Mrs. Roundell's Practical cookery book

Cream Curds. — ( Family Recipe.) — To a quart of new milk put four beaten eggs and a little salt. Put it in a covered pitcher and set it in a pan of water over the fire. Do not stir it. When it is cracked lay it upon a sieve to drain, and put it by spoonfuls on the dish. Devonshire Cream. — Let the milk stand twenty-four hours. Then put it in a pan over a low fire, or set the pan in boiling water. The milk must be thoroughly heated, but on no account boil. When you can see a ring form in the cream the size of the bottom of the pan carry the pan into the dairy. The milk will have been scalded, and should be skimmed next day. In summer let the milk stand only sixteen hours. CHAPTER XX. No Bread can ever equal the old-fashioned household bread made with brewers’ yeast, and baked in a brick oven heated by faggots of wood. But brick ovens for oi'dinary use, and the brewers’ yeast of old days, are things of the past. Modern methods of brewing have substituted so many ingredients for the simple malt and hops of old days that brewers’ yeast is now too bitter to use for bread. As a substitute for a brick oven I can recommend pans made of the same material as red flower-pots. They can be ordered at any large pottery where common flower-pots are made, such as Messrs. Sankey’s, at Bulwell, near Nottingham. A convenient size to order is eight inches long, four wide, and four to five inches deep. Fresh German yeast is quite satisfactory, and never has a bitter taste. German yeast looks like firm putty-coloured paste ; the inside ought to be rather moist, and should smell like new bread. It is a good plan to drop it into an uncovered jug of cold water, allowing a pint of water to an ounce of yeast. This keeps it fresh, and makes the yeast-plant grow more readily when it is wanted. One ounce of German yeast (or one pennyworth) is enough to make three pounds and a half of flour into bread ; indeed many practised hands use less. Baking-powder should never be used for bread. Flour should be ground three months before it is used, or the bread will be lumpy and heavy. It must be kept perfectly diy, or it will acquire a most unpleasant musty flavour which no process can remove. the following table will be found useful:: A pint of Flour weighs fourteen ounces. A quart (or halfquartern) weighs one pound and three-quarters, and will make a loaf weighing two pounds and three ounces. A quartern (or quarter of a stone, or half-gallon) weighs three pounds and a half, and will make a quartern loaf weighing four pounds and six ounces. A gallon (or half-stone) weighs seven pounds, and makes eight pounds and three-quarters of bread. A stone (or peck) weighs fourteen pounds, and makes seventeen pounds and a half of bread. Two pecks are equal to half a bushel ; a bushel contains fifty-six pounds of flour, and makes seventy pounds of bread. A sack of flour contains five bushels. Fiftyfour pounds of bread baked at home is an ample weekly allowance for eight persons. Everything used in making bread must be scrupulously fresh and clean. If the dough is left half-made or allowed to get cold the hread will be spoilt. To make a quartern of flour into two loaves, each weighing nearly two pounds and a quarter :