For all manner of yeasty, doughy stuff---including how to make your own yeast---take the jump.
The husband says all you home brewers will probably want to pay attention to the bit on how to make your own yeast.
Among all civilized people bread has become an article of food of the first necessity; and properly so, for it constitutes of itself a complete life sustainer, the gluten, starch and sugar which it contains representing ozotized and hydrocarbonated nutrients, and combining the sustaining powers of the animal and vegetable kingdoms in one product. As there is no one article of food that enters so largely into our daily fare as bread, so no degree of skill in preparing other articles can compensate for lack of knowledge in the art of making good, palatable and nutritious bread. A little earnest attention to the subject will enable any one to comprehend the theory, and then ordinary care in practice will make one familiar with the process.
The first thing required for making wholesome bread is the utmost cleanliness; the next is the soundness and sweetness of all the ingredients used for it; and, in addition to these, there must be attention and care through the whole process.
Salt is always used in bread-making, not only on account of its flavor, which destroys the insipid raw state of the flour, but because it makes the dough rise better.
In mixing with milk, the milk should be boiled---not simply scalded, but heated to boiling over hot water---then set aside to cool before mixing. Simple heating will not prevent bread from turing sour in the rising, while boiling will act as a preventative. So the milk should be thoroughly scalded, and should be used when it is just blood warm. {Ed. WTF does that mean?}
Too small a proportion of yeast, or insufficient time allowed for the dough to rise, will cause the bread to be heavy.
The yeast must be good and fresh if the bread is to be digestible and nice. Stale yeast produces, instead of vinous fermentation, an acetous fermentation, which flavors the bread and makes it disagreeable. A poor, thin yeast produces imperfect fermentation, the resuble being a heavy, unwholesome loaf
If either the sponge or the dough be permitted to overwork itself---that is to say, if the mixing and kneading be neglected when it has reached the proper point for either---sour bread will probably be the consequence in warm weather, and bad bread in any. The goodness will also be endangered by placing it so near a fire as to make any part of it hot, instead of maintaining the gentle and equal degree of heat required for its due fermentation.
Heavy bread will also most likely be the result of making the dough very hard and letting it become quite cold, particularly in winter.
An almost certain way of spoiling dough is to leave it half made, and to allow it to become hard before it is finished. The other most common causes of failure are using yeast which is no longer sweet, or which has been frozen, or which has had hot liquid poured over it.
As a general rule, the oven for baking bread should be rather quick and the heat so regulated as to penetrate the dough without hardening the outside. The oven door should not be opened after the bread is put in until the dough is set or has become firm, as the cool air admitted will have an unfavorable effect upon it.
The dough should rise and the bread begin to brown after about fifteen minutes, but only slightly. Bake from fifty to sixty minutes and have it brown, not black or whitey brown, but brown all over when well baked.
When the bread is baked, remove the loaves immediately from teh pans and place them where the air will circulate freely around them, and thus carry off the gas which has been formed, but is no longer needed.
Never leave bread in the pan or on a pin table to absorb the odor of the wood. If you like crusts that are crisp do not cover the loaves; but to give the soft, tender, wafer-like consistency which may prefer, wrap them while still hot in several thicknesses of bread-cloth. When cold put them in a stone jar, removing the cloth, as that absorbs the moisture and gives the bread an unpleasant taste and odor. Keep the jar well covered and carefully cleansed from crumbs and stale pieces. Scald and dry it thoroughly ever two or three days. A yard and a half square of coarse table linen makes the best bread-cloth. Keep in good supply; use them for no other purpose.
Some people use scalding water in making wheat bread; in that case, the flour must be scalded and allowed to cool before the yeast is added---then proceed as abolve. Bread made in this manner keeps moist in the summer much longer tan when made in the usual mode.
Home-made yeast is generally preferred for any other. Compressed yeast, as now sold in most grocery shops, makes fine light, sweet bread, and is a much quicker process, and can always be had fresh, being made fresh every day.
Sift the flour into a large bread-pan or bowl; make a hole in the middle of it, and pour in the yeast in the ratio or half a teacupful of the yeast to two quarts of flour; stir the yeast lightly, then pour in your "wetting," either milk or water, as you choose,---which use warm in winter and cold in summer; if you use water as "wetting," dissolve it in a bit of butter of the size of an egg,---if you use milk, no butter is necessary; stir in the "wetting" very lightly, but do not mix all the flour into it; then cover the pan with a thick blanket or towel, and set it, in winter, in a warm place to rise,---this is called "putting the bread in sponge." In summer the bread should not be wet overnight. In the morning add a teaspoonful of salt and mix all the four in the pan with the sponge, kneading it well; then let it stand two hours or more until it has risen quite light; then remove the dough to the molding-board and mold it for a long time, cutting it in pieces and molding them together again and again, until the dough is elastic under the pressure of your hand, using as little flour as possible; then make it into loaves, ptu the loaves into baking tins. The loaves should come half way up the pan, and they whould be allowed to rise until the bulk is doubled. When the loaves are ready to be put into the oven, the oven should be ready to receive them. It should be hot enough to brown a teaspoonful of flour in five minutes. The heat should be greater at the bottom than at the top of the oven, and the fire so arranged as to give sufficient strength of heat through the baking without being replenished. LEt them stand for ten or fifteen minutes, prick them three or four times with a fork, bake in a quick oven from forty-five to sixty minutes.
If these directions are followed, you will obtain sweet, tender and wholesome bread. If by any mistake the dough becomes sour before you are ready to bake it, you can rectify it by adding a little dry supercarbonate of soda, molding the dough a long time to distribute the soda equally throughout the mass. All bread is better, if naturally sweet, without the soda; but sour bread you should never eat, if you desire good health.
Keep well covered in a tin box or large stone crock, which should be wiped out every day or two, and scalded and dried thoroughly in the sun once a week.
Use for two loaves of bread three quarts of sifted flour, nearly a quart of warm water, a level tablespoonful of salt and an ounce of compressed yeast. Dissolve the yeast in a pint of lukewarm water; then stir it into enough flour to make a thick batter. Cover the bowl containing the batter, or sponge, with a thick folded cloth and set it in a warm place to rise; if the temperature of the heat is properly attended to the sponge will be foamy and light in a half an hour. Now stir into the sponge the salt dissolved in a little warm water, add the rest of the flour and sufficient warm water to make the dough stiff enough to knead; then knead it from five to ten minutes, divide it into loaves, knead again each loaf and put them into buttered baking tins; cover them with a double thick cloth and set again in a warm place to rise twice their height, then bake the same as any bread. This bread has the advantage of that made of home-made yeast as it is made inside of three hours, whereas the other requires from twelve to fourteen hours.
Boil six large potatoes in three pints of water. Tie a handful of hops in a small muslin bag and boil with the potatoes; when thoroughly cooked drain the water on enough flour to make a thin batter; set this on the stove or range and scald it enough to cook the flour (this makes the yeast keep longer); remove it from the fire and when cool enough, add the potatoes mashed, also half a cup of sugar, half a tablespoonful of ginger, two of salt and a teacupful of yeast. Let stand in a warm place, until it has thoroughly risen, then put it in a large mouthed jug and cork tightly; set in away in a cool place. The jug should be scalded before putting in the yeast.
Two-thirds of a coffeecupful of this yeast will make four loaves.
On one morning boil two ounces of the best hops in four quarts of water half an hour; strain it, and let the liquor cool to the consistency of new milk; then put it in an earthen bowl and then add half a cupful of salt and half a cupful of brown sugar; beat up one quart of flour with some of the liquor; then mix all well together and let it stand till the third day after; then add six medium-sized potatoes, boiled and mashed through a colander; let it stand a day, then strain and bottle and it is fit for use. It must be stirred frequently while it is making, and kept near a fire. One advantage of this yeast is its spontaneous fermentation, requiring the help of no old yeast; if care be taken to let it ferment well within the bowl, it make immediately be corked tightly. Be careful to keep it in a cool place. Before using it shake the bottle up well. It will keep in a cool place two months, and is best the latter part of the time. Use about the same quantity of as of other yeast.
Make a pan of yeast the same as "Home-Made Yeast;" mix in with corn meal that has been sifted and dried, kneading it well until it is thick enough to roll out, when it can be cut into cakes or crumble up. Spread out and dry thoroughly in the shade; keep in a dry place.
When it is convenient to get compressed yeast, it is much better and cheaper than to make your own, a saving of time and trouble. Almost all groceries keep it, delivered to them fresh made daily.
Posted by Kathy at January 8, 2006 08:10 PM | TrackBack