Mrs. Lincoln's Boston cook book

If the oven be too hot, and the loaf brown too fast, a hard crust will be formed before the heat reaches the centre, and, pressing down on the air cells, make a heavy streak ; or, if removed from the oven too soon, it will be raw and doughy inside. If the heat be not sufficient to form the crust in fifteen minutes, the dough will go on rising until it becomes sour and pasty, and the air cells will run together, making a hole in the middle. The baking of bread is something that will not take care of itself. The old notion that you must not look at anything in the oven is erroneous ; and until you have learned by experience just how to regulate the fire and oven, and the many tests by which every good cook determines when bread is done, look at it often, and bake according to the clock from fifty to sixty minutes. Better bake ten minutes too long, putting a paper over the top to prevent a burned crust, than not long enough. Bake it brown, not black, nor pale whitey-brown, The Boston Cook Book. but brown all over. Rolls are often brushed with milk just before and after baking, to give them a richer brown color. Rubbing over with soft butter while still hot makes a crisp, delicious crust. When well baked, if tapped with the fingers, a hollow, empty sound will be emitted ; the crust feels firm, and, if broken apart, the inside rebounds instantly on any slight pressure. The Care of Bread after Baking. — Remove the loaves immediately from the pans, and place them where the air can circulate freely round them and thus carry off the gas which has been formed, but is no longer needed. a bread or cake cooler, made of fine wire, set in a narrow frame thirty inches long by twelve or fifteen broad, is a very useful article, as it will hold several loaves. An old wire window-screen, too small for modern windows, with cleats on the ends, to keep it two or three inches from the table, answers the purpose admirably. Many use a wire sieve ; but that is small, and leaves the marks of the larger cross wires on the loaf. Never leave the bread in the pan, or on a pine table, to sweat and absorb the odor of the wood. If you like crusts that are crisp, do not cover the loaves ; but to give the soft, tender, wafer-like consistency which many prefer, wrap them, while still hot, in several thicknesses of bread cloth. When cold, put them into a stone jar or tin box ; remove the cloth, as that absorbs the moisture, and gives the bread an unpleasant taste and odor. Keep the jar well covered and carefully cleansed from crumbs and stale pieces. Scald and dry it thoroughly every two or three days. A yard and a half square of coarse table linen makes the best bread cloth. Keep a good supply ; keep them sweet and clean, and use them for no other purpose. Fine white bread should be partaken of in moderation. Although the "staff of life," it is not necessary to eat bread with every kind of diet. It is most useful when taken with articles containing a large proportion of nourishment in a small bulk, as it then gives the stomach the proper degree of expansion. The Boston Cook Book. Raw Potato Yeast. 3^ cup flour. cup sugar. 1 tablespoonful salt. 3 raw potatoes. 1 to 2 quarts boiling water. 1 cup yeast.