Baking Powder Bread. — If bread runs short, a tin of baking pow- der biscuits or a baking powder loaf of bread can be quickly made, and, unless it is eaten too hot, there is no danger of dyspepsia, as bread and biscuits made in this way easily separate into particles. This can be readily demonstrated by putting a slice of each kind of bread on a platter and wetting them with cold water; the yeast bread can be taken up whole from the water, while that made with baking powder falls apart immediately. The baking= powder bread is more digestible because it thus separates more readily into particles, so that the digestive fluids can easily attack every part, while the other forms a solid, nearly impenetrable mass in the stomach. Other advantages of baking=powder bread are that none of the starch in the flour is consumed by the baking powder, as is done by yeast, and there are certainly no yeast germs in the bread when eaten. Using Pastry Flour. — It is a generally safe rule to use pastry flour whenever baking powder is used, and patent flour with yeast. A mixture of ^ spring wheat or pastry flour, and ^ winter wheat or pat- ent flour, gives good results in yeast breads, and by many is pre- ferred to the patent flour alone. Prepared flour, which has the baking powder already mixed with it, can be obtained at grocery stores, or a quantity can easily be prepared at home and kept on hand for use. The proportion is 2| to 3 teaspoons of baking powder to the quart of flour, taking care that it is well sifted in. Adding Sugar and Potatoes — In fermented bread it is best to add a little sugar — not enough to produce a very sweet taste, but merely enough to replace that which is decomposed by fermentation, and so restore its natural sweetness. Some people object to using sugar, but for the foregoing reason it is ijrobably better to use a little. Add- ing potatoes to bread dough, which is sometimes done, is unneces- sary with the best grades of flour, but with the inferior grades it im- proves the bread. The Peinoiples Involved. — As the making of bread is the most important method of cooking grain food, let us examine the process a little and find the principles involved. Grinding the grain removes the indigestible bran, and by reducing it to a powder it vastly increases the surface exposed to the action of the ■water and yeast. The water when added causes the expansion of the starch cells, and it also gives an agreeable consistence to the bread after it is baked. Each grain of flour should be surrounded by a thin film of water; a white, powdery ker- nel of unmixed flour is sometimes seen in bread when this is not done. Adding a little salt not only causes the dough to rise better in the oven, but probably ;it enables the albuminous matter to set more re ;ulily, and thus helps to prevent the inflated dough from collapsing bcf.iro Ihc h.-ikiugis comulete. It also BREAD, BISCUIT, ETC. 263 acts as a condiment and supplies the system with hydrochloric acid and soda which are insufficiently supplied by natural foods.

AI-modernized reading of the original text

Baking Powder Bread. — If bread runs short, a tin of baking powder biscuits or a baking powder loaf of bread can be quickly made, and, unless it is eaten too hot, there is no danger of dyspepsia, as bread and biscuits made in this way easily separate into particles. This can be readily demonstrated by putting a slice of each kind of bread on a platter and wetting them with cold water; the yeast bread can be taken up whole from the water, while that made with baking powder falls apart immediately. The baking-powder bread is more digestible because it thus separates more readily into particles, so that the digestive fluids can easily attack every part, while the other forms a solid, nearly impenetrable mass in the stomach. Other advantages of baking-powder bread are that none of the starch in the flour is consumed by the baking powder, as is done by yeast, and there are certainly no yeast germs in the bread when eaten. Using Pastry Flour. — It is a generally safe rule to use pastry flour whenever baking powder is used, and patent flour with yeast. A mixture of ^ spring wheat or pastry flour, and ^ winter wheat or patent flour, gives good results in yeast breads, and by many is preferred to the patent flour alone. Prepared flour, which has the baking powder already mixed with it, can be obtained at grocery stores, or a quantity can easily be prepared at home and kept on hand for use. The proportion is 2| to 3 teaspoons of baking powder to the quart of flour, taking care that it is well sifted in. Adding Sugar and Potatoes — In fermented bread it is best to add a little sugar — not enough to produce a very sweet taste, but merely enough to replace that which is decomposed by fermentation, and so restore its natural sweetness. Some people object to using sugar, but for the foregoing reason it is probably better to use a little. Adding potatoes to bread dough, which is sometimes done, is unnecessary with the best grades of flour, but with the inferior grades it improves the bread. The Principles Involved. — As the making of bread is the most important method of cooking grain food, let us examine the process a little and find the principles involved. Grinding the grain removes the indigestible bran, and by reducing it to a powder it vastly increases the surface exposed to the action of the ■water and yeast. The water when added causes the expansion of the starch cells, and it also gives an agreeable consistence to the bread after it is baked. Each grain of flour should be surrounded by a thin film of water; a white, powdery kernel of unmixed flour is sometimes seen in bread when this is not done. Adding a little salt not only causes the dough to rise better in the oven, but probably it enables the albuminous matter to set more readily, and thus helps to prevent the inflated dough from collapsing before the baking is complete. It also acts as a condiment and supplies the system with hydrochloric acid and soda which are insufficiently supplied by natural foods.

The household cook book