A nice supper or luncheon dish or dessert.
Parboil rice 5 m. and drain, add it to milk in pudding dish, stir even in bottom of dish, set in slow oven, cover and bake 2–3 hrs. without stirring, or until milk is all thickened and creamy with rice; if the milk boils over under the cover, the oven is too hot. This is so delicious that it does not require anything additional in eating but it may be served with sugar, maple sugar or syrup.
Wash if commercial rice, spread on tin and put in warm place to dry. When thoroughlydried, put in slow oven and color toan even light brown. Soak for 1 hour in an equal quantity of lukewarm water, then add 3 times the quantity of rich milk, with or without 1 level teaspn. salt to the cup of rice; steam, or cook in double boiler for 1 hour. Serve plain. The rice may be ground.
Pour just enough hot water over granella to moisten it a trifle. Mix lightly and serve with cream. Granella is nice in hot milk.
Mix hominy and yolks of eggs thoroughly; add melted butter, then sugar and salt and the milk gradually, mixing hominy to smooth paste. Chop in stiffly-beaten whites and bake in buttered dish in moderate oven. Serve as vegetable for dinner or as principal dish for luncheon or supper.
2 gallons cold water, 1 tablespn. concentrated lye or potash, 4 qts. corn, white corn if possible. Dissolve lye in water, add corn, and boil (adding water to keep covered) until the hulls will rub off. Wash and rub in several clear waters until the hulls are all off. Soak over night or for several hours in cold water; drain and put to cooking in boiling water. Cook until tender, all day if necessary. Add salt a little while before it is done, then cook until as dry as possible without scorching. Serve as a vegetable, plain, or with cream or cream sauce. Eat in milk or with nut meats.
The hulled corn may be dried. Hard wood ashes may be used to make the lye for cooking the corn, or a bag containing 2 cups of ashes may be boiled in the kettle with the corn. By boiling for 4 hrs., the hulls may be removed by using 1 tablespn. of soda to each 4 qts. of corn. Some prefer strong lime water for hulling.
Instead of soaking over night, the corn may be parboiled in 2 waters before cooking.
Mix dry ingredients and to ¾ of the quantity add water for a stiff dough, then work in the remaining ¼ until almost too stiff to knead; roll and pound out to ¼ or ⅓ inch thick, cut in round or square biscuit and set in cold place for 2 hours or more. Bake in a slow oven until a rich cream color or golden brown all through. Then grind coarse or fine as desired.
When oatflouris used, ⅓ of a cup only will be required.
It will take 2 tablespns. of Rhode Island meal to make ½ oz. and 1 only of yellow granular meal. The granular meal will need to be scalded with a part of the water or it will feel sandy in the granella.
The weights for a larger quantity are:
8½ lbs. bread flour, 1 lb. oats, ½ lb. corn meal, 1½ oz. salt.
Cook rice in one cup water, cool, add salt, flour and grits, knead to very stiff dough, adding a trifle more water if necessary. Finish as No. 1.
½ cup riceflour, 1½ cup bread flour and ¾ cup barley grits may be used instead of the above combination.
Macaroni is one of the most important of cereal foods. The best—Italian—is made from a wheat rich in gluten, so to a great extent it supplies the place of meat.
One of the first things we do when we go into a new place is to hunt up an Italian macaroni store, as that is the only place where the genuine article is to be found. That made in this country, put up with a foreign label on the package, is inferior.
The Italian pastes come in a great variety of shapes and are named according to the shape. Macaroni, spaghetti and vermicelli are well known; then there are lasagne (broad and flat), rigatoni (large corrugated), da natali, ditali rigati, cannaroni rigati and reginnetti with mostacioli bianchi, soprafini (fine vermicelli), ditalini and acini di pepe—a few of the many. There are some small fine pastes put up in dainty boxes, especially for invalids, that are very delicate and digestible.
Those who have visited macaroni factories in Italy where macaroni is made for exportation, say that everything in connection with the food is neat and clean and that the macaroni is dried in closed rooms entirely removed from the dust of the street. That which travellers see drying by the roadside, exposed to the dust, is from small or private factories for home consumption.
Do not wash or soak it. Break it when necessary and put into perfectly boiling salted water, 8 parts water to 1 of macaroni. Stir as soon as it is put into the water and often, until it begins to roll up, from the rapid boiling. Keep over a hot fire where it will continue to roll in boiling until well swollen and nearly done, then set back to simmer slowly. When perfectlytender (which will be in from ½ to 1 hour according to the size, age and quality, the better quality taking longer) turn into a colander and when drained, turn cold water over it, or, let it stand in cold water until ready to use.
Vermicelli and the other small varieties for soup require only twice their bulk of water, and some of them require 10 m. only for cooking. They will usually just absorb the water.
When preferred, macaroni may be cooked in just the amount of liquid it will absorb, which will be about 4 times its bulk. It may be cooked sometimes in a rich consommé, sometimes in milk in a double boiler, or in milk and water. It is often partly cooked in water, drained and finished in milk.
The “traditional” way of cooking spaghetti is to put the ends into water and coil it around in the kettle as it softens, cooking in full lengths and eating it the same, but the propriety of this method is questionable. In the first place, its sauce is apt to spatter in the effort to introduce the coil into the mouth, and mastication is sure to be incomplete.
The measurements of macaroni vary according to the size. For a large open variety, a cup and a half will be required where it would take only a cup of a small kind, or of the ordinary pipe-stem macaroni broken into inch lengths.
There is nothing that gives such character to macaroni as to cook a little garlic with it, a very little for some tastes, not more than ½ a clove to each cupful, less even, if the macaroni is not to be drained and the cloves are large. We seldom cook any preparation of macaroni without it, and people wonder why our macaroni has such a good taste. Not enough should be used to give a positive garlic flavor.
Pine nuts and sour cream give the cheese flavor. A good quality of macaroni is good without any sauce, just cooked in salted water and eaten slowly with nuts; but it may be served with any desired, tasty sauce. The mushroom sauces, Italian or Boundary Castle are especially delightful with it, but manyothers are excellent, olive and nut butter, old-fashioned milk gravy, lentil gravy, a good cream sauce, cream of tomato sauce, or any of the nice, meaty flavored sauces, or parsley butter.
Sometimes return macaroni to the fire after draining, and add a little butter, with or without chopped parsley, for those who use butter, or a little milk and butter or a few spoonfuls of cream. Then another time, put this cream or butter macaroni into a vegetable dish and pour a few hot stewed tomatoes over it.
Sauce:—
Make cream sauce in the usual way with the oil, flour, salt and milk and pour into baking dish, turn into it the macaroni which has been cooked in the salted water with sliced onion and garlic until tender and the water absorbed, and press down into the sauce; sprinkle with crumbs and parsley and bake in moderate oven until bubbling and delicately browned. If preferred, ¼ cup of flour may be used in the sauce.
Make enough of this dish for two days, and another day stir salted tomato into what is left and bake as before for Macaroni in Tomato Sauce.
Add ½ cup of pine nut butter or meal to the sauce in the preceding recipe (by mixing a little of the sauce with it) and sprinkle with chopped meats and crumbs.
Sauce:—
Add corn and cooked macaroni to sauce, turn all into baking dish, sprinkle with crumbs and pour a little melted butter over if sauce is made with milk. Brown in oven.
1 cup macaroni, ¾–1 cup granella, 3 cups rich milk (more if necessary). Dry and delicately brown macaroni in oven and cook the same as unbrowned. Put into baking dish in layers with granella, turn milk, slightly salted, over and heat in moderate oven. It should be quite moist when done. Unless the milk is about one-fourth cream, there may be a little oil or butter poured over the top.
Simmer onion in oil or butter, add stewed tomatoes and salt; simmer a few minutes and add cooked macaroni; set back where it will heat slowly for a short time and serve.
Tomatoes, onions and macaroni may be put into baking dish in layers, with a sprinkling of pine nut meal; with tomatoes, crumbs and chopped nuts on top, and baked.
Cook vermicelli in salted water, drain, spread on platter, lay stalks of cooked asparagus on it and pour egg cream sauce over. Cut asparagus into inch lengths if preferred.
Heat 1 qt. of milk in inner cup of double boiler, add 1 cup of macaroni and cook until tender, perhaps for 2 hrs. Serve plain as side dish or for luncheon or supper. It may also be served with stewed raisins, with or without cream.
Cook ½ cup of macaroni with or without a few slices of onion and a suspicion of garlic, in 2 cups of water with ½ tablespn. of butter until tender and well dried out; drain, add ⅔ cup milk, 1 large egg and salt. Turn into well buttered mold and bake covered in pan of water in moderate oven until egg is set, ¾–1 hour. Serve with Boundary Castle or any suitable sauce.
Add beaten egg and salt to cream and pour over cooked macaroni in baking dish; sprinkle with crumbs and bake until egg is set.
Rice may be used in place of macaroni, tomato also may beadded sometimes with chopped onion; a delicate flavoring of sage gives another variety.
Yeast is a plant and success in bread-making depends upon its growth.
Plants require warmth, food and moisture and thrive the best when not too warm nor too cold.
A temperature of from 75 degrees to not over 90 degrees is the most favorable for the growth of the yeast plant.
Compressed yeast is the most convenient to use when it can be obtained fresh, but the bread made from it lacks the sweet rich flavor of that made from a good soft yeast; so from the great number of good recipes for liquid yeast I give two with which I have had excellent success.
Use only mature, well ripened potatoes for yeast. Hops may be omitted but the yeast keeps better and the bread is lighter and sweeter when a few are used.
Keep yeast in several small jars rather than in one large one, so as not to disturb the whole when using from it.
Bread rises slowly from yeast that is less than 48 hours old. When liquid yeast is used, let it count as part of the wetting. Compressed yeast is meant when dry is not specified in recipes calling for cakes of yeast.
To use compressed yeast, slice it in rather thin slices, sprinkle sugar between the layers and pour just enough lukewarm water over it to moisten the sugar, not enough to cover the yeast. Let stand until foamy and use at once.
One cake of compressed yeast equals 4 tablespns. of either grated or mashed potato yeast.
Dissolve yeast in warm water with part of the sugar. Simmer the hops in water for half an hour, strain, add enough water to make 2 qts. and keep at boiling point. Put sugar and salt into a large granite or porcelain kettle, quickly grate the pared potatoes over them, set the kettle over the fire and pour the boiling hop water on to the mixture, stirring; let boil until thickened, remove from fire, cool to lukewarm, add the yeast, beating it in well and let stand on table or shelf in warm kitchen; as it rises, stir it down once in a while; when well risen, set in a cool place and stir down occasionally until it does not rise any more. Fill clean cold jars about ⅔ full and when settled, fasten covers on and put in ice box.
Use 1 tablespn. of yeast to each pint of water when setting bread over night, and double the quantity for starting in the morning.
¾ cup of water in which potatoes and hops were boiled, 1 cake of dry yeast dissolved in ¼ cup of water with a little of the sugar, or, ½ cup of hop water and ½ cup of liquid yeast.
Tie the hops in a piece of cheese cloth and cook with the well washed but not pared potatoes (the yeast is lighter if the skins are left on); when done, drain and peel potatoes and rub through colander on to the salt and sugar; beat well, pour water on gradually, add yeast, beat, put into a clean glass jar, lay the cover on without fastening down and let stand in a warm room until full of bubbles, no longer; then set in a cold place. When thoroughly cooled, fasten the cover tight and keep in refrigerator.
Use ¼–½ cup of yeast to a pint of liquid, according to the time you wish to give the bread to rise.
Boil potatoes with hops tied in cheese cloth until tender; remove hops (squeezing bag when cool), put potatoes and water through colander, and stir into the liquid while scalding hot, enough flour to make a rather stiff batter. Beat well, add ½ cup of yeast or 2 dry yeast cakes dissolved in water. When light, add the cup of corn meal or enough to make a dough stiff enough to roll; roll ⅓–½ in. thick, cut into small square or round cakes, dry in the sun or in a slightly warm oven (they are sometimes dried between two boards covered with corn meal) until so much of the moisture is expelled that they cannot ferment.
If kept dry the cakes will retain their strength for a long time. The small pieces of dough may be crumbled and dried.
White, graham and whole wheat are the flours most commonly used in making bread. Whitebreadflour is made from spring wheat, which is richer in gluten than winter wheat and is of a rich cream color.
Winter wheat flour is more suitable for cakes and pastry, and for that reason is calledpastryflour.
A blended flour, spring and winter wheat combined, is considered by some the most nearly perfect bread flour.
Graham flour is composed of the whole kernel of the wheat, its bran overcoat and all, ground up together. The bran contains no nutriment and is irritating to some stomachs. Graham flour is nearly always made from winter wheat.
In making whole wheat or entire wheat flour, the bran or fibrous covering of the kernel is removed and the entire nourishingpart of the grain is ground. Whole wheat flour is usually made from spring wheat.
Some so-called “whole wheat” flours are simply very fine graham; that is, the bran is all there, but ground very fine.
The best grades of flour are the cheapest as a smaller quantity is required for the same amount of liquid. Good flour also requires less kneading.
Perhaps the greatest deception has been practised in “gluten” flours. Some which have been advertised as pure gluten have been found to contain as high as 63 and 75 per cent. of starch. A pure gluten flour for making yeast bread is out of the question.
Flour made from new wheat will for a time improve with age, but after a certain period it begins to deteriorate; so it is not best to lay in a too large supply at once.
Keep flour in a warm, dry place, as all bread, cakes and pastry are lighter made from dry flour.
“For use in bread-making the superfine white flour is not the best. Its use is neither healthful nor economical. Fine flour bread is lacking in nutritive elements to be found in bread made from the whole wheat. It is a frequent cause of constipation and other unhealthful conditions.”
Bread should not be set over night when there is the least possibility of its becoming light enough to fall before it can be attended to in the morning.
Dough mixed stiff at first requires double the quantity of yeast of that started with a sponge, but as this method has several advantages it is becoming the favorite. Beat the batter very thoroughly for either method, as that has much to do with the lightness of the bread.
Keep bread at all stages at as even a temperature as possibleand away from draughts of air. A large pasteboard box is an excellent thing to set it into.
A moist atmosphere is most favorable for raising bread.
Keep bread covered close to prevent a crust from forming over the top. Paper is better than cloth to exclude the air.
To hasten the rising of bread, use a larger quantity of yeast rather than a higher temperature. Above 90 degrees the bacteria which were in the flour or yeast may begin to grow and the bread will be sour. Given more time and raised at a lower temperature, bread will be sweeter and of a finer texture.
Attend to bread at every stage as soon as light, before it begins to fall; exercise especial care in this respect with compressed yeast as it loses its life very quickly after becoming light.
Bread will rise better in a deep vessel, such as a pail or a stone crock, than in a broad flat pan. Always oil the dishes used for raising it in.
Each time that bread rises it loses some of its sweetness and nutritive value, so the fewer times it is allowed to rise the better, if light enough to be digestible.
Some cooks prefer flour that has been delicately browned for setting the sponge for bread.
A good bread kneader is one of the best investments in cooking utensils. It saves time and strength and makes better bread.
“In the making of raised or yeast bread, milk should not be used in place of water. The use of milk is an additional expense and it makes the bread much less wholesome. Milk bread does not keep sweet so long after baking as does that made with water and it ferments more readily in the stomach.”
In cakes and crusts where milk is used with yeast, sour milk may be substituted for sweet with the same results.
To aid fermentation, a little sugar may be used in starting bread, but not enough to cover the sweet taste of the flour.
At a great altitude, bread rises very quickly; and requires less yeast.
Do not allow bread to get over light, even if it does not become sour; for the sweet taste will be destroyed, and if in the loaf, it will fall in the oven.
Whole wheat and graham bread will be lighter if ⅓ white flour is used; and if white flour alone is used for the sponge the bread will not be so apt to sour.
Whole wheat and graham bread need to be mixed stiffer than white and must not be allowed to become very light or they will fall in the oven and have a hollow place in the loaf.
Bread from whole wheat and graham flour requires slower and longer baking.
Whole wheat, graham or rye bread may be steamed 3 hours and baked slowly ½ hr., sometimes.
Salt delays fermentation, so when bread is started with a sponge the salt should not be added until the sponge is light, and it may be worked in at the end of the first rising of the mass of dough.
When a large quantity of bread is made at a time, a smaller proportion of yeast is required. Stir soft yeast well before using from it. Do not let the jar of yeast stand in a warm kitchen for a few minutes even.
It is impossible to give an exact rule for the proportion of flour to liquid in bread as different brands of flour vary and the same brand may be dryer or more moist at different times; but usually not less than three times as much flour as of liquid is required, and not much more.
Near the sea level bread dough may be mixed as soft as it can be well handled; but as the altitude increases the stiffness of the dough should increase.
Flour must be warm when added to bread at any stage.
Do not add any flour to bread after the last rising before putting it into the tins, “as all the flour in it is, in a fermentative sense, cooked and the addition of raw flour injures its quality.”—Charles Cristodoro.Oil the board and your hands instead.
“Bread should be light and sweet, not the least taint of sourness should be tolerated. The loaves should be small and so thoroughly baked that so far as possible, the yeast germs shall be destroyed. When hot or new, raised bread of any kind is difficult of digestion.It should never appear on the table.”
The loaves should be baked in separate tins, brick shaped ones being best. If the loaf feels soft on the sides when removed from the tin, return it to the oven for it is not done. When done, leave loaves where the air can circulate around them until cool.
Keep bread in tin or stone receptacles, never in wood; wash them often in warm soapsuds and scald thoroughly.
Never cover bread in the box with a cloth, if anything is required, use paper. Cloth causes a musty taste and smell.
Do not allow crumbs or bits of bread to collect in the box or jar.
To freshen stale bread or buns, place them in a hot oven above a pan of boiling water; or put into one tin and cover with another and leave 10–30 m. according to size of loaf and heat of oven.
Rolls are sometimes dipped in milk or water and heated in the oven; or, put into a paper sack and left in the oven for 10 m.
Put yeast in a quart measure (compressed yeast will have been dissolved according to directions) and fill the measure with warm water. Turn into warm mixing bowl, add oil, sugar and salt (sugar may be omitted), mingle, add flour until a drop batter is formed; beat vigorously for 5 m., then continue to add flour. When too stiff to stir, knead on molding board until dough issmooth and does not stick to the board by deft handling, place in a well oiled deep dish, cover well and let stand in a moderately warm place until light. It may now be folded down and turned over and allowed to come up half way again, or be put at once into the tins.
Allow bread to rise in tins to a little more than double its bulk (experience will do more for one in determining the proper degree of lightness than any recipe), and put into a moderate oven with spaces between the pans; when well risen and moderately browned, lower the temperature of the oven a little and finish baking. Cover with asbestos sheets or paper if bread is in danger of becoming too brown. ¾–1 hr. will be required for baking a medium sized loaf.
Use double the quantity of oil and from ¼–½ cup of sugar in the recipe for white bread, add 2 large cups of seedless raisins or 1 cup each of raisins and currants. Dates or figs may be used when preferred.
Use 2 cups coarse chopped nuts instead of fruit, in fruit bread recipe. Brown sugar may be used instead of white, or sugar maybe omitted altogether.
Brown sugar, raisins, currants and caraway seeds in fruit bread recipe.
Use ⅓ white flour and ⅔ whole wheat or graham instead of all white flour in the recipe for white bread. These breads require to be kneaded a little stiffer than white flour bread to prevent their being coarse grained and falling in the oven; also, care must be taken that they do not get too light before baking. It is a mistake to put molasses or sugar into graham bread as it conceals the sweet nutty flavor of the flour.
It is better not to use oil in zwieback bread.
2–4 tablespns. liquid yeast or 1 cake compressed yeast, warm water to make 1 qt., white flour for drop batter; beat well. When light, add 1 cup corn meal gruel (to make, use 1 tablespn. of granular meal to each cup of boiling water and cook 2 hrs.), 1¼ teaspn. salt, and flour for smooth dough. Let rise in bulk once, then put into pans. A baker gave me this idea. He said he had a great run on it once in New York City under the name of “Home Made” bread. The bread is very moist and sweet.
Cook oats in water as for porridge, 1½–3 hrs., cool to lukewarm, add sugar, oil, yeast, and flour for sponge; beat, let rise, add salt, and flour for soft dough; when risen form into loaves and when moderately light bake from ¾–1 hr. Sugar need not be used.
Let rise once in bulk and put into tins; when light, bake in moderate oven. Add caraway seeds when liked.
Cook 2 cups of rice in 2 qts. of water until tender; cool to lukewarm; add 4–6 tablespns. yeast with water to make 1 pt.,1½ teaspn. salt and 4–5 cups white flour, or enough to make a very stiff dough.
Sponge:—
When light, add 1 cup fine dry bread crumbs, knead well, use crumbs to roll the dough, roll ¼ in. thick, cut into large rings, let rise and bake in moderate oven until crisp.
Crumbs may be kneaded into bread dough and finished the same.
Add yeast cake powdered fine, to the potato when lukewarm, and the salt and sugar when cold; form into a ball, cover and keep in cool place 2 or 3 days. When ready to bake, add 2 cups mashed potato mixed with 1 teaspn. salt and 2 of sugar to the ball. Make a ball of half the mixture and add enough warm water to the remainder to make 2 qts. or more. Add warm flour to knead, let rise in bulk once or twice before putting into pans.
Proceed in the same manner for each baking, keeping the ball covered in a cool place between bakings. A new ball will not need to be started oftener than once in three months if at all.
This yeast works very quickly and makes beautiful bread. Of course for small bakings, half the quantity of yeast would be sufficient.
I do not know the origin of this yeast but the bread is truly named.
Put into a pitcher or some suitable deep vessel 2 cups of mashed potato to which has been added 1 cup of sugar and 1 qt. of warm water. Cover and let stand in a warm room for from 1 to 3 days or until covered with a foam almost like the meringue on a pie. Mix some of this foam with 1 cup of warm mashed potato, let stand in a warm place 1–2 hrs., add 1 tablespn. of salt and set away in a cool place.
To the original yeast add 1–2 qts. water, 2–3 teaspns. salt and warm flour to knead; when light, stir down, and put into pans the second time it rises. Be careful not to let it get over light in the pans before baking.
For the next baking, add 1 cup of sugar and the 1 cup of potato reserved from the last baking, to 2 cups of fresh mashed potato; take out 1 cupful as before, let stand in warm place 1 hr., add 1 tablespn. of salt and set in a cool place.
To the 2 cups of potato add a little water and set in a warm place until light, when water to make 2 or 3 qts. may be added and the bread kneaded up.
This bread needs to be eaten to be appreciated.
The yeast may be used in universal crust, raised cakes and wherever other yeast is used, with delightful results.
Mix all ingredients, let rise; pour into tins, let rise, not too light; steam 3 hrs. bake 20–30 m. in slow oven.
Raisins or nuts or both are good in brown bread.
Mix all ingredients except corn meal, let rise, add meal, turn into tins and when risen not quite double, steam for 3 hrs. and bake 20 m. to ½ hr. in slow oven.
A little more meal may be used.
Scald 1 cup of meal with boiling water, add warm water, yeast, oil and dry meal. When light, add salt and beaten egg, let rise in the dish in which it is to be baked. The bread is best baked in an iron skillet or frying pan with a cover.
Sponge—
When light; 1 teaspn. salt, 2 cups granular corn meal, 2 eggs slightly beaten. Turn into well oiled pan to depth of 1–1½ in., let stand in warm place a few minutes, bake in moderate oven.
The quantity of flour will vary with the brand, 3¾–4 cups only of bread flour will be required. The eggs make a finer grained as well as lighter bread. One egg will do if eggs are scarce.
Tastes and opinions differ concerning this bread but no other takes its place to those who were accustomed to it in childhood.
With a little practice, salt rising bread becomes less work to make than hop yeast bread. It is more wholesome and richer flavored and keeps better than other yeast bread, and it has a fine cake-like texture.
The experience of some persons is that salt rising bread is less apt to cause acidity in the stomach than hop yeast bread.
The secrets of success with it are in keeping it evenly warm; in not making it too stiff; and in not kneading it too much. Too much flour renders salt rising bread dry and powdery.
The water surrounding the rising at different stages should be at a temperature of 110 to 125 degrees, or so that it feels hot to the hand, but not scalding.
In cold weather, an ideal way to keep the loaves warm while rising is to put them on bricks in a pan or tub of warm water and cover them with a blanket.
It is well to scald all utensils used for the bread with boilingsal-soda water and to use the same water to stand the yeast in while rising.
While the flour added to salt rising bread should be warm, it must never have been hot at any time before using as it is the yeast germs which it and the other ingredients contain that raise the bread.
The loaves should be wrapped in a thick cloth when taken from the oven and left until cold. Salt rising bread makes sweet and tender zwieback.
Mix 1 tablespn. each of salt, sugar and corn meal (white or Rhode Island if obtainable) with 3 tablespns. of oil, pour over all 1½ pt. of boiling water; stir until sugar and salt are dissolved, then add 1½ pt. cold water that has never been heated. Add warm flour for thick batter which will be rather thin after beating (about 2 qts., perhaps). Beat thoroughly and set in pan of water at 110 to 125 degrees or in some place that can be kept at a uniform temperature much warmer than for common yeast bread but not warm enough to scald the rising. When the first bubbles appear, beat the batter thoroughly and repeat the beating each hour until light, which will be in from 4–6 hours. The rising should not be allowed to become too light at any time. When the batter is light, close the doors so that there will be no draughts. Have the pans oiled and warm, and the flour warm. Add the flour rapidly with very little stirring, to the batter; when stiff enough, turn all out on to a warmed, floured board and work in quickly with as little kneading as possible enough flour for a rather soft dough; form into loaves and place in oiled pans, set in a warm place, covering well to keep a crust from forming over the top as well as to keep the loaves warm. As soon as light, place in a moderate oven and bake thoroughly.
To 1 cup very warm water add ½ teaspn. of salt and fine middlings (shorts) to make a rather stiff batter; beat well, cover andset in a dish of very warm water, covered, beat 2 or 3 times while rising. When light, turn into a warm mixing bowl, add 1 pt. or more of warm water, a little more salt and warm graham flour (part white flour if preferred) for a soft dough, and finish the same as No. 1.
For shortcakes, fruit tarts, meat and vegetable pies, pot pie dumplings, crackers, buns, steamed puddings, loaf cake, doughnuts and cookies, rusk and Sally Lunn.
Mix all ingredients except salt and add flour for sponge batter; beat; when light, add salt and warm flour for moderately stiff dough. Knead a little and cut into biscuit for the top of fruit tarts or meat or vegetable pies, or place on tins for shortcake crusts. For dumplings, use only ¼ cup of oil or 1½ tablespn. of raw nut butter.
The crust may be kneaded stiff at first and allowed to rise twice.
If the crusts are not fine grained it is because you have not used enough flour or have not kneaded them enough; but they do not want to be quite as stiff as bread is usually mixed.
Shortcake crusts or tins of thin biscuit may be made and kept on hand and just warmed up when needed, or laid over meat or vegetable pie fillings or hot cooked fruit fillings and left in the oven long enough to warm through.
We consider this one of the most valuable recipes in the book since it can be used in so many ways in the place of baking powder crusts.
Make sponge or knead at once to soft dough, let rise, make into any desired shape and when light, bake. This is very nicefor shortcake crusts and can be used for nearly all purposes that universal crust is. That the cream was sour would not be known after the crust is baked.
Use 1 egg, with or without 1 tablespn. of sugar to each cup of milk in universal crust. Bake in shallow or thick loaf as preferred.
Knead thoroughly (dough may be put through food cutter 5 or 6 times); when light, fold down and turn over and when risen again, roll thin, prick all over quickly with fork or docker, cut into any size or shape desired and bake at once before the crackers have time to rise and acquire a bread like taste. Bake in a moderate oven until well dried all through, but not too brown. When properly baked these crackers are more suitable for soups than unleavened crackers, as they are more porous and tender. Tiny ones cut with a plain round pastry tube are attractive for special occasions. They may be cut in larger sizes, sometimes as large as a saucer, like the Swedish milk biscuit, for serving salads or entrées upon. For salads, they may have a hole in the center. I have an oblong cutter, made by bending a small round tin tube into that shape, that makes pretty soup crackers. Bake the dough in long slender rolls for Soup Sticks.