BREAD, TEA CAKES, BUNS, ETC

BREAD, TEA CAKES, BUNS, ETC. 

I. -- To make Home-made Bread.

Put 1 stone of fine flour into your mixing pan; make a hole in the middle of the flour, and press the sides of the hole to prevent the liquid running through; dissolve 2 1/2 ozs. of yeast in 1 gill of water, and put it in the hole made in the flour; mix a little flour in the liquid to make a thin batter, cover your pan over and let it rise to a nice cauliflower top; when ready, dissolve 2 1/2 ozs. of salt in 1 gill of water, put this into your pan, and then take sufficient water (or water and milk) to make all into a nice dough; let it rise a little in the pan, then weigh off into your tins, and prove and bake. The heat of the water should be between 80 and 90 Fahr. 

2. -- Bread-making by the Old Method.

To make a sack of flour into bread the baker takes the flour and empties it into the kneading trough; it is then carefully passed through a wire sieve, which makes it lie lighter and reduces any lumps that may have formed in it. Next he dissolves 2 oz. of alum (called in the trade 'stuff' or 'rocky ') in a little water placed over the fire. This is poured into the seasoning tub with a pailful of warm water, but not too hot. When this mixture has cooled to a temperature of about 84 degrees, from 3 to 4 pints of yeast are put into it, and the whole having been strained through the seasoning sieve, it is emptied into a hole made in the mass of flour and mixed up with a portion of it to the consistency of thick batter. Dry flour is then sprinkled over the top. This is called the quarter-sponge, and the operation is known as 'setting.' The sponge must then be covered up with sacks, if the weather be cold, to keep it warm. It is then left for three or four hours, when it gradually swells and breaks through the dry flour laid upon its surface. Another pail of water impregnated with alum and salt is now added, and well stirred in, and the mass sprinkled with flour and covered up as before. This is called setting the half-sponge. The whole is then well kneaded with about two more pailfuls of water for about an hour. It is then cut into pieces with a knife, and to prevent spreading it is pinned, or kept at one end of the trough by means of a sprint board, in which state it is left to 'prove,' as the bakers call it, for about four hours. When this process is over the dough is again well kneaded for about half an hour. It is then removed from the trough to the table and weighed into the quantities suitable for each loaf. The operation of moulding, chaffing, and rolling up can be learnt only by practice. 

3. -- Modern Way of making Bread.

The modern way of making bread is as follows: Put 1 sack, or 20 stone, of flour into the trough, and, to take it all up, sponge 12 gallons of water of the required temperature, and from 10 to 16 ozs. of yeast, according to the strength. Then dissolve 2 lbs. of salt in the water and mix all together. In the morning, or when taken up again, add 6 gallons of water and 1 1/2 lb. of salt. If a quick or 'flying' sponge is required to be ready in an hour and a half, empty the sack of flour into the trough. Make a sprint, add 12 gallons of water of the required heat and 2 lbs. of yeast, and as much flour as you can stir in with the hand. Let it rise for one hour and a half; add 6 gallons more water (at the temperature the sponge is set, which should be about 100 degrees Fahr.), and 3 1/2 lbs. of salt. Make all into a nice-sized dough; let it stand three-quarters of an hour, then scale off. 

4. -- Scotch Style of making Bread.

The bread-making industry has made great strides in Scotland. In Glasgow alone there are two firms which each bake over two thousand bags of flour a week -- namely, J. and B. Stevenson and Bilsland Brothers -- while five other firms each bake from five hundred to one thousand bags a week in respect to the output, Scotland is a long way in advance of either England or Ireland. I can well remember the time when oatmeal cakes and scones were the staple food in Scotland; but such food is now notable by its absence. This brings to mind a story I once heard of an Englishman and a Scotchman who were arguing on the merits of their respective countries. The Englishman said, 'Man Sandy, you are all fed on oatmeal! Why, in England we only feed our horses on oats.' Sandy's reply was, 'I don't na but what you say, man, is a very true, but where wull ye get sic horses and where wull ye get sic men ?'

As I have said before, Parisian harm is the kind most used in Scotland; in fact, nearly all the Scotch advertisements require 'men used to Parisian barm.' However, I have noticed lately that German yeast is steadily making its way in the North. The Scotch used generally to make their bread with what they called potato ferment. Now it is mostly quarter or full sponges. To make 1 sack of flour into bread with a quarter sponge take 1 gallon of water of the required temperature, add 1/2 a gallon of Parisian barm, and sufficient flour to make it into a good stiff dough. This is generally set between one and two o'clock, and is ready to take about half-past four. It should be dropped when ready an inch in the quarter boat or barrel. Empty it into the trough, add 10 gallons of water, dissolve 2 lbs. of salt, and mix all into a well-beaten sponge. Add 6 gallons of water of the required temperature and 1 1/4 lb. of salt in the morning, or when you take the sponge, and make all into a nice dough. The softer you can work the sponge the clearer and showier will be the loaf.

To make 1 sack of flour with a full sponge, take 1 to 1 1/2 gallons of barm, about 10 gallons of water of the proper temperature with 2 lbs. of salt dissolved in it; make all into a nice-sized sponge. When ready add 6 gallons of water of proper temperature, and 1 1/4 lb. of salt, and make it into dough.

Care should always be taken to keep the barm clear of grease and churned milk, especially if the milk is sour.

There are a great many substitutes for wheat-flour bread, some of which I will enumerate; but I do not think it needful to give the recipes for them, as the recipes and formulae I have given are evidently those most popular in the English, Scotch, and Irish bake houses. Among the many substitutes for wheat bread are the following: bread corn, rice bread, potato bread; bread made of roots, ragwort bread, turnip bread, apple bread, meslin bread, salep bread, Debreczen bread, oat and barley bread. The Norwegians, we are informed, make bread of barley and oatmeal baked between two stones; this bread is said to improve by age, and may be kept for as long as thirty or forty years. At their great festivals the Norwegians use the oldest bread, and it is not unusual at the baptism of infants to have bread made at the time of the baptism of their grandfathers. 

5. -- Home-made Whole Meal Bread.

Take 1 stone of wheat meal (granulated is best); put your flour in the basin or mixing bowl, and make a hole in the centre of the meal: dissolve 2 ozs. of yeast in a gill and a half of water, about 90 Fahr.; pour the yeast and water into the hole, and mix in as much of the meal as will make a soft batter; cover it up, and when it is ready (which you will know by its having a nice cauliflower top), add 2 1/2 ozs. of salt, and sufficient water, at a temperature of say 80 Fahr., and mix all lightly into a nice mellow dough; put it past, with a cover over it, till you see it commence to rise; then divide it into the sizes required and place in tins to prove; bake in a moderate oven.

Wheat meals, and brown or second flours, do not require so much working, either in the sponge or with the hands, in making it into dough, as do the flours of a finer quality. 

6. -- Whole Meal Bread.

(For Master Bakers, as generally used in the Trade.) When setting your ordinary sponges at night for fine bread, dissolve 2 1/2 ozs. of yeast and 2 1/2 ozs. of salt in 1 1/2 gallons of water, about 4 to 6 Fahr., under whatever heat at which you may be setting your fine sponges (according to the nature of the meal you are using); take as much whole meal flour as will make this quantity of water into a weak sponge, and in the morning, when it is ready, give it half a gallon of water off same heat as your fine sponges, with 5 ozs. of salt, and make all lightly into a dough so that there is no 'scrape' about it, and work off in the same way as your ordinary bread. 

7. -- Unfermented, or Diet Bread.

Take 8 lbs. of granulated wheat meal (or meal made with a mixture of barley meal and wheat meal properly blended), 4 ozs. of cream of tartar, and 2 ozs. of carbonate of soda; mix the tartar and soda amongst the flour and sift all through a sieve; make a bay, and add 2 ozs. of crushed salt and 4 ozs. of castor sugar, putting the above in the bay and pouring in a little churned milk to dissolve the salt and sugar; then add as much churned milk as will take the 8 lbs. of meal in, and make into a nice-sized dough; weigh off, and bake in oval tins. They should be put immediately into the oven.

I consider this the very best mode of making wheat meals into bread; bread thus made eats well, and keeps moist longer than fermented meals. 

8. -- Rye Bread.

Eye bread used to be in greater favour with the public than it now is, but I consider that is owing to the sodden, heavy way in which it is generally made; for if rye flour is properly blended with fine flour, instead of the barley meal generally used, it produces a very nice-flavoured loaf.

Set a sponge at night with fine flour -- say, 1 gallon of water, 1 1/2 ozs. of yeast, and l 1/2 ozs. of salt; let your sponge be about the same consistency as for muffin batter; in the morning add 1 quart of water and 3 ozs. of salt, and make your dough up with rye meal; let your sponge be set of the same heat as for wheat meal bread.

I have adopted this plan, and find it gives general satisfaction. In baking wheat meals, or other meals of the same nature, your oven should be 30 or 40 by the pyrometer under the heat used for fine bread. 

9. -- Coarse Bread.

Coarse flour (or 'overheads,' as it is generally called in the south of Scotland) is the cheapest grade of flour made, and if properly manufactured it will vie with any class of flour in the market for a fine, sweet, nutty flavour; but of course it is dark in colour, and I have seen four of this grade very strong and carry an exceedingly large quantity of water.

In a test I had some time ago, I produced 110 - 41b. loaves, weighed in dough at 4 lbs. 6 ozs., out of 20 stone of this flour; but I may say that the flour was stone-dressed, and milled in the old style. This same class of flour was in general use in Scotland twenty years ago, and was generally made into coarse or second bread, and coarse 'two pennies.' Many a poor family -- ay, and rich families too -- have thriven and had their hearts made glad on the produce of this grade of flour.

To make Coarse Bread. -- Take, say 1 gallon of water, at the same temperature as for wheat meal bread; dissolve 1 1/4 ozs. of yeast, and the same quantity of salt, in the water; make into an ordinary-sized sponge, and when ready in the morning add half a gallon of water and about 4 ozs. of salt; then make all into a dough, and work off as other doughs.

This flour can be sponged the same way as fine flour for a quick or flying sponge, only care should be used in not setting the sponge too warm, as I find that it ferments and works more quickly than the finer grades of flour. 

10. -- Germ Flour Bread.

Germ flour is amongst one of the newest kinds of flour placed before the public as a speciality. It is in appearance something like granulated wheat meal, and the vendors of it claim to have found a new process of removing the germ from the flour, and subjecting it to a certain process before it is again mixed with the flour. I am having germ bread made almost daily. Our mode of making it is as follows: -

Dissolve 1 1/2 ozs. of yeast in half a gallon of water, say 90 Fahr., and mix with this about 7 lbs. of germ flour; it should be ready in about an hour and a half; weigh off and prove; use no salt, as we think there is a certain amount of salt (or some substitute for salt) ground amongst the flour. For this class of bread it makes a very nice-eating loaf. 

11. -- Tea-Cakes.

To be able to make a good tea-cake is considered a great point in the baking trade. The following not only makes good tea-cakes, but also capital Scotch cookies.

Take 1/2 a gallon of water at, say, 94 Fahr. add 1 lb. of moist sugar, 5 ozs. of German yeast; dissolve all together, add, say, 1 1/2 lb. of flour and mix. When well risen, add 1 lb. of lard and butter, 2 ozs. of salt, a few currants to taste; mix all together into tea-cake dough. Let it remain in a warm place for about half an hour, then weigh off at 8 or 9 ozs. for 2d.; prove, and bake. 

12. -- Queen's Bread.

This can be made with the same dough, but omitting the currants, and making the dough tighter than for tea-cakes; add 1 egg to each pound of dough. Weigh at 3 ounces for a penny, and make into different shapes, such as half-moons, cart-wheels, twists, &c. 

13. -- Sally Luns, Yorkshire, or Tea Cakes.

 Take 1 quart of milk, 1/4 lb. of moist sugar, and 2 ozs. of German yeast. Ferment this with a little flour, and when ready, add 1/2 lb. of butter (some add also 4 eggs to this quantity) and make into dough as for tea-cakes; butter some rings or hoops, and place them on buttered tins, weigh or divide into 5 or 6 ozs. for two pence; mould them round, put them in the hoops, and, when half proved, make a hole in each with a piece of stick. Do not overprove them, or they will eat poor and dry. When baked, which will be in about ten or fifteen minutes, wash over the top with egg and milk. 

14. -- Muffins.

Sift through the sieve 4 lbs. of good Hungarian flour; take as much water and milk as will make the above into a nice-sized batter, having previously dissolved 2 ozs. of yeast, 1 oz. of sugar, and 3/4 oz. of salt in the liquid; then beat this well with your hand for at least ten minutes; after it has half risen in your pan beat again for other ten minutes; then let it stand till ready, which you will know by the batter starting to drop. Have one of your roll-boards well dusted with sifted flour, and with your hand lay out the muffins in rows. The above mixture should produce 24 muffins. Then, with another roll-board slightly dusted with rice flour, take the muffins and with your fingers draw the outsides into the centre, forming a round cake; draw them into your hand and brush off any flour that may be adhering to them; place them on the board dusted with rice, and so on till all are finished; then put them in the prover to prove, which does not take long. The heat of the liquid for muffins (or crumpets) should range from 90 to 100 Fahr., according to the temperature of the bakehouse.

One great point to guard against in fermenting cakes or bread, is to see that your sponge or dough does not get chilled. By the time your muffins are ready, have the stove or hot plate properly heated, then row them gently on to the hot plate so as not to knock the proof out of them; when they are a nice brown turn them gently on the other side and bake a nice delicate brown. 

15. Another Way. -- Some persons now make muffins after the same formula as for teacakes, namely, moulding one in each hand and pinning out the size required, then proving and baking. I have tried that way more than once, but I cannot get the muffins to appear anything like what my experience teaches me a muffin should be. Practice and judgment are required to make one proficient in muffin making.

There has recently been introduced to the trade a hot plate heated with gas, which will go a long way in helping the muffin-maker. It is both cleaner, handier, and you can bake with it to a more certain degree of heat. 

16. -- Crumpets.

Crumpets are generally made by muffin-makers, the most modern formula being the following: -- Take 4 lbs. of good English flour, 2. ozs. of good yeast, and 2 ozs. of salt. The flour and salt may be sifted together. Take 1 quart of milk, and 1 1/2 quarts of water, at about 100 Fahr.; dissolve your yeast in the water, then mix in your flour and salt; make all into a thin liquid paste, giving it a thoroughly good mixing; let it stand for one hour, when you may again give it a thoroughly good beat; let it stand for another hour, when it will be ready to bake off. In the meantime thoroughly clean your stove or hot plate before it gets hot, and give it a rub over with a greasy cloth; then have your rings of the size required (they should be half an inch in depth); slightly grease them, and see that they are greased for each round of the hot plate; have a cup in one hand and a saucer in the other to prevent the batter dropping; pour half a cup of the batter into the rings and spread them with a palette knife to a level surface, putting what comes off (if any) back into your pan. Then, when the bottom part is of a nice golden colour, turn them over with your palette knife, turning the ring at the same time, and bake off a nice colour. Remove them from the stove or hot plate, and lay them on clean boards for a couple of minutes, when with a gentle tap your rings will come clear; and so on till finished. Nothing but careful practice, and particular attention to the whys and wherefores of both hot plates and batter,' will make a good muffin or crumpet-maker. 

17. -- Oatmeal Cake.

Take 7 lbs. of medium oatmeal, 1 1/2 oz. salt, 1 1/2 oz. Carbonate of soda, 1 1/2 oz. cream of tartar, 1 1/2 lb. of flour, 1 1/2 lb. of lard.

Rub the lard in the oatmeal and flour, having previously mixed all the other ingredients in the oatmeal; make a bay, add sufficient cold water to make all into a good working dough, weigh off at 8 ozs., mould up, pin out the size you think most suitable, cut into four, and place on clean dry tins. Bake in a sharp oven. 

18. -- Bath Buns.

1 lb. of flour, 8 ozs. of butter, 8 ozs. of sugar, 4 eggs, a little warm milk, 1 oz. of Parisian yeast, some citron peel cut small, and half a nutmeg grated. This will make fourteen two penny buns.

Rub the butter in with the flour, make a bay and break in the eggs, add the yeast with sufficient milk to make the whole into a dough of moderate consistency, and put in a warm place to prove. When it has risen enough mix in the peel, a little essence of lemon, and the sugar, which should be in small pieces about the size of peas. Divide into pieces for buns, prove and bake in gentle heat. They may be washed with egg and dusted with sugar before proving. 

19. Another Way. -- 4 lbs. of flour, 1 lb. of butter, 6 ozs. of sugar, 4 ozs. of yeast, 4 eggs, and sufficient milk to make all into a dough; add essence of lemon.

Warm the milk, add the sugar and yeast with sufficient flour to make a ferment; when ready, add butter, eggs, and remainder of flour, with currants or peel to taste. Weigh or divide into 3 ozs. each, mould them up round egg on top rolled in castor sugar; slightly prove, bake in moderate oven. 

20. -- Hot Gross Buns.

Take 1 quart of milk or water, 3 ozs. of yeast, 12 ozs. of moist sugar, 12 ozs. of butter, 1 oz. of salt, with sufficient flour to make a nice mellow dough.

Proceed the same as for tea-cakes, adding spice, currants, and peel to taste; weigh 4 ozs. for a penny, make a cross in the middle of the bun, wash over with egg, and prove. Spice, however, is very seldom used, as it tends to darken the buns, and thus giving them a poor appearance. An ingenious apparatus has been invented called a Patent Bun Divider, which greatly facilitates the making of these buns, and cannot fail to be of great service where large quantities of buns or cakes are required to be divided. All that is needed is to weigh 8 lbs. of dough, place it in the pan, and at one stroke of a lever thirty buns or cakes are divided ready to mould. 

21. -- Chelsea Buns.

Take plain bun dough (or if for common buns, bread dough), roll it out in a sheet, break some firm butter in small pieces and place over it, roll it out as you would paste; after you have given it two or three turns, moisten the surface of the dough, and strew over it some moist sugar; roll up the sheet into a roll, and cut it in slices; or cut the dough in strips of the required size and turn them round; place on buttered tins having edges, half-an-inch from each. Prove them well, and bake in a moderate oven. They may be dusted with loaf sugar either before or after they are baked. The quantity of ingredients used must be regulated by the required richness of the buns. 1/2 lb. of butter, 1/2 lb. of sugar, with 4 lb. of dough, will make a good bun. When bun dough is used, half the quantity of sugar will be sufficient; some omit it altogether. 

22. -- Balmoral Cakes.

3 1/2 lbs. of flour, 1 lb. of butter, 1 lb. of sugar, 5 eggs, nearly 1 quart of milk, a few caraway seeds, with 1 1/2 oz. of carbonate of soda and tartaric acid, mixed in proportion of 1 oz. of soda to 3/4 oz. of acid.

Mix the soda and acid well with the flour, then rub in the butter and sugar; make a bay with the flour, add the seeds, beat up the eggs with the milk, and make all into a dough. Put into buttered pans according to the size; dust with castor sugar, and bake in a moderate oven. 

23. -- Balloon or Prussian Cakes.

Take currant bun dough and make it into a round flat cake of any required size, and place it on a buttered tin. When it is about half proved, divide it with a long, flat piece of wood having a thin graduated edge, into eight equal parts, and place it again to prove. When it is proved enough, brush over the top lightly with the white of an egg well whisked, dust it with fine powdered sugar and sprinkle it with water, just sufficient to moisten the sugar. Bake it in a rather cool oven to prevent the icing getting too much coloured. 

24. -- Saffron Buns.

Take the same mixture as for teacakes, add 1 oz. of caraway seeds, and colour it with saffron. Mould them round, and put them on the tins so as not to touch. When they are near proof, wash the tops with egg and milk, and dust them with castor sugar. Put them in the oven to finish proving, and bake them in a moderately hot oven. 

25. -- Cinnamon Buns.

Made same way as saffron buns, but leaving out the caraway seeds and saffron, and using instead sufficient ground cinnamon to flavour them. 

26. -- Jubilee Buns.

2 lbs. of flour, 3/4 lb. of butter, 3/4 lb. of sugar, 4 eggs, 1/2 oz. of voil.

Rub the butter in with the flour, make a bay and add the sugar, pound the salt in a little milk and pour it in, break the eggs, and mix all together into a dough. Make six buns out of 1 lb. of dough, mould them round, wash the top with eggs, put some currants on the top, and dust with sugar. 

27. -- German Buns.

4 lbs. of flour, 2 ozs. of tartar, 1 oz. of carbonate of soda, 12 ozs. of butter, 1 1/2 lbs. of sugar, 4 eggs, 10 drops of essence of lemon, with milk.

Mix tartar and carbonate of soda with the flour, make a sprint or bay, put butter and sugar in bay, cream; add eggs, then milk, make all into a dough, and size them off on buttered tins one inch apart. Wash over with egg, and put a little sugar on top, and bake in a moderate oven. 

28. -- Common German Buns (for wholesale purposes).

4 lbs. of flour, 2 ozs. of tartar, 1 oz. of carbonate of soda, lb. of lard, 1 1/2 lb. of moist sugar, a little turmeric and churned milk; then proceed as for best German buns. Bake in a sharp oven. 

29. -- London Buns.

Take 1 pint of milk warmed in a basin, add 2 ozs. of yeast, 8 ozs. of moist sugar, and make a dough with sufficient flour.

When the sponge is ready add 12 ozs. of butter, a pinch of salt, and have ready 4 ozs. of chopped peel. Mix all in the dough with 2 eggs and lemon, and prove. When about half proved wash over with yolk of egg. Put sugar on top when full proved. 

30. -- Penny Queen Cakes.

1 1/2 lb. of butter, 2 lbs. of sugar, 15 eggs, 2 lbs. of flour, 1 lb. of patent flour. Cream butter and sugar in a basin, add eggs, then flour, and as much milk as will make a nice batter. Bake in fluted pans. 

31. -- Patent Flour.

Take 4 ozs. of tartar, and 2 ozs. of carbonate of soda, and 8 lbs. of flour, and sift through a sieve three times. 

32. -- Penny Rice Cakes.

4 lbs. of flour, 2 1/2 lbs. of castor sugar, 1 1/4 lb. of butter, 10 eggs, 1 oz. of tartar, 3/4 oz. of carbonate of soda, 1/2 lb. of ground rice, milk to dough. Cream butter and sugar together, add eggs; when well creamed, add flour, rice, and milk. Bake in small round hoops papered round the side. 

33 -- Coconut Cakes.

These are made in the same way, with the same mixture, but leaving out the rice and adding the same quantity of Coconut Dust Coconut on the top of each. 

34. -- Albert Cakes.

Cream 12 oz. of butter with 1 lb. of sugar, add 13 eggs; mix 1/2 oz. of carbonate of soda and 1/4 oz. of acid with 2 lbs. of flour; weigh 8 ozs. of currants. Mix all together with milk, and bake in a small edged pan. Cut into squares when cold.