GENERAL REMARKS ON BAKING

eight hours’ time to manufacture, but gives very little trouble to the baker.

Good or Bad Flour.

Experience is also necessary to judge of flour; but any one in the habit of using flour may form a pretty accurate idea whether it is good or bad. If fine and white, it may be con- sidered good so far as colour is concerned; but if it be brown, it shows that it was either made from inferior wheat, or has been coarsely dressed — that is, that it contains particles of bran. However, brown flour may be of a good sound quality, and fine white flour may not.

To judge of flour, take a portion in your hand and press it firmly between the thumb and forefinger, at the same time rubbing it gently for the purpose of making a level surface upon the flour ; or take a watch with a smooth back and press it firmly on the flour. By this means its colour may be ascer- tained by observing the pressed or smooth surface. If the flour feels loose and lively in the hand, it is of good quality; if it feels dead or damp, or, in other words, clammy, it is decidedly bad. Flour ought to be a week or two old before being used.

Alum in Bread.

A common custom to improve flour was to add a small quantity of alum to a sack of flour — a custom which, it may be hoped, is entirely a thing of the past. According to Liebig, the action of alum in the process of bread-making is to form certain insoluble combinations which render digestion difficult, and detract largely from the value, of bread as food. Professor Vaughan, of the University of Michigan, says: “The use of alum is an adulteration which is injurious to health. It unites with the phosphates in the bread, rendering them insoluble, and preventing their digestion and absorption. In this way,

14 BREAD AND BISCUIT BAKER'S ASSISTANT,

alum, when present, diminishes the nutritive value of bread. While some gain may perhaps temporarily accrue to the manu- facturer through the covert perpetration of this fraud, still no good to any one can result therefrom.”

Butter for Pastry and Cakes.

Butter, which so largely enters into the pastrycook’s business, is another important point for consideration. It should be perfectly sweet, and before it is used made smooth on a marble slab. Salt butter made from cows fed on poor pasture is the best for puff paste, and is the most proper for ornamental work ; it should be washed in water two or three times be- fore being used. On the other hand, for every kind of cake the butter cannot be too rich.

In the course of this work I likewise intend to touch on the icing of bride and other cakes.

III. 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|-ozs. of yeast in i 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, dis- solve ozs. of salt in i 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 8o° 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 dis- solves 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