Bread

BREAD. Various preparations of farinaceous substances bear this denomi nation; but those which are chiefly used in this country may be distinguished into three principal kinds. In the first, called unleavened bread, either flour and water alone are mixed, or with the addition of some other substance, such as butter, eggs, sugar, and afterwards baked, by which the mass is 'reduced into a solid state, sometimes flakey, but never cellular or sngy. Biscuit, or Bee bread, is of the unleavened kind, for the process of • which see Macon .In Duran, In the second kind of bread, called kaoened bread, the our and water being mixed together, is either left for some hours in a thin and almost liquid state to ferment, that the saccharine matter contained in the flour may be spontaneously changed into alcohol and carbonic acid gas, which expand by the heat of the oven, and render the bread vesicular or spongy. Although this intestine change will Like place naturally at the temperature employed in the vinous fermentation, it is usual to add certain substances, termed ferments, of which the harm of beer, or yeast, is preferred, where it can be obtained. These accelerate the fermentation of the dough, and cause it to take place simultaneously throughout the whole mass of dough. In the third kind of bread, a vesicular appearance is given to it by the addition to the dough of some ammcniacal salt, (usually the sub-carbonate,) which becomes wholly converted into a gaseous substance during the process of baking, causing the dough to swell out into little air vessels, which finally bursting, allow the gas to escape, and leave the bread exceedingly porous. Mr. Accum, in his Treatise ox Culinary Poisons, has stigmatized this process as "fraudulent," but, in our opinion, most unjustly. The bakers would never adopt it but from necessity : when good yeast cannot be procured, it forms an admirable and perfectly harmless substitute ; costing the baker more, it diminishes his profit, while the consumer is benefited by the bread retaining the solid matter, which by the process of fermentation is dissipated in the form of alcohol and carbonic acid gas. To persons un acquainted with the nature of the flour of wheat, it is necessary to state that it is composed of three distinct substances, which are easily separable by art : first, a mucilaginous saccharine matter, soluble in cold water; much starch, which will scarcely combine with water without the aid of heat; and an elastic adhesive grey substance, called gluten, which is insoluble in cold water, alcohol, oil, or ether, and resembles an animal substance in many of its properties. To the gluten in wheat flour is supposed to be owing its property of making so tenacious a paste, and its peculiar facility of rising or expanding by the addition of leaven. From the flour of barley, rye, oats, or potatoes, no gluten has been extracted, probably from their containing too small a quantity ; and as these substances are very difficult of fermentation by any of the ordinary processes, it has been supposed that thepresence of gluten is the cause of fermentation. It is, however, more reasonable to suppose that the tenacious dough formed by the admixture of gluten prevents the escape of the gaseous products of the fermentation, and that these, by their expansion, swell the dough into a vesicular mass, producing what is technically called light bread. M. Beccari, of Bologna, and Dr. Cullen, inform us that by the addition of gluten to barley and potatoes, they produced better bread from each than could be obtained without this addition. Parmentier asserts that bread may be made from potatoes alone ; but Mr. Edlin and Dr. Pearson, two very enlightened experi mentalists, state decidedly that this root cannot be fermented so as to make bread, without the addition of wheaten flour ; and that no farinaceous substance can be made into good bread that has not the three constituent parts of wheat before-mentioned: for if to the starch of potatoes some of this glutinous substance be added, with yeast and water, it will not form a bread, owing to the absence of the saccharine or sugary extract on which the process of fermen tation depends, and which, if this last substance be added, even in a concentrated state, will immediately commence. Although we have no knowledge of Par mender's process, we believe that his assertion is perfectly correct; for since the experiments were made by Mr. Edlin and Dr. Pearson, the farina of potatoes has been converted, on a great scale, into sugar and alcohol; and it has been long known that potatoe starch may be transformed, by the application of dr heat, into a species of tapioca, of great tenacity and elasticity. With sucK materials, we should imagine the skill of a Parmentier would hardly be necessary in order to make good bread. In the making of leavened bread without the addition of any article for exciting the speedy fermentation of the paste, a great deal of attention and skill are requisite. The spontaneous decomposition is extremely slow ; the various parts of the mass are differently affected, according to the humidity, the thickness or thinness of the part, the vicinity or remoteness of fire, and other circumstances less easily investigated. The saccharine part is disposed to become converted into alcohol ; the mucilage has a tendency to become sour and mouldy ; while the gluten, in all probability, verges towards the putrid state. An entire change in the chemical attractions of the several component parts must then take place in a progressive manner, not altogether the same in the internal and more humid parts, as in the external parts, which not only become dry by simple evaporation, but are acted upon by the surrounding air. The outside may therefore become mouldy or putrid, while the inner part may be only advanced to an acid state. Occasional admixture of the mass would of course not only produce some change in the rapidity of this alteration, but likewise render it more uniform throughout the whole. The effect of this commencing fermentation is found to he, that the

mass is rendered more porous by the disengagement of elastic fluid, which separates its parts from each other, and greatly increases its bulk. The operation of baking puts a stop to this process, by evaporating great part of the moisture which is requisite to favour the chemical attractions, and probably by still further changing the nature of the component parts. Bread thus made will not possess the uniformity which is requisite, because some parts may be mouldy, while others are not sufficiently changed from the state of dough. The same means are used in this case as have been found effective in promoting the uniform fermentation of large masses. This consists in the use of a leaven or ferment (as before mentioned), which is usually a small portion of dough of the same kind, but in a more advanced stage of the fermentation. To prepare an original leaven, take 8 oz. of flour, and two pinta of blood warm water, and as soon as the sponge begins to rise on the second day, add 1 lb. of flour, and four pints of water; and thus proceed for a day or two more, when a mixture will be obtained, which, being added to a quantity of flour and water intended for bread, will determine the fermentation to take place throughout the mass in three or four hours. It is only under peculiar circumstances that a recourse to an original ferment is necessary ; for this ferment having been once obtained, and the dough nearly ready for baking made from it, the fermentation of the next parcel of bread is readily put in action by reserving some of the fermented dough or leaven, as it is called, and using it for that purpose. To preserve this leaven from becoming sour, several methods are adopted. In the north of England, the leaven for the next week's baking is kept fit for use by being buried a few inches deep in a sack of flour. In Italy it is said to be kept fresh even for three months by being buried deep in flour. The French, if they intend to use the leaven in a few days, keep it in a warm place between two bowls, and add every day as much flour as the leaven weighs, and a sufficient quantity of water to restore the original consistence ; but if it is not to be used for a week, or longer, the scrapings of the kneading trough are cut into small pieces, dried by a gentle beat, and when wanted, rubbed down with warm water. It appears from the Scriptures, that the practice of making leavened bread is of extreme antiquity; but the addition of the scum that arises in the vinous fermentation of beer, called berm or yeast, seems to be of modern date, and is now in general use throughout the north of Europe. In this country this yeast is generally used in the proportion of a pint to a 100 lbs. of flour, and is dissolved in the first parcel of water with which the flour is mixed, and no leaven is used ; but at Paris, and other great towns in France, the dough is made first with leaven, and a little yeast is added to the last parcel of water, merely to increase the sponginess of the bread. Although we have given under the head BARis an account of the nature of this useful ferment, and various modes of preparing it, we shall here add some further information which more immediately appertains to the manufacture of bread. If yeast is not to be purchased, original yeast may be obtained by boiling a quarter of a peck (311bs.) of meal for eight or ten minutes in three pints of water, and pouring off two pints, which is to be kept in a warm place ; the fermentation will commence in about thirty hours, at which time four pints more of a similar decoction of malt are to be added, and when this ferments, another four pints are to be added, and so on, until a sufficient quantity of yeast is obtained. In Edinburgh the bakers multiply their yeast daily, by mixing 10 lbs. of flour with two gallons of boiling water, and covering it up for about eight hours. Two pints of yeast, made the day before, are then stirred in, and in about six or eight hours as much new yeast will be generated as will suffice for 420 lbs. of flour. When original yeast is prepared from malt, the fermenting wort may be added to the flour as well as the yeast, according to Mr. Stock, whose patent substitute for yeast is merely wort in a state of fermentation. This wort is made from 2 lbs. of malt, oz. of sugar, and 1 oz. of hops, to each gallon. Two gallons of this wort are sufficient for 12 bushels of wheaten flour. The Hungarians prepare a similar ferment for keeping all the year, by boiling in water in the summer wheat bran (obtained in grinding for household flour,) along with hops; the decoction soon ferments, and then a sufficient quantity of bran is flung in to drink up all the liquid, and allow it to be formed into balls, which are dried in a gentle heat. When wanted for use, some of these balls are broken, and boiling water poured upon them, which, after some time, is strained off and used to make up the dough. In like manner, the Romans prepared their ferment by drawing off in vintage time a quantity of grape juice, while at the height of its fermentation, pouring into it a sufficient quantity of millet flour to absorb it all, and forming into small balls, which, when wanted, were broken, infused in boiling water, and the whole then mixed with the dough. A similar ferment may be prepared in this country from a decoction of raisins, which must sub sequently be either pressed between boards with a heavy weight, or be mixed up with ground millet, as otherwise the strongest part of the must would remain amongst them. In summer, the leaven, yeast, and even dough, is apt to turn sour, and to communicate that taste to the bread ; this is remedied by stirring a few tea-spoons-full of carbonate of magnesia into the ferment or dough.