Cookery for beginners

Set the loaves up on the edge of one end, leaning against the wall or an upright board, that the air may dry the bottom, throw a dry cloth over them and leave them to cool. When quite cold wrap in a clean thick cloth and keep in a tin box or stone crock. In this, ds in other first attempts, let me warn you against being disheartened by failure, partial or total. It would be far more strange were you to accomplish perfection in one, or in half a dozen lessons, than if your early efforts should be only moderately successful. See that your yeast is lively and not sour, the flour good and dry, then follow directions implicitly, and I think I can engage that the result will not mortify you. BREAD SPONGE AND BBEAEFAST BREADS. THREAD raised with what is known to bak- ■*--' ers as a "sponge," requires more time and a trifle more work than the simpler form for which I have just just given directions. But it keeps fresh longer, is softer and more nutritious, and a second-rate brand of flour thus treated produces a better loaf than when mixed up with yeast and water only. Spongemaking is, therefore, an important if not an essential accomplishment in a cook, be she novice or veteran. Bread Sponge. Three potatoes of fair size, peeled and boiled mealy. Five tablespoonfuls of yeast. BREAD SPONGE AND BREAKFAST BREADS. 17 One tablespoonful of white sugar. One tablespoonful of butter. Three cups of lukewarm water in which the potatoes were boiled — strained through a coarse cloth. One heaping cup of sifted flour. Put the potatoes into a large bowl or tray and mash them to powder with a potato pestle, or a wooden spoon. While still hot, mix in the sugar and butter, beating all to a lumpless cream. Add a few spoonfuls at a time, the potato-water alternately with the flour by the handful, beating the batter smooth as you go on until all of the liquid and flour has gone in. Beat hard one minute before pouring in the yeast. In hot weather, it is well to stir into the yeast a bit of soda no larger than a grain of corn already wet up in a teaspoonful of boiling water. Now whip up the batter with a wooden spoon for another minute, and the sponge is made. Throw a cloth over the bowl and set by for five or six hours to rise. If you intend to bake in the forenoon, make the sponge at bedtime. If in the afternoon, early in the morning. When the sponge is light sift a quart and a cup of flour into a bowl or tray with two teaspoonfuls of salt. Into a hollow, like a crater in the middle of the flour, empty your spongebowl, and work the flour down into it. Wash out the bowl with a little lukewarm water and add this to the dough. If it should prove too soft, work in, cautiously, a little more flour. If too stiff, warm water, a spoonful at a time until you can handle the paste easily. The danger is in getting it too stiff. Now, knead and set for risings first and second, as you have already been instructed. This sponge will be found especially useful in making GRAHAM BREAD. 19 Graham Bread. One quart of Graham flour, one cup of white flour. One half cup of Indian meal. One half cup of molasses. Two teaspoonfuls of salt. Soda, the size of a pea. Half the quantity of sponge given in preceding receipt. Warm water for rinsing bowl — about half a cup. Put the brown or Graham flour unsifted into the bread-bowl. Sift into it white flour, meal and salt, and stir up well while dry. Into the "crater" dug out in the middle, pour the sponge, warm water, the molasses, and soda dissolved in hot water. Knead as you would white bread, and set aside for the rising. It will not swell so fast as the white, so give yourself more time for making it. When light, knead well and long; make