Freshly-Baked Bread

New Zealand Listener, Volume 35, Issue 894, 21 September 1956, Page 32

Freshly-Baked Bread

home-made bread. Some give good advice and hints, some ask questions; but all agree in liking freshly-baked bread or rolls, especially on cold days. Much more exciting than scones or pikeletsand such an appetising aroma! Bread is not hard to make, and one soon acquires the knack. It can be made with dried yeast quite satisfactorily, so keep a jar in the house in case you want to give the family a treat one wet week-end when you haven’t a cake of compressed ‘yeast handy. Two level tablespoons of dried yeast weigh an ounce. Also, people often ask for recipes for making their own yeast; and an occasional bakingpowder loaf is a great favourite and no trouble at all. Remember to have flour really dry and even slightly warmed; and the liquid for mixing must be only blood heathot liquid kills yeast, and cold liquid won’t work it at all. Temperatures for baking are always guices and not hard and fast rules, because stoves and other conditions vary in different homes. Practice makes perfect. Never add the salt to the yeast-liquor, but always sift it with the flour. Fill the tins only halffull and don’t set it to rise in too hot a ] OFTEN . get letters about

place, or it will rise too fast and be holey. A _ hot-water cupboard is a good place, A 2 Ib. loaf takes approximately

45 minutes at regulo 7 or 450 degrees electric, reducing heat a little after about 15 minutes. Housewives’ Hints (1) One rounded tablespoon of dried yeast is just right for 8 breakfast cups sifted flour. It must be sifted flour, for I found that it was nearly a whole cup more when it wasn’t sifted; and, of course, the flour must be warmed. Flours do differ-some absorb more moisture so you see you must use a bit of individual experience. (2) Our cakes of compressed yeast weigh 11% oz.; the American cakes weigh three-fifths of ours. Irene’s Bread (Papanui) y "Two pounds flour, 142 teaspoons sugar, 4 level teaspoons salt, 1 pint tepid water, 1 oz. yeast (compressed cake form). Sift flour and salt into warm basin. Mix together and make a well in the centre, Put yeast in another warm basin, break it in pieces, mix sugar in until it becomes a creamy liquid. Add tepid water to liquid yeast mixture, then

stir into flour, Beat till smooth. Place cloth over basin and stand in warm place to rise, about 2 hours. Turn out and knead 2 to 3 minutes. Form into two loaves on tray or put in open tins. Cover with cloth again, and return to warmth for further % hour. Bake in hot oven for 40 minutes approximately. I find my cylinder cupboard ideal for rising." White Bread (about 4 Ib.) Three pounds flour, 3 level teaspoons salt, 4 level teaspoons sugar, 11 pints to 1% pints water at blood heat, according to strength of flour, 1 cake compressed yeast. Sift flour and salt together in large warm bowl. Dissolve sugar in 14 pint water in a small bowl. Add yeast to this and stir until dissolved. Add yeast to the full quantity of water and pour all into a well in the centre of the flour. Mix quickly to a flexible dough, beating with a wooden stirrer, until the dough leaves the sides of the bowl. Turn on to a floured board and knead and fold quickly for about 3 minutes, kneading and folding the dough as often as possible in the time. Roll into a smooth ball on the board. Cover with a bowl. Leave on the board in a warm place for 20 to 25 minutes. Push the dough lightly from the board, turn it once and knock or press it down and fold it over four or five times. Cut into two or four as desired. Shape each piece into a good loaf and place in slightly greased tins. Put to rise on a rack over a bowl of hot water (not too hot for the hand). Cover lightly and leave till

double in bulk. Bake in a hot oven. Forty minutes if in four tins,°one hour if in two. When done the bread is well browned and has a dry hollow sound when tapped with the fingers. Scottish Border Bread (no kneading) Three pounds of wholemeal flour, 2 pints of luke-warm water, 4 teaspoons salt, 2 teaspoons of sugar, 1 oz..of yeast. Mix the flour and salt in a large bowl and put it to warm in a warm spot, turning it over occasionally until the chill is off. Crumble the yeast in a basin, add the sugar and mix with a spoon until liquid. Add "the luke-warm water, stir thoroughly and leave for about 10 minutes to froth up. Make a well in the centre of the flour and pour in the frothing yeast. Mix thoroughly with one hand until the flour is evenly wetted, then divide the dough into three and put in three two-pound loaf tins well greased. Cover with a cloth and put to rise in a warm place for about half an hour, or until the dough has doubled its original bulk, Bake for an hour in a hot oven approximately 425 degrees. Wharepuhunga Bread This was sent by a mother of 5 children who makes it up every day. The ferment: 3 dessertspoons dried yeast, 3 dessertspoons sugar, 3 dessertspoons flour or wholemeal, 1 pint warm water, Mix this and let stand until required. Can be used within 42 hour. Now put into a bowl 8 cups flour or wholemeal and 4 teaspoons salt. Add the ferment to the flour and use more warm water for mixing until mixture leaves sides of bow] clean.

Turn on to floured board and knead 5 minutes. Put into greased tins and let rise until double size, then bake. Irish Barm for Bread Making First make your barm, which takes the place of buttermilk. It is called a "buttermilk plant." To start the plant you need 1 oz. sugar, 1 quart tepid milk and water, 1 oz. yeast. Cream yeast with sugar, gradually add tepid milk and water. Put mixture in vessel that can be easily washed and scalded, cover and leave it in warm place a few days or until the milk smells and tastes like buttermilk, When you want to use the "buttermilk," put a piece of muslin in the bottom of a strainer and strain the milk through this. The funny lookirg substance like lumpy cornflour which remains will be the "buttermilk plant." Rinse every drop of milk off it by pouring a cupful of tepid water over it. Let the water run through the strainer into

the "buttermilk"-it will make excellent liquid for mixing cake-bread. To start. a new lot of "buttermilk" scrape the plant off the muslin and put it back into’ a scalded and well-rinsed vessel. Add another quart of tepid milk and water, cover and leave it as before to "grow." This plant will go on growing indefinitely, giving "buttermilk" all the time. But the plant needs a certain amount of care. It must be strained at least every 5 days. Cleanliness is very important. That careful rinsing after straining, and the ‘scalding of the container, must be done meticulously if the plant is to live. Barm Bread This is really Irish soda bread, but it must be mixed with the "buttermilk" given above. One pound flour, 1 teaspoon salt, 1 teaspoon sugar, 1 teaspoon baking soda and "buttermilk" to mix. Sift dry ingredients several times. Make a well in centre, pour in "buttermilk" gtadually, mixing in flour from sides. The amount of "buttermilk" needed will depend to a great extent on the quality of flour. In any case, it’s a good rule to make dough rather wet than dry. A dry ragged dough gives a tough cake. The

that it does not leave sides of bow! clean when turned on to floured board,’ Knead it lightly for a few minutes, turning sides of dough in toward the centre, and working it round and round while doing so. Now turn upside down so that smooth side is on top; pat it to a round, brush it with milk, and cut a cross on it to keep it from cracking in baking. Let cuts go down over side of loaf to make sure of this. Bake it about 45 minutes in hot oven.

LEMON HONEY (NO EGGS) WO large lemons-grated rind and juice, 1 tablespoon cornflour, 1 breakfast cup sugar, 2 oz. butter. Melt very slowly the sugar and butter with the Jemons. When sugar is dissolved, add cornflour moistened with water. Remove from fire just while stirring in cornflour. Then cook all very slowly till clear golden. ,

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