The Wichita daily eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1890-1906, 1891-04-01
HOW TO MAKE GOOD BREAD.

With the Suggestion That There Is
Good Deal In Watching the Oven Fire.
/ knock at the door this time with ml
hands covered with dough. My way Of
making bread seems SO easy that shal
give it for the benefit of those who finC
breadmaking q troublesome business.
First comes the yeast, of course, and this
is made as follows:
Peel two or three large potatoes, and boil
them in sufficient water to scald one tea,
| spoonful Of -four. When done pour the
potatoes and water over the -four, and
mash all together. Steep a small handful
Of hops in a small dish and add the hop
| water to the mixture, or you can tie tile
! hops in small muslin sack and boil with
the potatoes If you prefer. Do not make
| it too strong of hops, or the yeast will be
! bitter. Add teaspoonful each of salt,
sugar and ginger if you have it handy, al
though the latter ingredients are not abso-
lutely necessary.
Have the mixture about as thick as or
dinary cake batter and run it through a
sieve or mash it fine to remove ali the
Jumps Of the potato, and when lukewarm
| add one good yeast cake dissolved, or ono
half teaspoonful of any good yeast stock,
and set it in warm place to rise Always
prepare the yeast the day before you wish
to bake.
Now you are ready to proceed with the
bread making. In the evening remove
one-half the mixture to a stone or glass
jar. and set it away where it will keep cool
but not freeze. To the remainder add suf-
ficient lukewarm water and -four to make
the desired rising SPONGE" and set this
in warm place to rise"
You can mix your bread before break
fast if you desire to have it out of the way
early in the day. Sometimes I boil pota-
toes on bread baking days and use the po-
tato water for mixing the bread, and often
throw in a spoonful or more of the mashed
potatoes and teaspoonful of salt. This
makes the bread moist and spongy The
bread thus made will also be coarse grained,
but it pleases the palate as long as it lasts.
If you wish a fine grained bread, to please
the eye as well as the palate, put teacup-
full of sweet milk, generous lump of but
ter and teaspoonful of salt in the first
mixing and knead it well. Set it in a mod
erately warm place to rise, but do not at
any stage let it get too hot. as it ruins it to
hurry it with forced heat. Always take
care to keep it covered closely with large
clean cloth.
When sufficiently light mold into small
loaves, set it aside to rise slowly, and bake
before it gets too light and spongy.
If you wish to make Graham bread take
the desired amount of the rising sponge
and mix to a stiff dough with Graham
flour instead of white, and add one tea
spoonful of molasses or brown sugar and
a lump of butter the size of a butternut to
each two medium sized loaves mold it into
small loaves at the first mixing and set it
away to rise. 1t will rise much slower
than the white bread. Always rub melted
butter over your loaves when you put them
in the pans and again when you remove
them from the oven, and you will have a
crisp, delicious crust.
Now that is the whole story, and it
should all be told before dinner time.
When you are to bake again commence as
before with the yeast, but to save work
have boiled potatoes for dinner, and the
boiling water, with two or three potatoes
dropped into the -four, will do as well and
save extra work. Proceed as before, ex-
cept that it is not necessary to use hot wa
ter, save when reserving the stock, which
must be done occasionally or the yeast will
get lazy. To this potato and scalded -four
add when sufficiently cool the contents of
the yeast jar, and by evening you will have
the liveliest kind of new yeast" When
the yeast gets ''lazy,s as it will after sew
eral renewals, discard the contents of the
yeast jar entirely and proceed to make
fresh yeast as at first directed.-St. James
Gazette.