BREAD, TEA-CAKES, &c.

Observations relative to Flour and Bread.

As the principal food of great numbers, and a part of the sustenance of all people, consists of corn, they ought to be sensible that their health must inevitably be injured by bad corn, and even by good corn when badly prepared.

The best flour is often made into bad bread by not letting it rise sufficiently, by not kneading it well, by not baking it enough, and by keening it too long. Mixing other substances with the flour also injures the quality of bread in a very high degree.

These faults have all an exceedingly injurious effect on the people who eat such bread, but the injury is still more serious to children and weakly persons.

The mere exposure to the air will evaporate and deaden all flour, though the grain has never passed through any fermentation or digestion: as in the instance of the flour of wheat, which is the strongest and of the best substance of any other. For this reason, flour which has been ground five or six weeks, or longer, though it be kept close in sacks or barrels, will not make so sweet nor so moist pleasant bread as that which is newly ground.

All sorts of grain kept entire will remain sound and good for a long time; but flour will in a comparatively short time corrupt and generate worms. This all people should consider, but more especially the preparers of food.

The health of mankind is particularly placed in the hands mi millers, dealers in corn and meal, and bakers, from grain being the most essential article of subsistence. Those who acquit themselves honestly in these various vocations deserve their profits, and the good-will of their fellow men; but those who betray the confidence reposed in them, especially those who withhold grain when it is wanted, or who corrupt it in any way when it is brought into use, are pre-eminently the secret and worst enemies of mankind.

Bread made with leaven is preferable for general use to that made with yeast, for the sour quality of leaven is more agreeable to the ferment of the stomach than yeast, is easier of digestion, and more cleansing; it opens the vessels, and gives a healthy appetite; and a little use will make it familiar and pleasant to the eater. But this bread seldom agrees with weak stomachs, especially such as are liable to acidity and heartburn.

The putting much salt into bread is injurious, from the change it occasions in bread of all kinds. For, finding no matter liable to putrefaction to work on, it seizes the good qualities, and by its active property alters and corrupts them. Therefore, when bread is intended to be kept a considerable time, as biscuits which are carried to sea, and the like, no salt is put into it. Porridges, as they are eaten immediately, will which is very useful in various instances.

admit of salt,

It must be understood that bread is not so substantial and nourishing as flour, when prepared in porridges, &c. with either milk or water. But good bread is an excellent food, proper to be eaten with flesh of all kinds, butter, cheese, herbs, and many other things, insomuch that it has, for its frequent and excellent use, been deservedly accounted and Called THE STAFF OF LIFE.

Bread should not be baked in too close an oven, that the air may have more or less egress and regress. But the best way is to make it into thin cakes and bake them on a stone, which many in the north of England use for that purpose, making a wood fire under it. This sort of bread is sweeter, of a more innocent taste, and far easier of digestion than bread baked the common way in ovens.

Oaten cakes are often preferable to those made of wheaten flour, as they tend to open the body, and are rather warmer to cold and weak stomachs. Barley is not so nourishing, and requires more preparation to render it digestible than the other kinds of grain.

Cakes, biscuits, bunns, muffins, crumpets, and small bread, made with eggs, butter, or sugar, sometimes do not agree with delicate persons. Biscuits made without either leaven, yeast, butter, or sugar, are more difficult of digestion than bread when it is fermented.

Where bread is fixed to a standard weight and price, fraudulent bakers add a mixture of alum and pearl-ash to it, for the purposes of hastening its rising, of making it retain its moisture, and hence its weight. When there is reason to suspect that bread is adulterated with alum, it may be detected thus: cut about a pound of bread into an earthen vessel, pour upon it a quart of boiling water, and let it stand till cold. Strain the liquor off gently through a piece of fine linen, boil it down to about a wine-glass full, set it by to cool, and if there be a mixture of alum, the crystals of it will appear.

Four of the following aphorisms ought to be the general rules to all the makers of bread; and the fifth, the practice of all the consumers of bread.

1. Bread should be made of sound clean corn, newly ground, and not contaminated by any extraneous mixtures.

2. To be leavened, which makes it light of digestion; and moderately seasoned with salt.

3. Suffered to rise for several hours, and well wrought and laboured with the hands.

4. Well baked, not too much, which consumes the strength and goodness of the corn; nor too little, which makes it heavy, clammy, and unwholesome.

5. Not in general to be eaten hot, as it is then more viscid, and harder of digestion than when cold. Bread is in its best state the first and second day after it is baked.

BREAD.

Unadulterated English Bread.

Sift a peck of the finest wheat flour into a heap; and, making a small cavity in the centre, strain into it about a pint of good yeast, mixed with the same quantity of moderately warm water, and make it up of a light paste, with part of the flour. Cover up this dough, set it before the fire for an hour, to prove or rise, and then mix the whole with at least two quarts of water, in which a moderate quantity of salt has been dissolved; knead it till all the dough is of a good stiffness, and set it to prove for another hour. It must now again be well kneaded, and once more proved for an hour, when it will be ready to form into loaves, which may be either made in regular

moulds, or formed by batching two pieces together, either of round or oblong forms. 4 quartern loaf will require about an hour and a half's baking, in a brisk oven. This common process is less understood than may by many be imagined; and the truth is, that some experience is necessary to make, and properly bake, a good loaf of bread. After all, it is not so white as bread made by bakers, who often, in defiance of the law, make use of alum for the purpose of whitening their bread; and, it is to be feared, too often use this and other drugs for much worse purpose,-that of disguising ingredients of a baser quality, if not even of a pernicious nature. If the above process be duly regarded, any person may soon make bread as well as the most experienced baker.

Excellent Family Bread.

Put a quartern of flour into a large basin with two teaspoonfuls of salt,—make a hole in the middle, then put in a basin four table-spoonfuls of good yeast, stir in a pint of milk lukewarm, put it ii the hole of the flour, stir it just to make it of a thin batter. ?hen strew a litlle flour over the top, then set it on one side of the fire, and cover it over; let it stand till next morning. then make it into a dough ;-add half a pint more of warm milk, knead it for ten minutes, and then set it in a warm place by the fire for one hour and a half,—then knead it again, and it is ready either for loaves or bricks :bake them from one hour and a half to two hours, according to the size.

Fine French Bread.

In France, bread is made of many different descriptions, while in England are scarcely any other sorts than the common wheaten or white, and the ordinary household or brown bread. French bread is, indeed, to be had in London, and other populous places, where there are eminent bakers; but its use ia chiefly confined to the breakfast table, where it is far from general. The following is one of the best methods of making it: Take half a peck of the finest flour; and, having well sifted it into the kneading-trough from a centrical cavity, into which strain about half a pint each of warm milk and the choicest yeast, mixing some of the surrounding flour so as to

form a light sponge. Then, having covered it well up with a linen and a flannel cloth, place it before the fire to rise for about three quarters of an hour; and, having warmed a pint and a half of milk with half a pint of water, a quarter of a pound of fresh butter, a spoonful of powdered loaf-sugar, and a little salt, knead it to a proper consistence, and place it again over the fire as before. After once more kneading it, and placing it to rise, form the dough into loaves, bricks, or rolls, of any shape or size, lay them on tin p'ates; set them before the fire to rise for about twenty minutes; and, having baked them in a quick oven, let them be rasped while hot. Some persons, with the butter, &c. put in an egg, leaving out half the white. This fine French bread will be found a less expensive luxury than any other article of food which is at all so considered.

The Reverend Mr. Hogget's Economical Bread.

This economical bread is wholly made with wheat, and the respectable contriver deserves great praise for his invention; but, it is to be feared, the invincible prejudices of the poor against brown bread will always prevent them from sufficiently receiving the benefit of this gentleman's benevolent intentions. It is our duty, however, to assist in promulging the possibility. For the purpose of making this bread, only the coarse bran is to be taken from the wheat; and the second coat, or pollard, ground with the meal, as is usual for wheaten bread. Five pounds of this bran are to be boiled in somewhat more than four gallons of water; in order that, when perfectly smooth, three gallons and three quarts of clear bran-water may be poured into, and kneaded up with, fifty-six pounds of the brown flour, adding salt, as well as yeast, in the same way as for other bread. When the dough is ready to bake, the loaves are to be made up, and baked two hours and a half. As flour, when thus made up, will imbibe three quarts more of this bran liquor than of common water, it evidently produces not only a more nutritious and substantial food, but augments one-fifth part the usual quantity of bread; which forms a saving of no less than one day's consumption out of six. This econo mical bread, when ten days old, if put into the oven for twenty minutes, will again appear quite new.