Girl's home manual of cookery, home management, home nursing and laundry

Spring wheat, sown in the spring, is red and hard, and makes the best bread flour. Flour is said to be strong which is rich in gluten of a good quality, capable of standing up well, and producing a well rounded loaf. Test for Flour. Bread flour feels slightly granular, and will not retain its shape when pressed together in the hand, and is of a cream color. Pastry flour is velvety to touch, retains the impression of the hand when pressed together, and is whiter. Flour which has become damp, or has a fibrous network in it due to a small insect, is unfit for use. YEAST AND ITS USE IN BREAD MAKING Yeast is used to lighten bread, because it sets up the process of fermentation, by which carbonic acid gas (COz) is formed, which expands and makes the dough porous. For the housewife the use of yeast is the cheapest and simplest way of producing carbonic acid gas, and dough so raised remains moist longer than dough lightened by COz produced by means of baking powder. Fermentation. Fermentation is the name given to certain chemical reactions which are promoted only in the presence of certain substances called ferments or enzymes, which are themselves unaltered by the reaction. The material in which ferment-. ation takes place must contain sugar or something that can be converted into sugar. During fermentation the sugar is split up, by the action of the ferment, into alcohol and COz. Yeast is the ferment used in bread making. When alcoholic fermentation continues too long, acetic fermentation takes place and the dough becomes sour. Yeast. Yeast is a low form of plant life. It belongs to the fungi. Wild yeasts are present in the air. An individual yeast plant is 1/28000 of an inch. It is an oval body, colorless and nearly transparent, whitish when seen in bulk. A dark spot in the yeast cell is known as the nucleus. Yeast Plants Multiply: (1.) By budding. (2.) By producing spores. The former method occurs in.bread making. Yeast Exists in Three Different States: (1.) Resting state, when no moisture, warmth and food are supplied. (2.) Growing state, when moisture and warmth are supplied, with food. (3.) Spore bearing, when moisture and warmth are supplied, but very little or no food. é Yeast in an ordinary yeast cake is in the resting state, alive but not actively growing. Yeast requires warmth, food, moisture and air for growth. Yeast grows best at 68° F., growth is suspended at 32°. Great -heat, 212°, kills the yeast plant. Commercial Yeasts. Compressed yeast is the strongest’ and most reliable. It consists of pure yeast grown in a special way, purified by washing, and compressed into cakes. If good it is a pale fawn in colour, smells sweet, breaks clean and crumbles easily. The yeast, after being washed, is dried at a low heat for a long period, and is then made into cakes with a little cornmeal or other material. Bread made with these takes longer to rise, as there are fewer yeast plants than in a compressed yeast cake, and it is not such an active form of yeast—some plants are killed in the drying. Soak in a little warm water with sugar before using. ®& Dried yeast cakes. Brewer’s Yeast. This is a liquid yeast, the scum from the fermentry vat. It is apt to be bitter and is not so strong as compressed yeast, nor so satisfac tory. BREAD AND BREAD MAKING 45 Home Made Yeast.