The Elk County advocate. [volume] (Ridgway, Pa.) 1868-1883, 1870-12-22
FARM AND HOUSEHOLD.

SOMETHING ABOUT BREAD-MAKINd.
"A subject that interests everybody is
that Of bread making, and as . general
thing, there is too much popular igno--
rance respecting it. In the process OF
grinding wheat for supertne flour, the
outer she'll, composed chiefly of gluten,
being tenacious and adhesive, comes
from the mill in flakes with the bran,
and is sifted out, while the starch is pull
verified and constitutes the fine flour.
Thus the starch, which is the chief ele-
ment in fine flour, is saved, which con-
t,iins no food for brain and muscle; and
the gluten, containing phosphates and
nitrates which furnish support for brain,
bone, and muscle, is cast away with the
bran, and is fed to horses, cattle, and
pigs. And this is the kind of -four that
makes nine tenths of the bread in Amer
lean cities, besides all that is used in
cakes, puddings, aud pastry.
a method of making bread from whole
wheat, without previously grinding it
into -four, has been devised by French
man named Sezille. The grain is first
soaked in water for half an hour; then
put into a revolving cylinder with a
rough inside surface, and shaken up, SO
as 10 remove the coarser part of the
skin; and then soaked twenty or twen-
ty four hour hours more in water of the
temperature of 75 degrees Fahrenheit,
with which little yeast and glucose has
been mingled. By these means the
grain acquires pasty, doughy consist
ence, and can be mixed up by machine
ry and made into bread in the usual
way. The invention is an important
one, both from its saving the expense of
grinding, and from the greater economy
of keeping and transporting the whole
grain instead of flour.
The most economical and best bread
especially in cold weather, when q hot
fire is constantly kept, is what is some
times called gems, or unleavened biscuit
For this purpose a group of cast-iron
pans or cups p by 3! inches each, all
made in one casting, is used. These
pans are set on the top of hot stove
and allowed to become almost smoking
hot when buttered for use. Then with
cold water and milk, half-and-half, or
with cold water alone, and the colder
the better, mix and stir quickly with a
stiff spoon as much Graham or unbolted
wheat-meal as will make stiff batter
or thinnish mush: and when the pans
are hot, fill them quickly with the thin
dough and let them stand minute on
the stove before putting into very hot
oven, where they should remain twenty
or twenty-five minutes, until done. Ii
the mixture be neither too thin nor too
stiff, and the pans and the oven be hot,
you will have twelve as light and whole
some biscuits as any epicure could wish
to eat. They may be eaten smoking
warm from the oven, as they contain no
poisonous chemical elements like yeast
bread which requires cooling to be rid
of. They are good cold, or may be
warmed in steam kettle. Anybody,
however unskilled in cooking, can learn
to make these light and nice every time.
Nice, fresh wheat-meal, very cold wet
ting, quickly done, with very hot
place to bake them, will insure the best
of luck always. These, like all other
Graham bread, should be fresh every
day.
For growing children, and those peo-
pie who work or think, and especially
students and sedentary persons, there is
no other bread, and scarcely any other
single article of food, that equals it. Let
the poor who cannot afford to lose ii
per cent. of the grain in the cast off
bran let those whose bones and muscles
are small, tending to ricketts, and spinal
curvature; let invalids and dyspeptics
try it, and they never will go back to
superfne bread simply because it looks
white and nice, and, when dry, is more
pleasant to the mouth than the brown
PAPER AS A PROTECTOR FROM FROST
The New England Farmer endorses the
following method of preventing freezing
in cellar, described in the Scientific
american
The walls and the ceiling were pasted
over with four or five thicknesses of old
newspapers, curtain of the same ma
terial being also pasted over the small
low windows at the top of the cellar.
The papers were pasted to the bare
joists over head, leaving an air space be-
twetn them and the floor. He reports
that the papers carried his roots through
last winter, though the cellar was left
unbanked, and he is confident they have
made his cellar frost-proof
We do not counsel the special use of
old newspapers for this purpose. 1t is
just as well or better to use coarse brown
paper. Whatever paper is employed, it
will be necessary to sweep down the
walls thoroughly, and to use very
strong size to hold the paper to the
stones.
1t is not necessary to press the paper
down into all the depressions of the
wall every air space beneath it is an