eggs, however] — one table-spoonful of butter and lar✪ Good Light Breadd, mixed. Make up the sponge before breakfast, if you want light bread for tea. It will be covered with froth when well risen. In summer, for breakfast bread, make the sponge after dinner — that is to say, three or four o'clock p.m. — and work it into your dough with ice-water just before leaving the kitchen for the night. When you leave out the eggs add their bulk in water. Although the above recipe is as precise as can well be, yet in the matter of light bread-making something, after all, must be left to the judgment of the cook, who, to insure success, must watch the changes of temperature as carefully as any maker of almanacs. If the weather is hot, the bread-dough must be set in the coolest place accessible; if the weather is cold, just the opposite treat- ment must be pursued. The dough should be left to rise in a vessel sufficiently large to allow of its swelling to four times its original size, and yet the vessel should be close- ly covered. A cook should always keep a clean, coarse linen towel at hand, wherewith to cover her bread after the lid is lifted, and while it is taking its second rise. Cooks differ as to the length of time bread ought to be worked after the yeast is put in, some only kneading it enough to make the dough smooth and pliant. But I must say that the best bread-makers whom I know knead for at least an hour, and with all their might. Even then there is a magic in the touch of certain gifted ones that all cannot hope to acquire, although every willing person can learn to make an excellent article. In the morning, if the dough is properly leavened, it will quiver on one side if touched on the other. Have ready a bread-board, which must be well floured ; flour 70ur bAD49 ^0Q Wqx^ attempting Xg Uft tbe dougb VmOINIA COOKEBT'BOOK. from its bucket or jar ; have your tins greased ; make out into loaves or rolls, as you may fancy, working the dough just enough to mould it into the forms desired. Put a little clean lard between each roll, in order that they may easily come apart; and also lightly grease over the tops, that the crust may brown well and be tender. The dough must be set to rise a second time before being put into the oven, which must be well heated, and kept evenly so all the time that the bread is baking. One hour is usually allowed for this second rising, and one hour for the baking. But here, again, it is impossible to set down invariable laws, because fires will not all burn just alike, and bread rises twice as fast on a warm morning as when the air is frosty and biting. While one cannot exaggerate the particularity required of every woman who would excel as a bread -maker, there is a comfort in reflecting that such stupid people have acquired the art that no one need despair, if she have only a willing mind. The most beautiful bread I ever saw was made by a poor creature only one degree removed from idiocy; she had sense enough, however, to fed how her bread should be treated, and was, moreover, scrupulously neat. An old "aunty" in a Virginia homestead of the olden time made such exquisitely fair rolls, that a visitor asked leave to be permitted to have her recipe. "Aunt Phyllis," the lady said, " I have come to get your recipe for making the lovely rolls you gave us for breakfast." With a droll and puzzled air the cook answered, "La! missis, I just know I darVt make 'em no different." The old woman could give no other recipe: she knew what she had to do, and did it. I am much mistaken if any one can fail who sets about bread-making wit)^ Q^^ fulness aod a deternuned purpose to suooeeclf VmaiNIA. COOKEBT-BOOK. Anothbb Good Rbcipb fob Tbast. (From Ftoqoier County.)

AI-modernized reading of the original text

eggs, however] — one table-spoonful of butter and lard, mixed. Make up the sponge before breakfast, if you want light bread for tea. It will be covered with froth when well risen. In summer, for breakfast bread, make the sponge after dinner — that is to say, three or four o'clock p.m. — and work it into your dough with ice-water just before leaving the kitchen for the night. When you leave out the eggs add their bulk in water. Although the above recipe is as precise as can well be, yet in the matter of light bread-making something, after all, must be left to the judgment of the cook, who, to insure success, must watch the changes of temperature as carefully as any maker of almanacs. If the weather is hot, the bread-dough must be set in the coolest place accessible; if the weather is cold, just the opposite treatment must be pursued. The dough should be left to rise in a vessel sufficiently large to allow of its swelling to four times its original size, and yet the vessel should be closely covered. A cook should always keep a clean, coarse linen towel at hand, wherewith to cover her bread after the lid is lifted, and while it is taking its second rise. Cooks differ as to the length of time bread ought to be worked after the yeast is put in, some only kneading it enough to make the dough smooth and pliant. But I must say that the best bread-makers whom I know knead for at least an hour, and with all their might. Even then there is a magic in the touch of certain gifted ones that all cannot hope to acquire, although every willing person can learn to make an excellent article. In the morning, if the dough is properly leavened, it will quiver on one side if touched on the other. Have ready a bread-board, which must be well floured ; flour your hands good for work attempting to lift the dough from its bucket or jar ; have your tins greased ; make out into loaves or rolls, as you may fancy, working the dough just enough to mould it into the forms desired. Put a little clean lard between each roll, in order that they may easily come apart; and also lightly grease over the tops, that the crust may brown well and be tender. The dough must be set to rise a second time before being put into the oven, which must be well heated, and kept evenly so all the time that the bread is baking. One hour is usually allowed for this second rising, and one hour for the baking. But here, again, it is impossible to set down invariable laws, because fires will not all burn just alike, and bread rises twice as fast on a warm morning as when the air is frosty and biting. While one cannot exaggerate the particularity required of every woman who would excel as a bread -maker, there is a comfort in reflecting that such stupid people have acquired the art that no one need despair, if she have only a willing mind. The most beautiful bread I ever saw was made by a poor creature only one degree removed from idiocy; she had sense enough, however, to fed how her bread should be treated, and was, moreover, scrupulously neat. An old "aunty" in a Virginia homestead of the olden time made such exquisitely fair rolls, that a visitor asked leave to be permitted to have her recipe. "Aunt Phyllis," the lady said, " I have come to get your recipe for making the lovely rolls you gave us for breakfast." With a droll and puzzled air the cook answered, "La! missis, I just know I daren't make 'em no different." The old woman could give no other recipe: she knew what she had to do, and did it. I am much mistaken if any one can fail who sets about bread-making with carefulness and a determined purpose to succeed. VmaiNIA. COOKEBT-BOOK. Anothbb Good Rbcipb fob Tbast. (From Fauquier County.)

Records on this page

Potato YeastGood Light Bread

Virginia Cookery-book