Grains like corn and oatmeal, which lack gluten, do not make good bread. Wheat bread best meets the requirements of adult life. The gluten furnishes the flesh making elements, and the starch the heat giving, while deficiences in the amount of phosphates, etc., can be made up by the use of eggs, vegetables, etc. The essentials of bread making are (1) perfect cleanliness; (2) good flour; (3) good yeast; (4) the dough must rise well; (5) the oven must be right — neither too hot nor too cold; (6) the careful attention of the cook throughout the process. The principal causes of sour bread are using poor yeast, raising at too high a temperature, insufficient baking, and cooling in a warm, impure atmosphere. Wheat bread is the kind most commonly eaten in this country, and it is made of the best quality of wheat flour by mixing it with water or milk and yeast of some kind, which causes a more or less rapid fermentation according to the kind of yeast employed. A thorough kneading or molding process is also essential in making this bread, and great care and skill emj)loyed in the baking. • The yeast must be fresh and good or the bread will be heavy and indigestible; stale, sour yeast or leaven, produces instead of vinous, an acetous fermentation, and the result is a sour, heavy and unwhole- some loaf. Mixing the Bread.— Always sift the flour before using it, and it should also be dry. Dough for bread, if mixed at night, should be made late in the evening, and well molded (or kneaded as the process is usually called), and in cool or cold weather should be placed where it will retain the warmth of the water or milk used in mixing the dough. The wetting should be quite warm, but not hot enough to scald the yeast. The flour should also be warmed in cold weather 256 BREAD, BISCUIT, ETC. 257 by setting the pan which contains it on the back of the range, and constantly stirring it from the bottom of the pan, until the flour feels warm to the hand. The hand is better for stirring it, as a spoon does not always prevent its caking in the bottom of the pan. When thus warmed it will rise much more quickly, and when thor- oughly warmed it can be mixed with the warm wetting. A table- spoon of salt is added, and many cooks use a tablespoon of sugar, which hastens the fermentation and rising of the dough. In hot weather the flour does not need warming, and the wetting may also be of the temperature of the air. The dough will be light in the morning, and can be molded again, divided into loaves and put into the bakings tins to rise again, when it will be ready to bake; or, instead of molding it early in the morning, if other work is press- ing, or the third rising is desired, it may be cut down with a knife, until it is very nearly of the bulk it was before rising, and left to rise again until after breakfast is over, when it can be molded to put in the baking4ins. One good bread making rule is to mold 20 minutes at night after mixing, keeping the dough as soft as possible; then cut down well the first thing in the morning; after breakfast mold 10 minutes, with as little added flour as possible, then divide into loaves and put it in the baking4ins.

AI-modernized reading of the original text

Grains like corn and oatmeal, which lack gluten, do not make good bread. Wheat bread best meets the requirements of adult life. The gluten furnishes the flesh making elements, and the starch the heat giving, while deficiences in the amount of phosphates, etc., can be made up by the use of eggs, vegetables, etc. The essentials of bread making are (1) perfect cleanliness; (2) good flour; (3) good yeast; (4) the dough must rise well; (5) the oven must be right — neither too hot nor too cold; (6) the careful attention of the cook throughout the process. The principal causes of sour bread are using poor yeast, raising at too high a temperature, insufficient baking, and cooling in a warm, impure atmosphere. Wheat bread is the kind most commonly eaten in this country, and it is made of the best quality of wheat flour by mixing it with water or milk and yeast of some kind, which causes a more or less rapid fermentation according to the kind of yeast employed. A thorough kneading or molding process is also essential in making this bread, and great care and skill employed in the baking. • The yeast must be fresh and good or the bread will be heavy and indigestible; stale, sour yeast or leaven, produces instead of vinous, an acetous fermentation, and the result is a sour, heavy and unwholesome loaf. Mixing the Bread.— Always sift the flour before using it, and it should also be dry. Dough for bread, if mixed at night, should be made late in the evening, and well molded (or kneaded as the process is usually called), and in cool or cold weather should be placed where it will retain the warmth of the water or milk used in mixing the dough. The wetting should be quite warm, but not hot enough to scald the yeast. The flour should also be warmed in cold weather by setting the pan which contains it on the back of the range, and constantly stirring it from the bottom of the pan, until the flour feels warm to the hand. The hand is better for stirring it, as a spoon does not always prevent its caking in the bottom of the pan. When thus warmed it will rise much more quickly, and when thoroughly warmed it can be mixed with the warm wetting. A tablespoon of salt is added, and many cooks use a tablespoon of sugar, which hastens the fermentation and rising of the dough. In hot weather the flour does not need warming, and the wetting may also be of the temperature of the air. The dough will be light in the morning, and can be molded again, divided into loaves and put into the bakings tins to rise again, when it will be ready to bake; or, instead of molding it early in the morning, if other work is pressing, or the third rising is desired, it may be cut down with a knife, until it is very nearly of the bulk it was before rising, and left to rise again until after breakfast is over, when it can be molded to put in the baking-tins. One good bread making rule is to mold 20 minutes at night after mixing, keeping the dough as soft as possible; then cut down well the first thing in the morning; after breakfast mold 10 minutes, with as little added flour as possible, then divide into loaves and put it in the baking-tins.

The household cook book