Concluding Remarks. A number of processes are used by cooks and confectioners to make the different varieties of fancy bread, cakes, puddings, &c., which vary according to the peculiar characteristic it is desired to communicate to them; but none of these articles properly belong to the trade of the common baker. Thus, some kinds of cakes and pastes are made to eat ‘short,’ as it is called, or are rendered less tenacious, and a species of brittleness imparted to them by the addition of starch, rice-flour, or sugar. In pastry a similar effect and peculiar lightness is produced by butter or lard, whilst in some articles white of egg, gum water, isinglass, and other adhesive substances, are added to produce an exceedingly light and porous mass.
The chief varieties of bread at present in use in this country are known according to their shapes, as—Bricks, Coburg, Cottage, Batch, French rolls, and Rye bread. These vary in their quality, chiefly according to the flour of which they are formed, and their various flavours depend upon the heat of the oven in baking. The best WHITE BREAD is made from the purest wheat-flour; ordinary WHEATEN BREAD, of flour containing a little of the finest bran; SECONDS, from flour containing a still larger proportion of bran; and common HOUSEHOLD BREAD, from flour produced by grinding the whole substance of the grain, without any separation of the bran. The last variety is undoubtedly the most wholesome and nutritious, although that least frequently used. Symnel-bread, MANCHET or ROLL-BREAD, and French bread are varieties made of the purest flour, from the finest wheat, a little milk being usually added for rolls, and butter and eggs for choicer purposes. Several other minor kinds of bread are also made, varied by the addition of sundry trifles, as sugar, currants, and other palatable ingredients. The Scotch shortbread is made from a very thick dough, to which butter, sugar, orange-peel, and spices are added, according to the taste of the maker.
In the manufacture of white bread from damaged or inferior flour a large quantity of alum is employed by the fraudulent baker, as already noticed; but with the ‘best flour’ no alum is required. The utmost beauty, sponginess, and sweetness may be given to bread without the addition of one particle of alum, provided the best materials alone enter into its composition. As such materials are seldom employed by the bakers, the usual practice is to introduce 4 or 5 oz. of alum to every sack of flour, or about 1 oz. to each bushel; and very frequently fully double this quantity of alum is employed. But even this enormous quantity is often not the whole of the alum present in common bread; for the miller, in order to cheat the baker, puts in the ‘doctor,’ in the shape of 4 to 6 oz. of alum to the sack, whilst the baker, unconscious of this victimisation, subsequently uses a double dose of alum in order to cheat his customers.[229] The method of detecting this pernicious adulteration has been already explained. The proper quantity of salt is 4 lbs., and never more than 5 lbs., to the sack, or 1 lb. per bushel. One sack of the best flour, with 4 or 5 lbs. of salt, yields about 360 lbs. of good bread; and a sack of seconds, 345 to 350 lbs. of bread; each being moderately baked. If the loaves are well-baked or over-baked, the product will be from 345 to 350 lbs. only; but if they are slack-baked or under-baked, from 370 lbs. to 385 lbs. of crumbling bread may be obtained from 1 sack of good white flour.
[229] The common excuse of the bakers for using alum is, that without it the bread is not sufficiently white to please their customers, and that the batches are not easily parted into loaves after baking; but Liebig has shown that clear lime-water, which is perfectly harmless, will effect the same object if substituted for the simple water used to make the dough.
The attention of chemists has, at various times, been directed in search of some method to rectify or lessen the effects of bad harvesting and improper storage on grain, so that a damaged or inferior article might be rendered serviceable, and available for human food. Prof. E. Davy recommends the addition of 1⁄4 oz. of carbonate of magnesia to about every 3 lbs. of sour, melted, heated, and similarly damaged flour. This substance materially improves the quality of the bread, “even when made from the worst new seconds flour;” whilst it is said to be perfectly harmless; and the bread so prepared, for temporary use, is certainly unobjectionable. What effects would arise from the daily consumption of such bread for several months has not been determined; but it is
doubtful whether it would prove salutary. Indeed there are sufficient reasons for condemning the adoption of such bread in the general diet of a people for any very lengthened period.[230] Our own experiments in bread-making, extending over a long period of years, lead us to prefer carbonate or bicarbonate of soda for the purpose. Theoretically, the corresponding salts of potassa would be preferable. A mixture of equal parts of the bicarbonates of potassa and of soda will, perhaps, ultimately be found to be more useful than either substance used separately.
[230] See Goiture, Magnesia, &c.
In times of scarcity and famine various substances, besides the flour of the cereals, have been made into bread, or have been mixed with it, in order to lessen the quantity of the former required by the people. For this purpose, almost every amylaceous vegetable at once plentiful and cheap has, in its turn, been eagerly appropriated. Acorns, beech-mast, the leguminous seeds, numerous starchy bulbous roots, and similar substances, have been employed, either in the form of meal, or made into an emulsion or jelly, which has been used instead of water to form the flour of bread-corn into a dough. At such times bran, the most nutritious and valuable portion of the grain, although usually rejected as worthless, has been retained in the flour, and has even been added to it in excess. Birkenmayer, a brewer of Constance, during a period of scarcity, succeeded in manufacturing bread from the farinaceous residue of beer (brewer’s grains). 10 lbs. of this substance, rubbed to a paste, with 1⁄2 lb. of yeast, 5 lbs. of ordinary meal, and a handful of salt, produces 14 lbs. of BLACK BREAD, which is said to be “both savoury and nourishing.” The nutritious quality of brewer’s grains is shown by their extensive employment at the present day as food for pigs and cattle, and particularly for milch cows. In like manner Iceland, Carragheen, and other mosses, have been made into bread, either alone, or mixed with flour or meal. They are used, in the first case, in the state of meal, in the same way as flour; in the second case, 7 lbs. of moss are directed to be boiled in 10 or 12 galls. of water, and the resulting glutinous liquid or jelly to be employed to make 70 lbs. of flour into dough, which is then fermented and baked in the usual way. It is said that flour thus produces fully double its weight of good household bread. A simpler plan is to mix 1 lb. of lichen meal with 3 or 4 lbs. of flour; the bitterness of the lichen having been first extracted by soaking it in cold water. Bread so prepared has of late been highly recommended for the delicate and dyspeptic. The modern baker is in the habit of mixing large quantities of potatoes with his bread, whenever he can purchase them at paying prices. Mealy potatoes are selected, and are carefully mashed or pulped, and the dry flour is worked into this pulp or dough, which is then mixed with the sponge in the usual manner. For inferior bread, equal weights of potato pulp and dry flour are often used. Bread so prepared eats ‘short,’ and is deficient in sponginess, and in that fine yellowish-white tint which forms one of the characteristics of pure wheaten bread, More recently, rice boiled with water to a jelly has got into very extensive use among the bakers. A ‘sponge’ is made with a portion of the jelly thickened with some flour, and the whole process is conducted in the ordinary manner, except that the fermentation is generally more slowly conducted and allowed to proceed for a longer period. Flour so treated yields fully 50% more bread than when merely mixed up with yeast and water. This constitutes the process of Messrs Morian, Martin, and Journet, of Paris, which was tested, a few years since, at Marylebone Workhouse. The experiment succeeded, but the only result to the public has been, that the common bakers have adopted the plan, and now very generally surcharge their bread with such an excess of water that, in many cases, it only possesses two thirds the amount of nourishment which it did before the publication of the system just referred to. Unfortunately, the cupidity of dishonest tradesmen appears to be continually impelling them to avail themselves of the exertions of philanthropists and the discoveries of science, in order to increase their profits, regardless alike of the quality of their commodities and the health of their customers. Bread containing an excess of water rapidly becomes sour and mouldy, and is apt to disorder the digestive functions of those who eat it.
From the experiments of Dr Colquhoun, it appears that the starch of flour is partially converted into sugar during the process of fermenting and baking the dough, and thus contributes to the sweetness of the bread. He proposes to add to the flour, arrow-root, the farina of potatoes, and similar amylaceous substances, made into a jelly with hot water, for this purpose. Dr Percival has recommended the addition of salep with the same intention. 1 oz. of salep, dissolved in 1 quart of water; 2 lbs. of flour; 80 grs. of salt; and 2 oz. of yeast, gave 3 lbs. 2 oz. of good bread. The same weight of materials, without the salep, gave only 23⁄4 lbs. If too much salep is added, it gives its peculiar flavour to the bread.
In reference to the above substitutions, and to the relative quantity of bread produced from any given weight of flour, the reader should remember that the mere increase of the weight or bulk of the product does not carry with it a corresponding increase of the nutritive elements contained in the flour. These remain the same in all cases; and just in proportion as the product, in bread, is greater, will be the decrease in the value of such bread as food. So also with potatoes, rice, and other farinaceous and pulpy substances used as substitutes