This is the most laborious of cakes, and also the most unwholesome, even when made in the best manner. We do not recommend it; but there is no accounting for tastes. Children should not eat these biscuits—nor grown persons either, if they can get any other sort of bread.
When living in a town where there are bakers, there is no excuse for making Maryland biscuit. Believe nobody that says they are not unwholesome. Yet we have heard of families, in country places, where neither the mistress nor the cook knew any other preparation of wheat bread. Better to live on indian cakes.
HOME-MADE BREAD.—
You cannot have good bread without good flour, good yeast, good kneading, and good baking, all united. Like many other things, the best flour is always the cheapest in the end. There is none better than that which comes from the mills of Hiram Smith, Rochester, New York. All flour should be kept in a dry place, damp being always injurious to it. Good flour goes farther than that of inferior quality, and is both whiter and lighter. No skill will avail either in making or baking bread, if the flour is of bad quality. Flour will keep much better if, as soon as a new barrel is brought in, the whole of it is sifted, and divided in several buckets. Flour buckets, made for the purpose, are short and wide, are broader at the bottom than the top, and have handles and lids. They are to be had of all coopers. Yeast must always be of the best quality, strong and fresh. With too much yeast the bread will be bitter; with too little it will be heavy; with stale yeast it will be heavy, sour, and dark-colored. If baked too little, it becomes tough and clammy. We deprecate the practice of putting hartshorn in bread. It gives it a bad taste; and even if it produces a sort of factitious lightness, it also renders it tough and difficult to masticate, however nice it may look. Also, it is very unwholesome.
The oven should be heated in time, to set in the bread as soon as ready. When once it has risen to its utmost lightness, it will fall and turn sour if permitted to stand. The only remedy for sour bread is, to melt a table-spoonful of soda or pearlash in tepid water, and sprinkle it over the dough, which must then be kneaded again, after it has rested half an hour. In summer, do not begin your bread over night; it will certainly be sour before morning. In winter you may do so, but keep it all night in a warm (though not a hot) place. If the dough freezes, you may throw it away at once.
To knead, double up your hands, put them deep into the dough, and work it with your knuckles, exerting all your strength. When the dough sticks to them no longer, but leaves your bent fingers clean and clear, it is time to cease kneading, for you have done enough for that time.
Sift into a deep pan, or large wooden bowl, a peck of fine wheat flour, (adding a large table-spoonful of salt,) and mix the water with half a pint of strong fresh brewer's yeast, or near a whole pint if the yeast is home-made. Pour this into the hole, in the middle of the heap of flour. Mix in with a wooden spoon, a portion of the flour from the surrounding edges of the hole so as to make a thick batter, and having sprinkled dry flour over the top, let it rest for near an hour. This is called "setting the sponge," or "making the leaven." When it has swelled up to the surface, and burst through the coating of flour that covered the hole, pour in as much more lukewarm water as will suffice to mix the whole gradually into a dough. Knead it hard and thoroughly, leaving no lumps in it, and continue to knead till the dough leaves your hands. Throw over it a clean thick cloth, and set it in a warm place to rise again. When it is quite light and cracked all over the surface, divide it into loaves, and give each loaf a little more kneading, and let it rest till it has risen as high as it will. Have your oven quite ready, and (having transferred the loaves to pans, sprinkled with flour,) bake them well. Try the heat of the oven by previously throwing in a little flour. If it browns well, and you can hold your hand in the heat while you count twenty, it is a good temperature for bread. If the flour scorches black the oven is too hot, so leave the oven open a little while till it becomes cooler. As soon as the bread is quite done, take out the loaves, wrap each tightly in a clean coarse cloth, damped by sprinkling it with water, and stand them up on their edges. This will prevent the crust from becoming too hard. Keep the loaves wrapped up after they are deposited in the bread box.