10.—BURNS.
Dissolve alum in water, and bottle ready for use; or common lime-water; either remedy applied at once will relieve a burn and draw out the fire. Pour the solution into a bowl, and hold the burnt place, if possible, into it, or wet cloths with it. Sweet oil and laudanum can be added to the lime-water.
We simply give a few remarks for ordinary troubles, which may be useful; but we cannot leave this article without giving some useful rules for making good bread, which few make, and every young girl should learn how to do, as good bread is essential to the health of every household. An experienced housekeeper has kindly prepared for us the following article.
Directions for making Bread, Yeast &c.
Holy Writ assures us that bread is the staff of life, and experience fully proves the assertion. Yet many of us know not how to make this needed support. Every girl, no matter what her station in life may be, should learn how to prepare it in its highest excellence.
The word bread is derived from brayed grain, from the verb to bray, or pound; indicative of the method of preparing the flour.
Dough comes from the Anglo-Saxon word deawian, to wet or moisten. Loaf is from the Anglo-Saxon lif-ian, to raise or lift up, as raised bread. Leaven is derived from the French verb lever, to raise.
Dwellers in country towns and villages are forced to prepare the leaven, or yeast; so we append a receipt which never fails to make good bread. Wash and pare six good-sized, white-fleshed potatoes, grate them raw, on a lemon grater. Pour over them three quarts of boiling water; it will thicken up like starch. Add one table-spoonful of salt and half a cup of sugar. When the mixture is lukewarm, pour in one cupful of yeast. Set the pan beside the stove, and in six hours it will be light enough to use. Let it stand over night in a cool place; next morning cork it tightly in a jug. Keep it in the cellar or ice-house; but be sure that it does not freeze—that kills the life of it. Home-made yeast requires double the quantity of baker’s yeast. One teacupful of this yeast will make three loaves of bread and a pan of biscuit.
Potatoes added to the bread increases its bulk and quality. Boil six common-sized potatoes in two quarts of water, with one table-spoon of salt. When perfectly salt, mash fine on a plate, leaving no little particles. They can be rubbed through a colander and reduced to a pulp; turn it into the bread-pan, and pour over the water in which they were boiled. Sift eight quarts of flour, and when the potato-water is cooled, so as to be a little warm to the touch, stir in half the flour; then add one teacupful of the yeast. When that is thoroughly mixed up, put in the rest of the flour, making it thick enough to knead stiffly. Do this in the evening, and place the pan in a warm room in winter, a cool one in summer. Early next morning it will be risen finely. Another pan should have been tightly covered over it, and it will rise up into the pan. Knead it thoroughly on the moulding board, chopping it with a chopping-knife, or pounding with a pestle. Bread must be kneaded for an hour at least, if one desires the best quality. Holes in the slices of bread show that it was not well made. The superiority of the French bread-makers is owing to this cause. In many bakeries the dough is prepared by machinery. After the process of kneading is finished, rolls can be made, and baked for breakfast. They are prepared by rolling the dough in the shape of a rolling-pin, then cutting off a small portion, and rolling that in the same shape. Dip the sides and tops in melted butter, place in a pan, and put them in a warm place for twenty minutes; then bake in a hot oven twenty minutes. The melted butter causes them to break apart perfectly, and to brown handsomely.
The remainder of the dough is placed near the stove to rise a second time. It must be closely watched—ten minutes’ neglect will sour it.
To be sure a teaspoonful of saleratus will sweeten it; dissolve it in warm water, and mix it in so there will be no yellow spots; but, if used, it takes away the fresh sweetness of the bread. Making bread is not like cake or pie-making—it demands close attention; will not be neglected without injury. It requires some brains to make good bread, and that is one reason why so many families rarely know what the best quality of bread is. If it sours, turn in the saleratus; if it is half-kneaded, and half-risen, and the oven is ready, why, bake it, and thus very poor bread is the result! Bread cannot be set aside for dish-washing or sweeping. It must be of the first consequence.
When it is risen for a second time, and blubbers appear, flour your moulding-board, turn out the dough, cut it into as many parts as you desire loaves of bread, and knead, pound, or cut each loaf well; then have your bread-pans buttered, and put in the dough, kneading it into the corners of the pan. Prick it all over with a fork, place near the stove for fifteen or twenty minutes, or until it has filled the pans to the brim. Have your oven so hot, that if a sprinkling of flour is thrown in, it will brown quickly, but not burn; then set in the pans. Three quarters of an hour, in a properly heated oven, will bake bread. Don’t burn your crusts, but watch the oven, and in twenty minutes after putting them in, look at them and turn the pans round, for usually one side of an oven bakes the fastest. When it is baked, take it from the pans directly, else the sides will become moistened and clammy. Spread a clean towel on the table or shelves, and stand the bread on it. If the crust is too thick and brown, wrap the loaves in a clean towel wet with cold water; this softens it.
If these directions are closely followed, and a good brand of flour is used, no girl can fail to make A No. 1 bread.
No lady can teach her servants unless she has learned the alphabet of cookery herself, and bread may be called the A B C’s of the kitchen.