water and yeast, set the night before. To substitute, make a batter of about 2 cups flour, 2 cups warm water and 1 teaspoon instant yeast and let it work 8-12 hours until foamy and sour-smelling.
- Corn-meal mushCornmeal cooked in salted water until thick, roughly 1 part meal to 4 parts water. "Made as for eating" means porridge consistency, not stiff enough to slice.
- A coffee-cupIn this period a coffee-cup is generally reckoned at about one cup, larger than the tea-cup. Reading it as one cup of molasses is reasonable.
- The sodaHalf a teaspoon of soda is there mainly to neutralize the acid in the molasses and the sour sponge rather than to leaven the loaf, though the reaction does give some lift. Do not increase it, or the crumb can take on a soapy taste and a grey cast.
- OvenA moderate oven is usually reckoned at around 350F. Loaves this size need roughly 45 to 55 minutes; the interior should read 200-205F, since a wet cornmeal dough reads underdone by feel long after it is baked through.
- Pans and riseDripping pans and pie-tins give wide, low loaves. Expect a slow final rise, an hour and a half or more; the heavy, molasses-rich dough works slowly.
- Butter and clothRubbing the hot crust with butter and wrapping in a towel softens it as it cools, which is the point of the step. Only store it once fully cold, or the jar will trap steam and the loaf will sour.
- YieldThree good-sized loaves, as stated. The mush is what keeps them moist for several days.
Cornmeal mush stirred into wheat dough was a thrift technique long before it was a flavor choice: cooked cereal is cheap, holds water, and stretches expensive white flour, so a loaf that would otherwise stale by evening stays soft for days. The Dixie Cook Book (1883) gathered contributions from Southern and Midwestern housewives, and this one is signed Mrs. W. W. Woods, its whole-meal character in keeping with the late-century enthusiasm that followed Sylvester Graham's dietary reform preaching. The reliance on a sponge rather than a purchased cake of yeast suggests a kitchen where a bit of last night's batter was kept back for tonight's baking; commercial compressed yeast was available by the 1880s but far from universal in rural households. Molasses does triple duty here, feeding the yeast, coloring the crumb and supplying the acid that the half teaspoon of soda answers.