When it is risen in the pans so as to crack, it is ready for the oven, and if it stands after this it loses sweetness, and then turns sour. A great deal of bread is spoiled by standing too long after it is put in the pans. The only way to prevent this is for the housekeeper to ascertain, by experiment, how soon her yeast ordinarily raises bread to the right point, so as to make that full lightness which does not destroy the sweetness of the flour, and yet is complete. When this is secured, the bread should not stand more than fifteen minutes after moulding, unless it is very cold weather. Those who trust entirely to raising the bread after it is put into the pans, are much less likely to have the best kind of bread, and far more risk is run than in the way here given.
In summer, if the milk is not new, it should be scalded, or the bread will turn sour by keeping. Bread is never as good which has turned sour, and been sweetened with saleratus, as if it had risen only just enough. In using saleratus, take a teaspoonful to each quart of wetting used; or, which is the same thing, a teaspoonful to four quarts of flour.
The proportion of yeast is about a tablespoonful of brewer’s or distiller’s yeast for every quart of wetting, or twice as much home-brewed yeast. In warm weather, pour the wetting boiling hot into the flour, and the bread keeps better. But be careful not to kill the yeast by putting it in before the mixture is sufficiently cooled. About blood warmth is the right temperature.
The eastern brown bread rises faster than the wheat bread, and in hot weather cannot be made over night; and if made with other bread, must be set to rise in a cool place.
It is always best to keep bread several hours before eating, until it can be cut without making it clammy. Biscuits, and small cakes of bread, are best baked in the morning to use for tea, and in the evening for breakfast. When cake is to be made of bread dough, it ought to be wet up with milk.
Most of the rules which have been given in other books for making cream tartar bread and cakes allow too much of the acid and alkali, and this affects the health.
Three pints of flour to one teaspoonful of soda and two of cream tartar is about right. Domestics are often careless in getting right proportions, and thus health is injured. It is probable that this can be remedied by getting an apothecary to combine the two powders in the right proportions when very dry, and keeping them in a glass bottle, with a ground glass stopper, so as to be air-tight. The dampness of the air would make them combine, and neutralize them. There are yeast powders for sale of this kind. The way to use them is first to mix them thoroughly in the flour, and then put in the wetting.
In regard to yeast, the distillery rises fastest, the brewer’s nearly as fast, and the home-brewed slowest of all. Sometimes distillery yeast will raise bread in an hour. Every housekeeper must learn by trial the time necessary to raise bread, and by this calculate the time to put her oven heating.
For large loaves of bread or cake, the oven must be heated with hard wood, so as to soak thoroughly. For smaller things lighter wood is as good, and more economical. After a housekeeper has tried her oven, her yeast, and her oven wood, she can make out very minute directions for her domestics. But with poor domestics she ordinarily will need to persevere in superintending this matter herself, if she would always have good bread.