The Bedford gazette. [volume] (Bedford, Pa.) 1805-current, 1857-10-23
WHAT SCIENCE SAYS OF BREADMA-
KING.

IL is praisewortfy characteristic OF the A
merican people, that they are curious to know
the philosophy of all things Causality, as the
phrenoogist would say, is large among U.S.
We analyze the smallest as well as the greatest
objects. The reason why the stars keep to their
orbits is hardly more interesting TO our practical
minds than the mysteries involved IN bread-ma-
king.
For the making OF good bread, TO thousands
and tens of thousands of housewives even, az a
mystery. Cooks pride themselves on their sac-
cess in the art ; and naturally for il is dstinc-
ton to be able TO insure light bread. Yet of
hundred thousand breadmakers, how few under
stand why it is that the bread is sometimes good
and sometimes bad The proficient has krack
in kneading and baking her bread and that is
all she knows about it. The rival, whose bread
is failure, can only say that the baking
went wrong and is as much in the dark as
the other.
To make bread the flower has first to be
kneaded. But why knead it? Because Ger
tain quantity of water, in addition to that ex-
isting in The flour, is necessary to produce those
chemical changes, without which good bread
can never be made The water dissolyes the
sugar and albumen; combines with and hydrates
the starch; and moistens the minute PARTICLES Of
gluten, so as to induce them to cement together,
and thus bind the whole into a coherent mass
The good house wife knows, by practice, when
this state of things has been brought about; in
other words, when her dough is properly knead-
ed. For as only certain limited quantity of
water can be used TO produce this effect, as too
much or too little would wholly Illustrate the
end, it is plain that the water must be carefully
and thoroughly worked into the -four; so as to
bring every separate particle of the one into
contact with the required amount Of the other.
Kneading, with the hand, is the sole way to do
this. The competent housewife tells by the
feeling when her dough is fit to put away to
rise. No machinery can do it perfectly.
The next process is the fermentation. This
is produced, generally, by yeast; and always
more safely and perfectly by it. Yeast, as the
microscope has proved, is vegetabe-a true
plant belonging to the fungus tribe. II makes
bread rise, by producing change of the gluten
or albumen, which acts upon the sugar, break
ing it up into alcohol and carbonic acid gas
II the dough has been skillfuly kneaded, and the
fermentation is regular and equal, the gas is
evolved evenly throughout the mass, so that
the bread, when cut, will be honeycombed with
numberless minute pores. Bad yeast, or bad
fermentation makes the bread sour, which the
experienced housewife corrects with little al
/ kali Chemical substances are sometimes used
! to make bread rise. But Youmans, the chemist
to whom we are indebted for most of these
facts, says that as such substances are not nutri-
tive, but medicinal, they exert disturbing ac-
tion on the healthy organism, and, consequent
ly, ought not to be employed habitualy. 9th
er writers, also, have attributed the increase of
dyspepsia TO the widespread introduction Of
these agents as a substitute for yeast.
The baking of the loaf, as every housewife
knows, is not the least part OF the ''art and
mystery' of bread baking. The heat of the
oven should be equal everywhere throughout
it, and should continue constant for consider
able time Ifthe heat is insufficient, the bread
will be soft, wet and pasty; if too great, the
crust will be burnt, the inside raw dough. The
baking Temperature of an oven should range
$50 deg. Fahrenheit, 10 500 deg. An ordinary
way of testing when an oven is proper for 5ak-
ing, is to strew fresh -four on the bottom, and if
j the -four chars, the heat is excessive The loaf
diminishes in weight and enlarges in size by
baking, in consequence OF the evaporation of
the water, the expansion of IFS carbonc acid
gas, and the vaporizing of its alcohol. The
crust is caused by chemical changes in the out
er surface of the loaf, producing an organic
matter which chemists call assamar. Such is
the scientific history of breadmaking Phil.
Ledger.