Bread, cakes, and biscuits

If only made into one loaf, this will take from one and a half to two hours. Directly the bread is done, and taken from the oven, turn the loaves upside down, or on their sides, to allow the steam to escape. which it can only do through the soft under-side. Be sure the bread is perfectly cold before storing it in the breadpan. The great point in bread making, as said before, lies first in the kneading and then in the firing. If the dough is not regularly and steadily kneaded it will be full of holes and hard lumps, in consequence of the fermentation being uneven. If, when rising, the air, much more a draught, gets at the dough, it will “ catch cold,” as bakers say, and form a crust on the top, which will arrest the fermentation, as will uneven, careless kneading. Before putting your bread into the oven, make up the fire so that it shall not need replenishing till the baking is done. If the oven is too cold when the bread is put into it the latter will continue to rise, and will run all over the mould. If, on the contrary, the oven is too hot, the crust will form too soon and too quickly, and then either the outside will be badly burnt, or the inside will not be cooked. Please note that in baking, as in every other culinary operation, the very strictest cleanliness is indispensable. Many a batch of bread has been condemned owing, it was considered, to the inferiority of the yeast, or flour, or both, when the fault really lay with the careless, slovenly baker, who neglected the due cleansing of his utensils, and the thoroughness of his kneading. I have been thus particular in describing ordinary bread making because the same remarks apply to every kind of bread. It may be added that if the above recipe is carried out exactly as given, only using milk, or milk and water, instead of plain water, it produces an extremely good imitation of Vienna bread. Household Bread, with Potatoes. — Peel and boil 3lb. of potatoes and crush them through a masher or colander. Mix together half a pint of good sweet yeast with half a pint of barely tepid water, then mix this and the potato pulp to a batter and pour it into a bay in the centre of a peck of flour. Stir down a little of the flour from the sides. and dust a, little more over the top of the little pool of batter thus formed. Cover the pan with a thick cloth, and leave its contents to rise by the fire for about an hour. At the end of this time, if the “ sponge,” as this batter is technically called, is properly fermented, work it all into a dough with the flour, adding in 2oz. of salt and four and a half to five pints of tepid water. Remember to add this water very gradually, according to the advice given above. Let this dough rise in a covered pan in a. warm place for about two hours ; now knead it into loaves, let these rise as before, and bake them in a good oven from one and a quarter to two hours, according to size. To know if bread is properly baked tap the underside with your knuckles, and it will give a sort of hollow sound, whilst the texture will feel firm yet elastic.