The home cook book

AVE one heaping coffee saucer of flour. Boil one cup of hops in enough water to scald this flour. Mix the water with the flour. Let cool. Stir in a cup of dry yeast, wet with enough water to soak it. Set to rise in a warm place till light. Then stir in cornmeal till it is thick enough to make into small cakes and dry, but do not heat in drying. In making this begin the work in the morning so that you can see it all accomplished before night. PERENNIAL YEAST A simple and effective yeast of home brew is called perennial because it may be made to last some time. To dwellers remote from groceries it is of considerable value. When once you have started it, keep it by renewing it each week. To start it dissolve a cake of compressed yeast in two tablespoons of the water in which you cooked your potatoes for dinner. Do not use the water when it is hot ; let it become lukewarm. Next fill half full of lukewarm potato water a glass preserving jar — a quart jar. Add half a cup of granulated sugar, and when it is dissolved in the potato water add the dissolved YEAST 225 yeast. Stir together, and set the can, loosely covered, in a warm but not hot place, where the yeast can work. When the contents of the jar have become light, seal up the can and set it away. The day before you want to make bread fill up the can with lukewarm potato water, add half a cup of granulated sugar, and let stand for twenty-four hours, when you will have a can full of foaming white yeast. Beat and use half a can of the yeast for making three loaves of bread. Mix the bread at once and use as much lukewarm water as yeast. Seal up the can from which you took the yeast and set it away. When again you want to make bread take the day before for filling again with lukewarm potato water and half a cup of granulated sugar, and allow fermentation for twenty-four hours, as above directed. POTATO YEAST Take one quart of sliced potatoes. Wash in cold water and put in a large tin saucepan. Tie up in a square cloth a bunch of loose hops, as many as you would gather in your fingers. If the pressed hops are used (which are not quite as good) take half a package. Cover the potatoes with two quarts of hot water, in which put the hop bag. Boil slowly until the potatoes are soft enough to mash. Place a colander over a large crock. Put into it a full teacup of flour. Pour over the flour the boiling water and potatoes — to scald it. Mash all through the colander with a potato masher. Wash the saucepan in which the potatoes boiled and have it ready for use. Move the colander from the crock to the saucepan while the potato is being pressed through. Add one pint of warm water for that which has boiled away. When all is pressed through in the saucepan, wash the colander, potato masher, and crock. Set the colander over the crock. Press the potato water through again. Have ready two cakes of compressed yeast dissolved in cold water. Now add to the potato three-quarters of a teacup of white sugar, in which mix one teaspoon of ground ginger and one iron spoon, heaping, of salt. When this is mixed and all is cool to lukewarm,