Catherine Owen's new cook book ..

A small loaf — and by all means make them small until you have gained experience — will not take more than three quarters of an hour to bake ; when a nice yellow brown, take it out, turn it out of the tin into a cloth, and tap the bottom ; if it is crisp and smells cooked, the loaf is done. Once the bottom is brown it need remain no longer. Should that, however, from fault of your oven, be not brown, but soft and white, you must put it back in the oven, the bottom upwards. An oven that does not bake at the bottom will, however, be likely to spoil your bread. It On Bread. 15 is sometimes caused by a careless servant leaving a collection of ashes underneath it ; satisfy yourself that all the flues are perfectly clean and clear before beginning to bake, and if it still refuses to do its duty, change it, for you will have nothing but loss and vexation of spirit while you have it in use. I think you will find this bread white, evenly porous (not with small holes in one part and caverns in another ; if it is so you have made your dough too stiff, and it is not sufficiently kneaded), and with a thin, crisp crust. Bread will surely fail to rise at all if you have scalded the yeast ; the water must never be too hot. In winter, if it gets chilled, it will only rise slowly, or not at all, and in using baker's or German yeast take care that it is not stale, which will cause heavy, irregular bread. In making bread with compressed yeast proceed in exactly the same way, excepting that the sponge will not need to be set over night, unless you want to bake very early. If you have once produced bread to your satisfaction you will find no difficulty in making rolls. Proceed as follows : Take a piece of the dough from your baking after it has risen once. To a piece as large as a man's fist take a large tablespoonful of butter and a little powdered sugar ; work them into the dough, put it in a bowl, cover it, and set it in a warm place to rise— a shelf behind the stove is best ; if you make this at the same time as your bread, you will find it takes longer to rise ; the butter causes that difference ; when very light, much lighter than your bread should be, take your hand and push it down till it is not larger than when you put it in the bowl ; let it rise again, and again push it down. 1 6 Culture and Cooking. but not so thoroughly ; do this once or twice more, and you have the secret of light rolls. You will find them rise very quickly, after once or twice pushing down. When they have risen the third or fourth time, take a little butter on your hands, and break off small pieces about the size of a walnut and roll them round. Either put them on a tin close together, to be broken apart, or an inch or two from each other, in which case work in a little more flour, and cut a cleft on the top, and once more set to rise ; half an hour will be long enough generally, but in this case you must judge for yourself, they sometimes take an hour ; if they look swelled yery much and smooth they will be ready. Have a nice hot oven, and bake for twelve to fifteen minutes. Add a little more sugar to your dough and an egg, go through the same process, brush them oyer with sugar dissolved in milk, and you will have delicious rusks.