Put the oatmeal into a bread raiser, pour the boiling water over and let stand until lukewarm; then add salt, butter, dissolved yeast cake, and molasses; stir in the flour, beat thoroughly, and set it to raise in buttered bread pans. When it has almost doubled its bulk, bake.
Nut Bread.
1 cupful entire-wheat flour, .
1 cupful white flour, cake yeast, 1 cupful milk, 2 tablespoonfuls brown sugar, 1 teaspoonful salt, I pound shelled hickory nuts.
Set a sponge of the wheat flour, white flour, yeast, and milk; when light, add sugar, salt, hickory nuts, and enough entire-wheat flour to make as stiff as can be stirred with spoon. Put in the pan, raise, and bake one hour.
Rye and Indian Bread.
2 cupfuls yellow cornmeal, cupful yeast, cupful molasses, 1 teaspoonful salt, teaspoonful soda, 2 cupfuls rye meal.
Put the cornmeal into a mixing bowl and scald with boiling water; after ten minutes mix to a soft bat ter with cold water. When luke warm, add the yeast, molasses, salt, soda, and 2 cupfuls rye meal. Beat thoroughly, cover with a pan, and set in a warm place to rise over night. When the surface cracks open, stir it down, then grease and flour a pan, turn in the dough, smooth over the top, and sprinkle evenly with flour to prevent crust from forming. Let it rise again until cracks appear, then bake it in a moderate oven from two to three hours, covering with a tin lid after the first hour.
Fruit Bread.
2 cupfuls sweet milk, 2 cakes yeast, teaspoonful salt, 4 tablespoonfuls lard, 4 tablespoonfuls sugar, cupfuls fruit, cut fine, Flour.
Scald milk and cool to lukewarm; strain in the yeast dissolved in one quarter cupful lukewarm water. Sift salt with three cupfuls of flour, beat vigorously into liquid, and let sponge rise. Cream the lard, butter, and sugar; dredge the fruit with flour and add to the sponge. Add sufficient flour to make a soft dough. Knead thoroughly and set to rise. When light, divide, form into loaves, put in bread pans, and when ready, bake in slightly cooler oven tban is required for plain bread. For the fruit in this bread, use either raisins, currants, citron, dates, figs, or pru nelles.
Bread Rade with Dry Yeast. 2 quarts flour, 2i cupfuls warm water, 2 tablespoonfuls lard, 1 yeast cake, 1 tablespoonful sugar, 1 teaspoonful salt.
Sift the flour in the bread pan; break up the yeast cake and put in a quart bowl; then add a gill of water, and mash with a spoon until the yeast and water are well mixed. Beat
in 1 gill of flour. Cover the bowl and set in a warm place for two hours. At the end of that time the batter should be a perfect sponge. Add to the sponge a pint of warm water, half the lard, also salt and sugar. Stir this mixture into the flour and mix with a spoon. Sprinkle the board with flour, turn out the dough, knead twenty minutes, using as little flour as possible. At the end of this time the ball of dough should be soft, smooth, and elastic. Place the dough in the bowl and rub the second spoonful cif butter or lard over it. Cover with a towel, then a tin cover. Set the bowl in a warm place and let it raise over night. In the morn ing the dough will have increased to three times its original volume and be a perfect sponge. Knead it in the bowl for five minutes—do not use flour—then shape into three small loaves. Put these in deep pans, and with a sharp knife cut lengthwise through the center of each loaf. Put the pans in a warm place and cover with a towel. Let the loaves rise to twice their size, then bake fifty min utes.
Sweet-Potato Bread.
1 cake yeast, I cupful lukewarm water, 1 cupful scalded milk, 1 tablespoonful salt, cupful sugar, 1 cupful sweet mashed potatoes, 3 tablespoonfuls melted butter.
Dissolve the yeast in the lukewarm water, add the milk, salt, sugar, and potatoes (roasted, scraped from the skins, and worked to a cream with the melted butter), then allow to cool. Beat all together until light, then stir in with a wooden spoon enough flour to make a soft dough. Throw a cloth over the bread bowl and set in a warm place until well raised. Make into small loaves; let them rise for an hour and bake in a brisk oven.
Salt-Rising Bread.
2 cupfuls hot water, teaspoonfuls salt, 1 pint lukewarm milk, Flour.
Dissolve I teaspoonful salt in hot water, and beat in gradually enough flour to make a very soft dough. Beat for ten minutes, cover, and set in a warm place for eight hours. Stir the salt into the milk and add enough flour to make a stiff batter before working it into the raised dough; mix thoroughly, cover, and set again in a warm place to rise until very light. Knead in enough flour to make the batter of the consistency of ordinary bread dough. Make into loaves and set them to rise; when light, bake.