Note. — // the corn cake is baked in a deep bread pan, use a moderate oven and bake from thirty-five to forty minutes. FLOUR MIXTURES 201 NOTES ON LABORATORY WORK. 1 . Why are griddle cakes harder to digest than bread ? 2. Why is a piece of fat pork better than butter to grease griddle? 3. If you left the egg out of the recipe for griddle cakes, what other change would you make in the recipe ? Why ? 202 FOOD AND COOKERY QUESTIONS AND SUGGESTIONS. Draw map of the United States and locate chief wheat- growing districts. Chief flour-milling cities. How much would you save by buying flour by the barrel instead of by the 24-pound sack? FLOUR MIXTURES READING NOTES. References. The Story of a Kernel of Wheat. Farmers' Bulletin No. 389. 204 FOOD AND COOKERY HOME WORK. Date. Name of Dish. Result. Remarks. LEAVENING AGENTS EXERCISE XIV. 205 LEAVENING AGENTS. To leaven is to cause to rise or to make light. Unless something is added to a flour mixture to make it light and porous the digestive juices will not be able to penetrate it and it will be hard to digest. It will also be less palatable. Methods of Making Batters Light. There are a number of materials that are used for this pur- pose. Probably the first used was air which was beaten into the mixture itself or into eggs before they were added to the batter. When the batter was baked the bubbles of air expanded, the gluten of the flour and the albumen of the eggs kept the air from escaping from the mixture. As it expanded it pushed the batter up with it; then when the heat was sufficient to cook the dough, the walls of the little cells formed by the air bubbles became firm enough to hold themselves up and the result was a light, porous loaf. Probably the use of yeast came next. This is a rather slow process however, for it is necessary to wait for the yeast plant to grow and form enough bubbles of gas to make the bread rise. Scientists have discovered that these bubbles of gas can be produced instantly by putting together certain harmless chemi- 206 FOOD AND COOKERY cals and that the gas given off by these chemicals has the same effect on the bread (as far as making it light is concerned), as does that produced by the yeast plant. One of these chemicals is baking soda, which will give off a gas called carbon dioxide gas when it is mixed with water and an acid. Soda combined with water only, will give off enough gas to raise the dough, but it will give a bitter taste and yellow color to the food. When the soda is combined with an acid in just the right proportion, the food will taste neither bitter nor sour. The acid has destroyed the bitter taste of the soda and the soda has destroyed the sour taste of the acid. If cream of tartar is the acid used there will be a substance called Rochelle salts formed. It will be in such small quantity that it will not be noticed in the food. The acids usually used with soda in cooking are sour milk, molasses and cream of tartar or tartaric acid. Some very old cook books use a few spoonfuls of vinegar with the soda. Baking Powder. Soda and cream of tartar ased to be kept separate and com- bined as needed by the house-wife. Because of the difficulty of measuring the correct proportion of each ingredient we more often now use what we call baking powder. Baking powder is made of soda and cream of tartar carefully weighed and thor- oughly mixed and sifted, with enough corn starch mixed with them to keep the powder from absorbing moisture and losing strength. Sometimes acid phosphate, alum and other cheap acids are used in the manufacture of baking powders. The acid phos- phate makes a very good baking powder but alum baking powder and all cheap powders should be avoided. They are not cheap in the long run. LEAVENING AGENTS 207 Experiments.

AI-modernized reading of the original text

Note. — If the corn cake is baked in a deep bread pan, use a moderate oven and bake from thirty-five to forty minutes. 1 . Why are griddle cakes harder to digest than bread ? 2. Why is a piece of fat pork better than butter to grease griddle? 3. If you left the egg out of the recipe for griddle cakes, what other change would you make in the recipe ? Why ? Draw map of the United States and locate chief wheatgrowing districts. Chief flour-milling cities. How much would you save by buying flour by the barrel instead of by the 24-pound sack? References. The Story of a Kernel of Wheat. Farmers' Bulletin No. 389. Date. Name of Dish. Result. Remarks. EXERCISE XIV. To leaven is to cause to rise or to make light. Unless something is added to a flour mixture to make it light and porous the digestive juices will not be able to penetrate it and it will be hard to digest. It will also be less palatable. Methods of Making Batters Light. There are a number of materials that are used for this purpose. Probably the first used was air which was beaten into the mixture itself or into eggs before they were added to the batter. When the batter was baked the bubbles of air expanded, the gluten of the flour and the albumen of the eggs kept the air from escaping from the mixture. As it expanded it pushed the batter up with it; then when the heat was sufficient to cook the dough, the walls of the little cells formed by the air bubbles became firm enough to hold themselves up and the result was a light, porous loaf. Probably the use of yeast came next. This is a rather slow process however, for it is necessary to wait for the yeast plant to grow and form enough bubbles of gas to make the bread rise. Scientists have discovered that these bubbles of gas can be produced instantly by putting together certain harmless chemi- cals and that the gas given off by these chemicals has the same effect on the bread (as far as making it light is concerned), as does that produced by the yeast plant. One of these chemicals is baking soda, which will give off a gas called carbon dioxide gas when it is mixed with water and an acid. Soda combined with water only, will give off enough gas to raise the dough, but it will give a bitter taste and yellow color to the food. When the soda is combined with an acid in just the right proportion, the food will taste neither bitter nor sour. The acid has destroyed the bitter taste of the soda and the soda has destroyed the sour taste of the acid. If cream of tartar is the acid used there will be a substance called Rochelle salts formed. It will be in such small quantity that it will not be noticed in the food. The acids usually used with soda in cooking are sour milk, molasses and cream of tartar or tartaric acid. Some very old cook books use a few spoonfuls of vinegar with the soda. Baking Powder. Soda and cream of tartar ased to be kept separate and combined as needed by the house-wife. Because of the difficulty of measuring the correct proportion of each ingredient we more often now use what we call baking powder. Baking powder is made of soda and cream of tartar carefully weighed and thoroughly mixed and sifted, with enough corn starch mixed with them to keep the powder from absorbing moisture and losing strength. Sometimes acid phosphate, alum and other cheap acids are used in the manufacture of baking powders. The acid phosphate makes a very good baking powder but alum baking powder and all cheap powders should be avoided. They are not cheap in the long run. Experiments.

Student's manual in household arts