Cooking and castle-building

"In the view of many, lightness is the only property required in this article. The delicate, refined sweetness, which exists in carefully kneaded bread, baked just before it passes to the extreme point of fermentation, is something of which they have no conception ; and thus they will even regard this process of spoiling the paste by acetous fermentation, and then rectifying that acid by effervescence with an alkali, as something positively meritorious. How else can they relish baker's loaves, such as some produce, drugged with ammonia and other disagreeable things; light, indeed, — so light that they seem to have neither weight nor substance, but with no more sweetness than so much cotton wool ? " Some persons prepare bread for the oven by simply mixing it in the mass, without kneading, pouring it into pans, and suffering it to rise there. The air-cells in bread thus prepared are coarse and uneven ; the bread is as inferior in delicacy and nicety to that which is well kneaded, as a raw servant to a perfectly educated and refined lady. The process of kneading seems to impart an evenness to the minute air-cells, a firmness of texture, and a tenderness and pliability to the whole substance, that can be gained in no other way. " The divine principle of beauty has its reign over bread as well as over all other things ; it has its laws of aesthetics ; and the bread which is so prepared that it can be formed into separate and well-proportioned loaves, each one carefully worked and moulded, will develop the most beautiful results. " After being moulded, the loaves should stand usually not over ten minutes, — just long enough to allow the fermentation going on in them to expand each little air-cell to the point at which it stood before it was worked down, and then they should be immediately put into the oven. "Many a good thing, however, is spoiled in the oven. One thing should be borne in mind as a prhiciple : that the excellence of bread in all its varieties — plain or sweetened — depends on the perfection of its air-cells, whether produced by yeast, ogg, or effervescence ; that one of the objects of baking is to fix these air-cells ; and that the quicker this can be done through the whole mass, the better will the result be. When cake or bread is made heavy by baking too quickly, it is because the immediate formation of the top crust hinders the exhaling of the moisture in the centre, and prevents the air-cells from cooking. The weight, also, of the crust pressing down on the doughy air-cells below, destroys them, — producing that horror of good cooks, a heavy streak. The problem in baking, then, is the quick application of heat, rather below than above the loaf, and its steady continuance till all the air-cells are thoroughly dried into permanent consistency. Every housewife must watch her own oven to know how this can be best accomplished." "Cousin Kate, Miss Beecher says that after being put in the pans, the bread should stand not more than ten or fifteen minutes to rise, but you say an hour."