Potato yeast is made by omitting hops and flour, but mashing the potatoes fine with the other ingre- dients, and adding the old yeast when cool, as before. The number of potatoes can be doubled, or left the same. It is very nice, but must be made fresh every week ; while the other, kept in a cool place, will be good a month. — Mrs. Helen Campbell. From Good Housekeeping. (By per. Pubs.) 142 BREAD. Bread. For four medium-sized loaves of bread allow as follows : Four quarts of flour ; one large cup of yeast (half a pint) ; one tablespoonful of salt, one of sugar, and one of butter or lard ; one pint of milk mixed with one of warm water, or one quart of water alone✪ Bread, for the “wetting.” Sift the flour into a large pan or bowl. Put the sugar, salt, and shortening, in the bottom of the bread-pan or bowl, and pour on a spoonful or two of boiling water, enough to dissolve all ; add the quart of wetting and the yeast. Now stir in, slowly, two quarts of the flour, beating well ; cover with a thick cloth, and set in a temperature of about seventy-five degrees to rise until morning. Bread mixed at nine in the evening will be ready to mould into loaves or rolls by six the next morning. In summer it would be necessary to find a cool place ; in winter, a warm one ; the chief point being to keep the temperature even. If mixed early in the morning, it is ready to mould and bake in the after- tioon, from seven to eight hours being all that it should stand. This first mixture is called a sponge ; and if only a single loaf of Graham or rye bread is wanted, one quart of it can be measured and thick- ened with either flour as in the rules given hereafter. To finish as wheat bread, stir in flour from the two quarts remaining to make a dough. Flour tlie moulding-board very thickly, and turn out. Now begin kneading, flouring the hands, but after the dough is gathered in a smooth lump, using as little flour as may be ; knead with the palm of the hand as much as possible. The dough quickly becomes a BREAD. 143 flat cake. Fold it over, and keep on kneading, not less than twenty minutes, half an hour being better. Make into loaves ; put into the pans ; set them in a warm place, and let them rise from thirty to forty- five minutes, or until they have become nearly double in size. Bake in an oven hot enough to brown a teaspoonful of flour in five minutes, spreading the flour on a bit of broken plate that it may have an even heat. The pan is an important point, the best being made of block-tin or Russia iron. A brick loaf bakes most easily, and it is quite worth while to have a set of bread-pans made to order, ten inches long by four wide and four deep. Loaves of this size will bake in from forty-five to sixty minutes. Then take them from the pans, wrap them in thick cloths kept for the purpose, and stand them tilted up against the pans till cold. Never lay hot bread on a pine table, as it will sweat, and absorb the pitchy odor and taste ; but tilt so that the air will pass around it freely. Keep well covered in a tin box or large stone pot, which should be wiped out every day or two, and scalded and dried thoroughly in the sun once a week. Pans for wheat bread should be greased very lightly ; for Graham or rye, much more, as the dough sticks and clings.

AI-modernized reading of the original text

Potato yeast is made by omitting hops and flour, but mashing the potatoes fine with the other ingredients, and adding the old yeast when cool, as before. The number of potatoes can be doubled, or left the same. It is very nice, but must be made fresh every week ; while the other, kept in a cool place, will be good a month. — Mrs. Helen Campbell. From Good Housekeeping. (By per. Pubs.) BREAD. Bread. For four medium-sized loaves of bread allow as follows : Four quarts of flour ; one large cup of yeast (half a pint) ; one tablespoonful of salt, one of sugar, and one of butter or lard ; one pint of milk mixed with one of warm water, or one quart of water alone, for the “wetting.” Sift the flour into a large pan or bowl. Put the sugar, salt, and shortening, in the bottom of the bread-pan or bowl, and pour on a spoonful or two of boiling water, enough to dissolve all ; add the quart of wetting and the yeast. Now stir in, slowly, two quarts of the flour, beating well ; cover with a thick cloth, and set in a temperature of about seventy-five degrees to rise until morning. Bread mixed at nine in the evening will be ready to mould into loaves or rolls by six the next morning. In summer it would be necessary to find a cool place ; in winter, a warm one ; the chief point being to keep the temperature even. If mixed early in the morning, it is ready to mould and bake in the aftertioon, from seven to eight hours being all that it should stand. This first mixture is called a sponge ; and if only a single loaf of Graham or rye bread is wanted, one quart of it can be measured and thickened with either flour as in the rules given hereafter. To finish as wheat bread, stir in flour from the two quarts remaining to make a dough. Flour tlie moulding-board very thickly, and turn out. Now begin kneading, flouring the hands, but after the dough is gathered in a smooth lump, using as little flour as may be ; knead with the palm of the hand as much as possible. The dough quickly becomes a BREAD. flat cake. Fold it over, and keep on kneading, not less than twenty minutes, half an hour being better. Make into loaves ; put into the pans ; set them in a warm place, and let them rise from thirty to fortyfive minutes, or until they have become nearly double in size. Bake in an oven hot enough to brown a teaspoonful of flour in five minutes, spreading the flour on a bit of broken plate that it may have an even heat. The pan is an important point, the best being made of block-tin or Russia iron. A brick loaf bakes most easily, and it is quite worth while to have a set of bread-pans made to order, ten inches long by four wide and four deep. Loaves of this size will bake in from forty-five to sixty minutes. Then take them from the pans, wrap them in thick cloths kept for the purpose, and stand them tilted up against the pans till cold. Never lay hot bread on a pine table, as it will sweat, and absorb the pitchy odor and taste ; but tilt so that the air will pass around it freely. Keep well covered in a tin box or large stone pot, which should be wiped out every day or two, and scalded and dried thoroughly in the sun once a week. Pans for wheat bread should be greased very lightly ; for Graham or rye, much more, as the dough sticks and clings.

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