- 1 pint buttermilk heated to scalding.
Stir in, while it is hot, enough flour to make a tolerably thick batter. Add half a gill of yeast, and let it rise five or six hours. If you make it over night you need not add the yeast, but put in, instead, a tablespoonful of white sugar. In the morning, stir into the sponge a tablespoonful of soda, dissolved in hot water, a little salt, and two tablespoonfuls melted butter. Work in just flour enough to enable you to handle the dough comfortably; knead well, make into loaves, and let it rise until light.
This makes very white and wholesome bread.
Rice Bread.
Make a sponge of—
- 1 quart warm water.
- 1 teacupful yeast.
- 1 tablespoonful white sugar.
- 2 tablespoonfuls lard.
- 1 quart wheat flour.
Beat well together, and when it has risen, which will be in about five hours, add three pints of warm milk and three teacupfuls rice-flour wet to a thin paste with cold milk, and boiled four minutes as you would starch. This should be a little more than blood-warm when it is stirred into the batter. If not thick enough to make out into dough, add a little wheat-flour. Knead thoroughly, and treat as you would wheat bread in the matter of the two risings and baking.
This is nice and delicate for invalids, and keeps well. If you cannot procure the rice-flour, boil one cup of whole rice to a thin paste, mashing and beating it smooth.
French Rolls. (No. 1.) ✠
In kneading dough for the day’s baking, after adding and working in the risen sponge, set aside enough for a loaf of tea-rolls. Work into this a heaping tablespoonful of lard or butter, and let it stand in a tolerably cool place (not a cold or draughty one) for four hours. Knead it again, and let it alone for three hours longer. Then make into rolls, by rolling out, very lightly, pieces of the dough into round cakes, and folding these, not quite in the centre, like turn-overs. The third rising will be for one hour, then bake steadily half an hour or less, if the oven is quick.