BREAD. 121 



discolored in the process of change. Good flour is tenacious 

 and unctous to the touch ; when thrown against a wall it should 

 adhere and not fall rapidly. It does not feel crispy, and when 

 formed into a ball in the hand, adheres together like a ball of 

 snow. To the sense of smell it is sweet and pleasant, and when 

 taken into the mouth, forms a glutinous mass, free from all 

 disagreeable taste. 



The nutritive quality of flour depends upon the proportion of 

 gluten which it contains. In the best specimens ten or twelve 

 per cent, is found. A barrel of flour contains about twenty 

 pounds of gluten, and one hundred and fifty of common starch. 

 The starch can easily be washed out of a small quantity of flour 

 by placing it in a bag of cotton cloth and kneading it under a 

 stream of water. The gluten remains upon the cloth and is a 

 gray, viscid, tenacious mass, insoluble in water. It is the 

 strength-giving principle of the flour, and in a three pound loaf 

 of bread there should be at least three ounces of this substance. 



Bad bread is by no means always chargeable to imperfect 

 materials. Hundreds of families, who procure and use the most 

 perfect flour, subsist upon bread of a very inferior quality. 

 Some housekeepers assert that they can have no " luck " in 

 bread making ; their loaves are always heavy, or sour, or 

 doughy, or burnt, and they give up experimenting and become 

 discouraged. As with good materials every one can prepare 

 good bread, there should be no want of success. 



Success depends in a great measure upon good judgment, 

 faithfulness and patience in working, and in using the right 

 materials. It is quite preposterous to present a fixed recipe 

 and set it up as an infallible guide in this department of house- 

 hold labor. The method adopted in my family, and that by 

 which the specimen exhibited was prepared, is as follows : 



Sift five pounds of good flour and put it in an earthen pan 

 suitable for mixing and kneading. Have ready a ferment, or 

 yeast, prepared as follows : 



Take two potatoes the size of the fist, boil them, mash and 

 mix with half a pint of boiling water. A fresh yeast cake, of 

 the size common in the market, is dissolved in water, and the 

 two solutions mixed together and put in a warm place to 

 ferment. As soon as it commences to rise, or ferment, which 

 requires a longer or shorter time, as the weather is warm or 



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