NOTES ABOUT BREAD MARINO Some cooks prefer to set a sponge when making bread, allowing it to rise in the shape of a well-beaten batter before adding flour enough to do the kneading. " Sponging " makes a fine-grained bread, but it lengthens the time required for making, as two risings are needed after the sponge is light.
Bread may be made from water alone instead of " half and half," as milk and water bread is called. Water bread is tougher and sweeter and keeps better than that made from all milk.
A good test of whether bread has been kneaded enough is to leave it on the board or molding cloth for a few minutes. When you take it up again, if it does not stick it is ready to put in the bread pan.
If you want to make bread in a hurry, simply double the amount of yeast, that is, if you are using com pressed yeast. It gives no yeasty flavor, although brewers' and home made yeast do leave a slight taste when more than the prescribed quan tity is used. Should the oven be too hot, set a pan of cold water in it for a few nainutes.
Don't use potatoes or potato water in bread. The liquid in which pota toes have been boiled contains a poi sonous alkaloid and it tends to dark en the bread as well as giving it a peculiar flavor. Years ago, before milling had been brought to perfec tion, there might have been reason for adding mashed potatoes to bread; now, with our fine flour, there is no necessity for it.
The best way to care for a bread box is to wash it in hot water, then close it, and dry it on the cool end of a stove. This ought to be done between each baking to keep it fresh and sweet.
Milk bread browns more quickly than water bread; so do not imag ine because your loaf is a nice chestnut brown that it is baked. Give it time enough, which is from fifty to sixty minutes for brick loaves four inches thick.
If you are detained from getting bread into the pans when it has risen sufficiently, take a knife and cut down the dough till you are ready to attend to it. This allows the gas to escape and there is no danger of souring if you cannot return to it for half an hour.
It is best to have your fire in such condition that it will need no replen ishing while bread baking is in prog ress.
Yeast may be kept perfectly fresh for at least a week or ten days by immersing the cake in cold water. The particles of yeast settle at the bottom and water acts as a seal from the air. Cover the glass in which yeast is dissolved and keep it in a cellar or refrigerator. Occa sionally pour off the water that cov ers it and add fresh water.
If you do not own a covered bread pan, raise the dough in a large, clean bowl or basin, only keep it well cov ered with a towel. A paper tightly tied down is better still, for it pre vents air from entering.
When u recipe calls for one com pressed yeast cake and nothing can be obtained but liquid yeast, use one cupful of it instead.
If you don't have a wire stand for cooling bread, simply turn up a cou ple of bread tins and stand the loaves against their edges. The idea is to let the steam escape, so that your bread will neither be heavy nor moist.
If you want to hurry bread slight ly, add one tablespoonful of sugar to four quarts of flour. The yeast plant begins to grow quicker when there is sugar to feed on. When there is no sugar, the yeast has to change some of the starch to sugar, and, of course, this takes time.
Pricking the top of a loaf with a fork before it is put in the oven tends to make it rise and bake evenly.
Do not try setting bread over night either in midsummer or mid winter. In cold weather bread is likely to be chilled, in summer it may sour. There is plenty of time to raise and bake bread in the daytime, when one can watch it and give the careful consideration it requires above any other cooking.
If you live in a region where the water is very hard, boil it, and let it grow lukewarm before mixing with flour, for soft water is better than hard in the bread - making process. ^ Flour is ahnost as sensitive to odors as is milk; therefore it should be kept in a perfectly clean, whole some, dry place. Always raise the barrel off the floor, either on two strips of wood or on one of the handy little contrivances which will swing it out and in to a cupboard. Never use flour for anything without sift ing it first—it may be perfectly free from any foreign substance and it may not.