Few housekeepers are aware of their responsibility in reference to the bread furnished for their family. As this is the principal article of food, there is no one thing on which the health of a family, especially of young children, is more dependant.

Baker’s bread is often made of musty, sour, or other bad flour, which is made to look light, and the bad taste removed by unhealthy drugs. Of course, to the evil of unhealthy flour, is added unhealthy drugs, and there is no mode of discovering the imposition.

The only safe mode is, to have all bread made in the family, and to take all needful care that it shall uniformly be good.

Bread made of salt, or milk risings, is good only the first day, and to those accustomed to good yeast bread, it is offensive to the smell, and not acceptable to the palate.

Bread made of sour milk, or buttermilk and an alkali, or made by mixing cream tartar in the flour, and an alkali in the wetting, is good as an occasional resort, in emergencies, when good yeast cannot be preserved, or when there is not time to wait for yeast rising.

But, as the ordinary bread for continued daily use, it is expensive, and not healthful or good like yeast bread. Some persons suffer from sore mouths and disordered stomachs, in consequence of eating it. Sometimes this is owing to the imperfect mixture of the materials. When the cream tartar is not very thoroughly mixed with the flour, or when the alkali is not properly dissolved and thoroughly mixed, or when there is too much of either, the skin of the mouth and stomach are affected by the bread.

The only kind of bread which is always good for the health, and always acceptable to every palate, is sweet, well-raised, home-made yeast bread. The best kind of home-made yeast bread is an article of luxury to be found upon very few tables, and those who enjoy this comfort, know that there is no food upon earth, which is so good, or the loss of which is so much regretted.

In order to secure such bread, these three things are indispensable, viz.: good flour, good yeast, and good care.

In order to secure good flour, it is best to try it by tasting it, and you ordinarily can detect sourness or must. Buy a small quantity, and then, if it is found to be very superior, and it can be done conveniently, it is well to provide enough of it to last till the next crop of wheat affords new flour, when another supply for a year can be secured. Flour stored in barrels needs no other care than putting it in a cool, dry place, where it is well protected from rats and cockroaches. A tight covered box made of thick plank, large enough to hold several barrels, with shelves to hold smaller supplies of other bread-stuffs, with a door in one side shutting very tight, is a perfect protection from rats, mice, and cockroaches.

Good flour has a yellowish tinge, and when pressed tight in the hand, retains the creases of the skin impressed on it. Poor flour is not thus adhesive; it can be blown about readily, and sometimes has a dingy look, as if ashes were mixed with it.

When good flour is found, notice the brand, and seek the same next time. It is sometimes the case, however, that bad flour is passed off, by putting on the brands of persons who have gained a name as makers of superior flour. The only sure way is to try a small sample, and then get a larger supply, if it is good, from the same stock.

Grown wheat makes dough that is runny, and cannot be well moulded, or make good bread. This can be discovered only by trial. Smutty wheat makes flour that is very unhealthful.

Flour always should be sifted before using it, to restore the lightness destroyed by packing, as well as to remove impurities. Bread is also more sure to be light, if the flour is heated before wetting. This can be done, by setting the kneading trough aslant before the fire, stirring it a little as it is warming. When bread proves to be bad, examine the yeast, and see also whether the oven bakes properly. If both are as they should be, and the bread is still poor, then the fault is in the flour, and it should be sent back and another supply obtained. And in buying flour, this liberty should always be secured, even if a higher price is the condition. No economy is so false as to try to save by means of bad bread. Medicine and doctors’ bills soon show the folly of it.

Good yeast is as indispensable to good bread as good flour. Of the receipts given in this book, the one which will keep a month is the best. The one which is made with fewer materials will not keep so well, but is more easily made.

In hot weather, when it is difficult to keep yeast, the hard yeast will be a great convenience. Some housekeepers who have tried both, prefer the flour hard yeast to that which is made with Indian meal, as it does not turn sour, as Indian does. Home-brewed yeast must be used for hard yeast, and not distillery or brewer’s. Yeast, when it is good, is all in a foam, or else has large beads on the surface, and its smell is brisk and pungent, but not sour. When poor, it sometimes smells sour, sometimes looks watery, and the sediment sinks to the bottom, and it has no froth or beads. Sometimes, when yeast does not look very good, it is improved by adding a tea-cup, or so, of flour, and two or three great spoonfuls of molasses, and setting it in a warm place to rise. Yeast must be kept in stone, or glass, with a tight cork, and the thing in which it is kept should often be scalded, and then warm water with a half teaspoonful of saleratus be put in it, to stand a while. Then rinse it with cold water. Sour yeast cannot be made good by saleratus.

The last grand essential to good bread is good care. Unless the cook can be fully trusted, the mistress of a family must take this care upon herself. She must, if needful, stand by and see that the bread is wet right, that the yeast is good, that the bread is put where it is warm enough, that it does not rise too long, so as to lose its sweetness (which is often the case before it begins to turn sour), that it is moulded aright, that the oven is at the right heat, and that it is taken out at the right time, and then that it is put in the right place, and not set flat on to a greasy table, or painted shelf, to imbibe a bad taste.

Perhaps it may be thought that all this is a great drudgery, but it is worse drudgery to have sickly children, and a peevish husband, made so by having all the nerves of their stomachs rasped with sour, or heavy bread. A woman should be ashamed to have poor bread, far more so, than to speak bad grammar, or to have a dress out of the fashion. It is true, that, by accident, the best of housekeepers will now and then have poor bread, but then it is an accident, and one that rarely happens. When it is very frequently the case that a housekeeper has poor bread, she may set herself down as a slack baked and negligent housekeeper.

It is very desirable that every family should have a constant supply of bread made of unbolted flour, or of rye and Indian. Most persons like to eat of it occasionally, and it tends to promote health. Warm cakes also, made of unbolted flour, are very excellent, and serviceable to health. The receipts for these articles in this work are first-rate. Warm raised bread cakes, of fine wheat, are not so healthy for breakfast, as those made of unbolted flour, Indian meal, rice, or tapioca. Griddle cakes, muffins, and waffles, made of these last articles, are more healthful than those made of fine wheat. If eaten at the right temperature (not above blood heat), and with but little butter, they are safe and harmless. Unbolted flour is good in almost any receipt in which fine flour is to be used, and many very much prefer it for all kinds of warm cakes. Brown bread, when light, makes good drop cakes, or good griddle cakes, by adding a little water or milk, and some eggs, and in some cases, a spoonful or two of molasses. Many cases are on record, of great changes for the better, in the health of individuals and communities, by the habitual use of food made of unbolted flour.

The style in which bread is prepared for the table, is a matter to be carefully attended to. In moulding up loaves and small cakes, do not leave lumps and loose flour adhering to the outside, but work them in thoroughly, so as to have the cake look fair and smooth. Wipe off flour from the outside before carrying to the table. Buttered pans are better than floured ones, because the cakes cleave off cleaner. When soda and saleratus are used, work it in thoroughly, or you will have those yellow spots and streaks, which look so disgusting, and show a slovenly negligence.

In the receipts for making bread, no particular direction is given in regard to the time bread should stand after it is moulded and put in pans, because here is the point where observation and discretion are so indispensable, and rules are unavailing without. In hot weather, when the yeast is very good, and the bread very light, it must not stand over fifteen minutes after it is moulded, before setting in. If it is cold weather, and the yeast is less active, or the bread not perfectly raised, it may sometimes stand an hour in the pans without injury.

When it is risen in the pans so as to crack, it is ready for the oven, and if it stands after this it loses sweetness, and then turns sour. A great deal of bread is spoiled by standing too long after it is put in the pans. The only way to prevent this is for the housekeeper to ascertain, by experiment, how soon her yeast ordinarily raises bread to the right point, so as to make that full lightness which does not destroy the sweetness of the flour, and yet is complete. When this is secured, the bread should not stand more than fifteen minutes after moulding, unless it is very cold weather. Those who trust entirely to raising the bread after it is put into the pans, are much less likely to have the best kind of bread, and far more risk is run than in the way here given.

In summer, if the milk is not new, it should be scalded, or the bread will turn sour by keeping. Bread is never as good which has turned sour, and been sweetened with saleratus, as if it had risen only just enough. In using saleratus, take a teaspoonful to each quart of wetting used; or, which is the same thing, a teaspoonful to four quarts of flour.

The proportion of yeast is about a tablespoonful of brewer’s or distiller’s yeast for every quart of wetting, or twice as much home-brewed yeast. In warm weather, pour the wetting boiling hot into the flour, and the bread keeps better. But be careful not to kill the yeast by putting it in before the mixture is sufficiently cooled. About blood warmth is the right temperature.

The eastern brown bread rises faster than the wheat bread, and in hot weather cannot be made over night; and if made with other bread, must be set to rise in a cool place.

It is always best to keep bread several hours before eating, until it can be cut without making it clammy. Biscuits, and small cakes of bread, are best baked in the morning to use for tea, and in the evening for breakfast. When cake is to be made of bread dough, it ought to be wet up with milk.

Most of the rules which have been given in other books for making cream tartar bread and cakes allow too much of the acid and alkali, and this affects the health.

Three pints of flour to one teaspoonful of soda and two of cream tartar is about right. Domestics are often careless in getting right proportions, and thus health is injured. It is probable that this can be remedied by getting an apothecary to combine the two powders in the right proportions when very dry, and keeping them in a glass bottle, with a ground glass stopper, so as to be air-tight. The dampness of the air would make them combine, and neutralize them. There are yeast powders for sale of this kind. The way to use them is first to mix them thoroughly in the flour, and then put in the wetting.

In regard to yeast, the distillery rises fastest, the brewer’s nearly as fast, and the home-brewed slowest of all. Sometimes distillery yeast will raise bread in an hour. Every housekeeper must learn by trial the time necessary to raise bread, and by this calculate the time to put her oven heating.

For large loaves of bread or cake, the oven must be heated with hard wood, so as to soak thoroughly. For smaller things lighter wood is as good, and more economical. After a housekeeper has tried her oven, her yeast, and her oven wood, she can make out very minute directions for her domestics. But with poor domestics she ordinarily will need to persevere in superintending this matter herself, if she would always have good bread.