The cooking garden

Here in this bowl is dough all ready for kneading, and here, materials that are put in it. I know you all buy your bread, and it is the easiest way, perhaps ; but it takes a great deal more baker's bread to satisfy hunger than home-made bread, and the latter is more nourishing. So, if there is a large family of children at home, it will be well to know how to make home-made bread. Then, again, you can make so many nice dishes with bread dough as a basis — crust for a pot-pie, raised doughnuts, and a healthful cake ; and in cold weather one can keep the dough several days, and so have hot rolls for breakfast and supper with very little trouble. You may not always live in the city, where you can buy bread so conveniently. Then, if you should ever live in other homes, you would need to know how to make good bread, as no one is considered a perfect cook who does not understand bread making, and I want you to give good attention, for I should not be willing to say that my scholars did not know how to make bread. The yeast that bread is raised with is made from a plant. Some yeast is made of hops, and brewer's yeast of another plant, that ferments in little bubbles, like soap-bubbles. When this yeast is mixed in the flour, it fills the dough with air-bubbles, that lift, or raise, as we say, every part of it. In warm weather yeast works twice as fast as in cold weather, and both too great heat or cold will kill it ; and if water is too hot with which you mix your dough, it will kill the yeast, so that water or milk with which you mix your bread must be lukewarm. The milk should be scalded and then allowed to cool, as the acid in unscalded milk may sour the bread ; the only way to know if it is right heat is to feel with your finger. All know that you should use sifted flour in cooking, but it makes a great difference whether flour is sifted before or after measuring. This rule on the Receipt Chart is to be sifted after it is measured, so you can put your sieve on the top of the bowl in which it is to be mixed, and salt and flour can be sifted through together. Then make a hole in the flour, not quite to the bottom of it, or the china is seen, and the yeast would stick to it. Then mix part of the water and yeast together, and pour into the hole just a little at a time, so you can mix flour and water gradually toward the middle until it has been made into dough ; mix well together. Spread a little flour on the board, and heap a little on one side, enough to knead dough. When none of the dough sticks to your hands you can leave off kneading, but not until then, as rested dough is not near so nice. Rub a little melted lard over top of dough, then cover with clean cloth, and put it near the fire. You cannot tell just how long it must stand to rise, but when it rises to double its size it is ready to be made into loaves and put in pans. This, before it is ready to bake, must rise again ; then the top must be pricked or cut across, so that the crust will not bind, and the loaves be put into a quick oven to bake.