Bread, cakes, and biscuits

The next point to consider is the measurement of the flour. To be in thoroughly good condition, flour should be BREAD. i) three months old (it may be used at the end of a fortnight or three weeks, but never produces such good results), must be stored in a perfectly dry place, and kept as much as possible from contact with the air, as the least suspicion of damp will be enough to give it a musty, unpleasant flavour, which nothing can either eradicate or hide. The following scale of weights for flour is well worth mastering : One pint of flour weighs 14oz. One quart (two pints, or half a quartern) weighs ljlb., and will make a loaf weighing not quite 2Bb. One quartern (two quarts, or half a gallon, or a quarter cf a stone) weighs 3ilb., and makes a loaf weighing 4lb. 6oz. the statutory quartern. One gallon (half a stone or two quarterns) weighs 71b., and produces 8 Jib. of bread. One stone (or two gallons or a peck) weighs 14lb., and makes 17^1b. of bread. Two pecks (or two stones) weigh 281b., and equal half a bushel. One bushel (four pecks) weighs 56lb., and makes 701b. of bread. One sack of flour weighs 2801b., and equals five bushels. One pound ahead of bread is the usual daily average of home-made bread, but, like all averages, this varies some- what, one person almost living on bread, whilst another barely touches it. But a little practice soon enables one to judge. Next to be considered are the different kinds of ferment used to “ raise ” or lighten bread, of which there are several varieties. Of these the original one, brewer’s yeast or “barm,” as it was called (and, indeed, still is in out of the way parts), was for long enough the only ferment used. The objection to it was that its quality was never quite to be relied on, and the least carelessness in the manufacture or the storing of it was sufficient to render it practically unusable — a point certainly not improved in these modern times, when 10 BREAD, CAKES, AND BISCUITS. a good deal more than hops and grain are used in brewing. The next ferment taken up was ammonia, a volatile salt chemically prepared from the ammoniacal products of the gas works, ivory black, animal charcoal, and other manu- factures. This sesqui-carbonate of ammonia, to give it its technical name, has long been used, in trade recipes especially, under the various names of sal. vol., voil, and saleratus. It is to be had in lumps, which should be pounded fine as wanted, and in its rock state should be stored in a tightly-stoppered bottle, as it soon loses its strength. The objection to this form of leaven is that, unless very carefully and exactly used, it gives a pronounced and anything but pleasant “hartshorn” flavour, frequently noticeable in inferior cakes and pastry. Next came baking powders of various more or less excellent kinds. These, however, though certainly labour-savers and very con- venient, possess a failing common to ammonia, that, namely, of producing, by chemical action, a practically indissoluble residuum in the articles with which they are incorporated. Of course, the same thing, to some extent, happens with yeast, but the original constituents of yeast being practi- cally the same as the material it is mixed with, this residuum is not more unwholesome than the flour and moisture that nourish it.