Domestic science (Clark, Cornell home economics)

Appearance of Bread. A loaf of bread should be of regular shape, with the crust evenly browned and crisp. Bread must be firm, rather even in grain, and tender. Bread ought to smell fresh and keep for several days. Tests. The bread sounds hollow when tapped, springs back when pressed, is brown all over. Care of Bread after Baking. If a moist crust is desired, cover the bread when it comes from the oven. If a dry crust is preferred, leave the bread exposed to the air. When cold, store in covered stone jar. Remove the cloth, as it absorbs the moisture and gives bread an unpleasant taste and odor. Do not put old bread with new, as this will cause the new bread to mould. Plan to use stale bread for toast, dressings, croutons and soups. Stale bread may be heated in a closely covered pan and is very good. Food Value of Bread. Stale bread is much more easily digested than fresh bread. When moist and hot and subjected to the saliva of the mouth, it makes a hard pasty ball, which, when introduced into the stomach, gives that often overworked organ very difficult work to do. The gastric juice of the stomach cannot easily penetrate the pasty mass, so it remains too long a time in the stomach, causing the various gases to ferment, and creates a disturbance called indigestion. Bread must be thoroughly masticated in the mouth, as the saliva starts a flow of juices that assist the stomach in the work of digestion. A test for the digestion of fresh and stale bread may be made by the pupUs. Take pieces of fresh bread, stale bread, bread crusts, soft toast and crisp dry toast. See which crumbles easily and which may be chewed most readily. White bread, made of good spring wheat flour and well baked, is probably the most nourishing kind of bread, as it is most easily digested. Entire wheat bread is nutritious, but some people find it is more difficult to digest. Graham bread contains coarse particles of bran and is irritating to people who have delicate digestive organs. If bread is used as the chief food in a diet, it should have as high a food value as possible. BREAD RECIPES Kind Milk Molasses Flour Shortening Sugar Salt Yeast Water Wheat 1 pt. 5-6 c. ■ 2 tbsp. lard or butter tbsp. tbsp. 1 ck.or less.depends ontime for yeast Entire wheat 1 pt. Jc. for sugar 4§ c. entire wheat tsp. do. do. Gra- 2i c. Jc. 3 c. w. 3c.gr. H tsp. i cake or more do. ham Rye 1 c. 3c.fl. rye ml. to stiffen dough 1 tbsp. butter 1 tbsp. lard br'n do. do. 1 c. Boston Brown 2 c. sour or i sweet i c. 1 c. ry. 1 c. cr. meal lc.gr. tsp. Soda i tbsp. School Recipe, i c. water, J c. milk, ^ tbsp. sugar, i tsp. salt, 1 yeast cake dissolved in 2 tbsp. warm water, 1 c. flour. Method. Dissolve the sugar and salt in hot liquid and when tepid add yeast. Stir in half the flour and beat well. Set the sponge to rise. When sufficiently light, add flour until dough is stiff enough to knead (soft as possible). Toss on floured board, and knead until smooth, elastic, and fine-grained. Shape for loaves and let rise in pans imtil double its bulk. Bake. At home let it rise once as a loaf, before shaping for pans. Yeast Experiments. To show the effect of warmth on yeast, take 1 tbsp. molasses, 1 tbsp. wann water, ^ yeast cake. Mix and put in a small bottle; invert bottle on saucer (uncorked) ; leave in a warm place. The molasses is good food for the yeast plant and the warm temperature is favorable to its growth. Hence gas (carbonic acid gas) is formed at the top of the bottle, and the liquid is forced out into the saucer. Conclusion: warmth is favorable to growth of yeast plant.