Wheeling register. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1878-1935, 1897-01-04
BAKING As A FINE ART.
an Expert Tells How His Business is
Managed.
Comparative MeriSs Of Winter and
Spring Wheat Flour and How the
Difference May Be Ascertaiued.

Difference May Be Ascertaiued.
New York Times.
How DO you folks take barrel of
cheaD flour and turn it into loaves of
fine white bread?" 1 asked the boss
baker.
I'VE don't" he replied. Cheap
-four makes cheap bread. We have no
way Of making good bread out Of poor
-four. I know some people think we
have, but they are mistaken. To make
the best bread the best flour in the
market is none too good for us.
Then, I asked, Tor he seemed TO
take this sort of thing good-naturedly,
do you mean 10 say that you use the
same flour for your professional bread,
if l may give IL such a name, as q
careful. hOusekeeper uses for her home
made loaves?'
Not always precisely the same he
replied, but our flour costs as much
as hers, sometimes more. We gener-
ally use the best MINI esOta or other
Western flour, the most expensive in
the market, because they suit our pur-
poses best. being either all spring
wheat or what we call straight
mixture Of winter and spring. For
home baking pure winter wheat is the
whitest and best.
Now" SAID l. as he was warming up
To the subject, the leayen of infOrma-
ton beginning TO work in him, no
hOusekeeper can look at a bag Of flour
and tell whether il is made of winter
wheat or spring wheat. Can your
why not? ?" said he. L can show
you in half a minute how you can tell
for Yourself Look at this He
thrust his hand into an open barrel Of
-four and brought out a handful.
Now I squeeze this, and the minute
l open my hand the cast of my fingers
crumbles. There is no tenacity to it.
II is almost as loose and crumbly as
cornmeal. That shows it is spring
wheat.
Here is winter wheat" He took
a handful from another barrel. you
see when 1 squeeze it into any form
with my hand it retains the form.
1 could go all over the house with it,
or around the block, and it would not
crumble That shows that it is win
ter wheat Anybody can tell by that,
ter bread by using winter wheat
BY this time chairs were produced
and cigars were lighted. TO the detri
ment. / am afraid, of the trays and
and cakes on the counter. Having the
boss baker safely cornered. L~Opened
whole battery of questions upon him.
Battery" in speaking of a baker,
sounds like pun but it is only an ac-
Cident.
PROFITS IN BAKING.
q understand" I told him. that
baking bread in the large cities is not
only a fine art but a very profitable
business. want 20 know all about il. 4"
At the word profitable" he shrug-
ged his shoulders and shook his head
sadly, and would have be IN with
the woes Of the bakers, but that was
not the place to BEGIN at all.
Let us begin with a barrel Of -four,
I suggested How many lOaves Of
bread can YOU make out Of a barrel of
flOur?'
THAT was the first question I was
asked when / set up in business, over
twenty years ago he answered, only
we don't reckon by lOaves. but by
pounds. of bread. A loaf may be the
size Of a roll. or of a bushel basket,
but a pound is a pound. When
went to the dealer from whom I have
been buying my flour ever since, the
first thing he asked me was:
How many pounds of bread do
you reckon you viii get out of bar
rel Of foUr?'
"'Two hundred and eighty said I.
That's right said he; that's Just
what YOU will get. Some bakers reck-
on 800 but they come out behind
Then" I suggested. you increase
the weight of your -four by just about
fifty per cent. as a barrel of Hour
weighs 19S pounds. What do you add
to it?"
Water" he replied. "and leaven
and shortening 70 is the water Of
course. that increases the weight. The
leaven increases the bulk If you want
a big loaf for one cent less than the
price of a small one. l can give il to
YOU by swelling the loaf out with
Yeast. This is done sometimes, but it
hurts the bread and does not increase
the weight
MODERN LEAVENING.
THE shortening" he continued, lis
about eight pounds Of the best leaf
lard to a barrel OF -four The leaven
is compressed yeast. Nothing goes in
10 a loaf of bread but these four things
flour. water, lard and leaven. When
/ was an apprentice we used the old
fashioned leaven, taking big handful
of dough from each batch and bury
ing il in the flour barrel. When it
was wanted we took il out. mixed it
up with warm water. and let it stand
over night. In the morning we had
Yeast. and that was real bakers yeast.
Or. sometimes we put hops in water
and boiled them and added malt 10 it,
and that made another kind of yeast.
But now we use nothing but COM
pressed yeast. because il is just as
good and much handler. People still
send 10 the bakers sometimes for 'bak-
er's yeast. but they could get the same
thing al the grocery in a penny yeast
cake. In every isolated country places
they still use the Old-fashioned leav-
en-
And them
Then we set the sponge and bake
the bread. and it's done. In such a
shop as this. where we make about
thirty barrels a week. the sponge is