1826.] o?t the Art of Baking Bread, 165' 



and porter, and the sparkle to champaigne. This gas, when 

 duly infused into the dough, gives us, after baking and coohng, 

 instead of a heavy and hard, or tough dull nutriment, a light, 

 porous, elastic, diaphanous food, which is at once more agree- 

 able to the palate, and, as of easier digestion, more conducive to 

 the health. Common sea biscuit is no bad specimen of the 

 former of these kinds of bread, while a good modern plain wheat 

 loaf is a fair example of the latter. And if one will just imagine 

 a mass of the dough of sea biscuit baked into the bulk and 

 shape of a common wheat loaf, the comparative qualities of the 

 two varieties of bread will appear evident. The one would 

 prove a hard, compact, heavy body, which it would be difficult 

 to cut down or to chew, while the other would be light, semi- 

 transparent, and full of httle vesicles of air so as to resemble a 

 sponge in lightness and elasticity. In addition to this, it is not 

 immaterial to observe that these vesicles in well made bread are 

 regularly arranged in a sort of stratification of layers one above ^ 

 another, all of them perpendicular to the crust of the bread* 

 This kind of internal structure constitutes what is termed by the 

 bakers p?W bread; and this appearance they are in the habit" 

 of regarding as one of the surest tests of the success of their* 

 batch. ' 



These distinctions are marked and decisive. They place in a> 

 sufficiently striking light the great advantages derived to man* 

 kind from the introduction of that part of the process of baking' 

 which consists in mingling with the bread they eat a considerable 

 volume of what must be regarded as a foreign and innutritious 

 body. And it may be proper to mention as a circumstance 

 which throws some light on the increased faciht) of digestion- 

 possessed by well-piled bread, that if a portion of it, after hav- 

 ing been duly baked and thoroughly cooled, be pressed between 

 the fingers, it will crumble readily into powder; and if a piece 

 of such a loaf be placed in hot water, it immediately softens, 

 swells out considerably, disintegrates, and admits of being easily 

 diffused throughout the liquid. But if a bit of unpiled bread be 

 similarly squeezed between the fingers, it remains a solid cohe- 

 sive mass, and when put into hot water, never softens further 

 than to become a permanently-tough mass of dough. 



The various modes which have been resorted to for the pur- 

 pose of introducing the gaseous principle into bread, form almost 

 the whole matter of interesting research which is connected 

 with the modern art of baking. The rest, as has been already 

 adverted to, resolves itself into a pretty simple and by no means 

 very curious process of cookery, being merely the commixture, 

 in due proportions, of flour, and salt, and water, with the occa» 

 sional addition of confectionary, after which the compound is 

 baked in the oven. The only curious chemical investigation 

 connected with the art, is, therefore, the examination of the use 



m2 



