What is the price per sack of pastry and of bread flour?
What is the price per cake of compressed yeast? What is the price per package of dry yeast? How many cakes in a package?
LESSON CXXXVII
MODIFICATIONS OF PLAIN WHITE BREAD
BREADS OTHER THAN WHEAT.—As mentioned previously, wheat is the most popular grain in this country, largely because we are most used to it, not because it is a better food than other cereals. The use of different starchy materials and grains, especially the whole cereals, is advised to give variation not only in flavor, but in nutritive content. Yeast breads containing cereals other than wheat are more satisfactory in texture and in size of loaf when they are made by combining some wheat with the other grains.
The housekeeper of olden days considered the potato most essential for bread making. It is possible to make good bread by using 1/3 as much mashed potato as wheat flour. Potato bread is moist; it keeps better than bread made entirely with wheat. It has been observed that bread containing potatoes or potato water rises quickly. It is possible that the growth of the yeast is stimulated by potato. Although bread containing potatoes is light, it is not as delicate or "fluffy" as plain wheat bread.
Since potatoes contain much moisture, the quantity of liquid used in making potato bread should be lessened. Because bread dough containing potatoes softens as it rises, sufficient flour should be added to make it very stiff or more flour added while kneading.
Much experimenting with bread during the World War showed that bread containing cereals other than wheat is more satisfactory when potatoes are used in making it. It was found that less of wheat and more of the other grains could be used when potatoes were added to the dough.
Bread made of grains other than wheat requires a greater quantity of yeast than wheat bread. The following explanation may account for this fact: Some recent scientific investigations point out the fact that the activity of yeast is increased when vinegar or other weak acid material is added to bread dough. Since the proteins of cereals other than wheat absorb more of the free acid of the dough than do the proteins of wheat, the acidity of the dough is lessened. Hence more yeast is required to leaven dough containing grains other than wheat.