Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1891-12-27

Why is boiling water sometimes fat and
brackish, other times fresh and brisk? Air
does it, If water freshly drawn, or quickly
brought to boil and used at once it will
have more air in it than water that has
stood, either before or after boiling. Long
boiling exhausts the air. Tea or coffee can
not be perfect or within speaking distance
of perfection, that is made out of water that
has boiled and stopped boiling and begun
boiling again for an hour! They should be
made out of water is just brought to s boil;
and the taste of spontaneity that such air
invigorated water gives, can be given by
nothing else
All canned wares should have good air
ing-out of the cans-as we'll as a good
washing before they are cooked. Some can
not be washed but all may be aired In
mixing bread the more fresh air beaten in
the better. And long beating of cake does
good for one reason, because the air can
thus enter the cake batter. But air has a
malign as well as good power over bread.
/ shall never forget some of my early strug-
giles with yeast and flour, ON a Southern
plantation, where compressed yeast was
not. Our cook was black, but comely, and
she had no preiUdices or indeed opinions on
the subject of bread; her mind was a fair
page, so 10 speak, upon which we were to
indite worthy matter.
Keeping Air Away From Bread.
But unluckily, we did not know any more
than she. / firmly believe that there is no
single catastrophe that can happen to evil
doing bread, which we did not witness dur
ing the winter. The list is too long for
repetition, but goodly place was occupied
bv arrested development in bread, due to
nothing but air. We would, with evident
painstaking Gone OF us reading from the
authorities, while the other worked), mix
and beat and knead the dough. We would
put it away in temperature, carefully
averaged from the different temperatures
prescribed by our eight different cook books,
after which we would shut all the doors to
guard against the deadly draught and make
our light-hearted black maids and our hill ari-
Gus black man creep about on tip toe, as if
at funeral-lest the dough be Jared.
Nevertheless, all the same, a solid crust of
doom formed, every time, over that sacred
and guarded dough. Like lead, it lay in
the bowl. And all the trouble was worked
by the air, plain, simple Arkansas air! The
instant that we buttered the dough, thus
keeping the air away, the crust kept away
also.
Everyone realizes the danger of the ad-
mittance of air to preserves or canned
goods, but not everybody knows how chary
one should be of admitting air to butter. A
frkin of creamery butter should always be
kept closely covered with salty cloth, and
with the cover OF the firkin on. But meat
is better if exposed to good air, free from
flies. The best place to keep game is in a
latticed pantry.
A Swedish Sweet Bread.
Here is Miss Peterson's S spice twists, which
are truly delicious:
To a do,ol, a., t,-
risen once, cut into small strips about eight
inches long, two inches wide, and one inch
thick. (These dimensions do not need to be
measured with rule-tbey may be guessed
Have ready saucer containing melted but
ter and another saucer containing cup of
sugar, teaspoonful of cinnamon, and q
scant teaspoonful OF allspice, well mixed.
Roll the strip in the melted butter, then in
the sugar and spice. Tie the strip into Il
knot, without drawing the loop through
The loop Will be in the air and the ends con-
cealed, making a pretty twist. Put the
twists in pan--no need to butter the pan
little distance apart, so that each may
bake on all sides. The sugar Will melt with
pleasant effect. They will require about
70 minutes in good rolls oven to bake. Be-
fore taking them out it is often well to put
them upside down on the top crate of the
oven to stiffen the under crust of sugar.
They are best drained-if l may use the ex-
pression-on piece Of brown paper.
One of the invaluable virtues of good
bread is that no crumb of it need be wasted
Dry pieces and crusts may be utilized by
drying them to rusks in the tin oven or in
the other oven, if not hot enough to burn
them; and then rolling them with the roll
ing pin into meal. Such bread crumbs, if
kept in covered glass bottle, will keep
for days. A weekly drying and rolling is
good idea, and saves many moments at Just
the time when moments are needed. They
are excellent for scallops, for stufing, for
puddings, for score of things; and the
difference between the crust made out of
fine, well-buttered crumbs, and that un-
slightly surface of hill and dale formed by
Jumps of bread crumbs which some cooks
use, is the difference between the artist and
the artisan on a strike
Mr.