Miss Corson. You can put in anything you like. You can put sugar, or milk, or anything you like in the bread to vary it. I will use nothing to-day but yeast, flour, water, and salt. This is perfectly plain, wholesome bread. You put milk in bread and it makes it dry quicker. Vienna bread, which is made partly of milk, dries more quickly than any other bread that is made. You can make any variation you like from the recipe I have given you. I have given you a perfectly plain home-made bread.
Question. Do you ever scald the flour for bread?
Miss Corson. You can scald the flour if you wish, but you do not accomplish any special purpose by it. In the winter time, if you heat the flour before you mix it with yeast and warm water, you increase the rapidity with which the bread dough rises.
Question. How would you make brown bread—ordinary graham bread?
Miss Corson. Use graham flour; mix your white flour with it, if it is for graham bread proper; if it is for graham gems use simply graham flour, water and salt, beaten together. Graham flour, salt and water beaten together into a form and baked in little buttered tins is the graham bread pure and simple of the Grahamites. It is not necessary to knead bread more than once to secure lightness. I have already said that the longer you prolong the process of bread making the more of the nourishment of the flour you destroy. You will see when the bread is baked to-day, if we are fortunate in our baking, that the bread is perfectly light and of even grain.
BREAD AND APPLE PUDDING.
Stale bread cut in slices or small pieces, fill a pudding dish of medium size, only three eggs, or if eggs are very dear, four tablespoonfuls of sugar, and a pint of milk, or enough more milk to saturate the bread. If the bread is very stale and dry you will have to use a pint and a half of milk. Three eggs, a pint of milk, four tablespoons of sugar, will make about a quart of liquid. The custard you pour over the bread; let the custard soak into the bread; then on the top of the pudding put a layer of fruit about an inch thick. You may vary the fruit, using sliced apples, or dried apples which have been soaked over night, and then stewed tender, dried peaches treated in the same way, or canned peaches, canned pears—any fruit you like. In the summer, in berry season, use berries. If the fruit is sour sprinkle it with sugar; then put the pudding in the oven and bake it. You can use dried fruit with this pudding, such as raisins or currants, but you put the fruit in through the pudding instead of on top. If you want to make the pudding particularly good you will separate the white and yolks of the eggs, mix the yolks of the eggs with the milk and sugar; save the whites until the pudding is done; in that case you have to use a little more milk proportionately. Save the whites until the pudding is done, then beat them to a stiff froth and add to it three heaping tablespoons of powdered sugar, very gently mixing them, just as I mixed that light omelette yesterday. That makes what is called a meringue. Put the meringue over the top of the pudding after it is done; run it through the oven for about a minute, just long enough to color it slightly, and then serve the pudding.
If you want the pudding entirely smooth when it is done, you must break the bread up in the custard before you bake it. My way is simply to saturate the bread with the custard. You can beat it if you wish. The pudding will be slightly liquid, like bread pudding, and then the fruit, if it is juicy, makes it still more liquid, and if you add the meringue, that of itself is a sauce. You will notice, as a rule, that I make everything as plain as possible, because I wish to demonstrate that plain dishes cooked with simple and few materials, can be very good. Perforated tin pie plates bake very nicely. Of course you want to take care to have the bottom crust thick enough, so that none of the juice from fruit pies will run through. If the oven is very hot on the bottom, it will not do to set a pie on the very bottom; a grating must be used. You will have to use your judgment about baking, watching the pie, and taking care that it does not get burnt.
(Returning to the bread making, Miss Corson continued:)
Now I am going to put the second cup of water and flour into the dough. You want to remember, in raising bread, to keep it always at the same temperature until you get it light. It should be set where you can put your hand without burning. Keep the bowl, containing the sponge, just warm. You don’t want it anywhere where it will get so hot as to scald the sponge. You can set the bowl in winter over boiling water to keep the temperature equal.