11. Compare the cost of homemade cake with bakers’ cake.
12. What are the advantages of the homemade over the bakers’, or the bakers’ over the homemade?
CHAPTER XII
YEAST BREAD
Yeast bread when well made is a food of which the palate never tires, and it is usually recognized as a part of every well-planned meal. The quick breads are a convenient substitute at times, but they are not the staff of life in the same sense, and are, on the whole, less widely used.
The making of a perfect loaf of bread is the goal of all those who aspire to excel in cookery; and the art of bread making requires not only a clear understanding of the underlying principles, but patience and persistence in experimentation and practice until a uniformly perfect product is achieved. The fact that in yeast we have a living organism with which to deal makes the whole process a delicate one, in which every detail is of importance, whether it be a matter of ingredients, proportions, methods of mixing, or temperature.
The standard of good bread.—There will always be some difference of opinion in regard to a desirable quality in bread, and individual preference will control the final result, whether the crumb of the bread shall be dry and porous or somewhat more moist and finer in grain. French bread is of the former type, the English preferring a close grain and solid loaf. Allowing for these differences, it is still possible to standardize bread, and to state in percentages the different points to be considered in judging a loaf.
We must consider the size and symmetry of the loaf, in order that the interior of the bread may be baked to the very