Bread, cakes, and biscuits

of butter has been dissolved, may be used in precisely the same way, when tepid, to mix the dough with. Another way, you mix togetherJ4lb. fine wheat- meal, 2oz. of sugar, and a little salt ; make a “bay” in the centre, and pour in 2oz. of German yeast, previously creamed with a teaspoonful of sugar, a pint of tepid water, and half a pint of milk. Add to this two or three well- beaten eggs, work it all to a dough, then cover, and let it rise before the fire for two hours, keeping the pan well covered. Now divide it into two, and bake in two tins f6r an hour. This can be varied by using different propor- tions of wholemeal and flour to suit different people’s taste and digestion. Take equal quantities of meal and flour — say, one gallon of each ; work it as for bread with 2ioz. HOUSEHOLD AND FANCY BREADS. 41 of fresh Herman yeast, or two tablespoonfuls of well-washed beer yeast. Add to this four to six tablespoonfuls of salt and a good three quarts of warm water or milk and water. This bread requires much more moisture than the ordinary white bread. Cover the mixture with a blanket and let it rise for quite an hour and a half the first time. Then work the dough thoroughly, beating and kneading it well, and let it rise for another hour. Bake it well in a moderately hot oven. — Another way : To 71b. of wholemeal take 3£lb. of flour, salt to taste, and three dessertspoonfuls of solid beer yeast (or just under 2oz. of German yeast), and about four and a half pints of liquid. — Another way : Use no flour at all, but one gallon of wholemeal, lR>z. of German yeast, or three dessertspoonfuls of beer yeast; work and bake as above. The proportion of salt for relieving the insipidity of this bread is about loz. to a gallon of flour or meal. Less yeast will be needed in summer than in winter ; and in the former season the liquid used to mix it should be cooler than in winter. You can, of course, decrease or increase the quantities according to the above proportions. Wholemeal Bread (Sir Henry Thompson’s). — Mix or sift together 2lb. coarsely ground wholemeal and )lb. of fine flour (or better still the same weight of fine Scotch oatmeal), to this add loz. baking powder and two saltspoonfuls of salt. Then rub in 2oz. of butter and work it quickly to a dough with skim milk, or half milk, half water. Have ready some buttered rings on a buttered baking tin, and put the dough, which should be soft enough almost to pour, into the rings, and bake at once in a quick oven to start with, lowering the temperature a little as it cooks. If prefei’red, yeast may be used instead of baking powder, and Sir H. Thompson prefers this, but then the moistening liquid must be used warm and the dough be set by the fire or in a warm place to rise for an hour, and when put into the tins should again be set to rise for fifteen to twenty minutes before baking in a moderate oven. Medium oatmeal may be 42 BREAD, CAKES, AND BISCUITS. used instead of the fine flour or oatmeal when this bread is made with yeast. It is well to remember that this dough can only be made in rings or as bannocks, for wholemeal is a bad heat conductor, and if made up into the ordinary loaves the outside would be hard and overcooked long before the inside was more than a pudding or stodgy mass. CHAPTER III. ROLLS, &c.