Homemade Bread

Ingredients

• a pint of warm water
• a spoonful of salt
• as much soda as will lie on a dime
• two quarts of flour

Method

1. 1

   Make a sponge overnight using a dried yeast-cake soaked in warm water with salt and soda.

2. 2

   Mix into a stiff batter with flour.

3. 3

   If the sponge appears watery, thicken it with more flour.

4. 4

   Cover and set in a warm place.

5. 5

   The next morning, when the sponge is light, add flour to a mixing bowl, turn the sponge into a hole in the center, and gradually add lukewarm water while stirring.

6. 6

   Knead the dough until soft but not sticky.

As published

This recipe was extracted from Catherine Owen's new cook book .. (1885) by Helen Alice (Matthews) Nitsch, page 8. The excerpt below is the record exactly as published.

home-made bread. I have tried many recipes, following them closely, and I can't achieve anything but a common- place loaf with a thick, hard crust ; and as for rolls, they are my despair. I have wasted eggs, butter, and patience so often that I have determined to give them up, but a fine loaf I will try for." ^^ And when you achieve the fine loaf, you may revel in home-made rolls, " I answered. And so I advise every one first to make perfect bread, light, white, crisp, and thin-crusted, that rarest thing in home-made bread. I have read over many recipes for bread, and am con- vinced that when the time allowed for rising is specified, it is invariably too short. One standard book directs you to leave your sponge two hours, and the bread when made up a quarter of an hour. This recipe strictly followed must result in heavy, tough bread. As bread 12 On Bread, 13 is so important, and so many fail, I will give my own method from beginning to end ; not that there are not numberless good recipes, but simply because they fre- quently need adapting to circumstances, and altering a recipe is one of the things a tyro fears to do. I make a sponge over night, using a dried yeast-cake soaked in a pint of warm water, to which I add a spoon- ful of salt, and, if the weather is warm, as much soda as will lie on a dime ; make this into a stiff batter with flour— it may take a quart or less, flour varies so much, to give a rule is impossible ; but if, after standing, the sponge has a watery appearance, make it thicker by sprinkling in more flour, beat hard a few minutes, and coyer with a cloth — in winter keep a piece of thick flan- nel for the purpose, as a chill is fatal to your sponge— and set in a warm place free from draughts. The next morning, when the sponge is quite light- that is to say, at least twice the bulk it was, and like a honeycomb — take two quarts of flour

Cook this with the app: pantry check, scaling, and the assistant.