Principles of cookery

Sugar and shortening are commonly used, but if they were omitted wholly it would be possible to have palatable, nutritious bread. Salt is essential to suit the taste of most persons, but as bread is usually combined Yeast Cakes Causes of Slow Rising Kinds of Flour with salted butter its absence would be less noticeable, and bread might be made without it. Fermentation is hindered by the presence of salt, a small amount of sugar hastens the process. Sugar in large quantities makes the dough dense and the yeast cannot expand so readily. An excess of shortening has much the same effect. If a dough is made stiff with flour it rises more slowly. A stiff dough usually has small air cells and is finer grained than when the dough is made softer. The liquid may be milk, whole or skimmed, or water, or half of each. The milk supplies some sugar, fat and nitrogenous matter and produces a more nourishing loaf than that which is made with water. Mashed potatoes or sifted squash or cooked cereals are sometimes added to a bread dough for variety, but the process is not changed by such additions. The best bread flour is made from spring wheat and pastry flour from winter wheat, though they may be used interchangeably if necessary. The spring wheat flour contains more gluten and less starch, so that less of the bread flour is required to produce a dough of a given consistency. The entire or whole wheat flours provide more bone making materials than white flour, otherwise there is little difference in the nutritive value of the better grades of each. The presence of gluten makes wheat the favorite flour for yeast dough, Gluten is adhesive when moist- BREAD. j 03 ened and thus retains the gas bubbles formed by the yeast in somewhat the same way that egg-whites hold air when they are beaten. Old recipes for mixing yeast bread usually give di- order of rections for rubbing shortening into the flour and then Mixing "BREAD CAKE" OR BUN BREAD. adding the other ingredients with liquid to make a dough that can be kneaded. The best authorities today reverse the order, thus saving time and energy and producing a better result. The liquid is warmed that the fat, sugar, and salt Li(luid may readily blend with the other ingredients and that the dough may rise more rapidly. When it is below too F, or cool enough to avoid cooking the yeast Warmed Double Process Bread Amount oi' \east Short Process is added and well mixed through the liquid. Sufficient flour then is mixed in to give the desired consistency for kneading. At first the mixture may be stirred with a spoon, but as it becomes stiffer a knife will more easily serve to produce a smooth dough. The process of mixing bread may illustrate the batter and drop batter or muffin mixture as well as the dough. To make a sponge, half the quantity of flour to be used is mixed with the liquid and this allowed to rise till foamy, when the remainder of the flour is added. The advantages of this double process are that a trifle less flour is required since the first has time to expand before the second is put in, and that the process is somewhat shortened because in the first stage there is less resistance for the yeast to overcome and the whole sponge becomes full of yeast for the second stage.