478 BREAD 



or separated, au before, by a stream of water. When flour is kneaded into a dough, 

 and spread into a cake, this cake, when baked, will bo horny if it bo thin, or if thick, 

 will be tough and clammy ; whence we see the value of that fermentative process, 

 \vhich generates thousands of little colls in the mass or crumb, each of thorn dry yet 

 tender and succulent through the intimate combination of the moisture. By this con. 

 stitution it becomes easily soluble in the juices of the stomach, or, in other words, 

 light of digestion. It is, moreover, much less liable to turn sour than cakes made from 

 unfermentod dough. 



' Kye, which also forms a true spongy bread, though inferior to that of wheat, consists 

 of similar ingredients namely, 61'07 of starch, 9'48 of gluten, 3'28 of vegetable 

 albumen, 3-23 of uncrystallisable sugar, 11-09 of gum, 6'38 of vegetable fibre; the 

 loss upon the 100 parts amounted to 5'62, including an acid whoso nature the analyst 

 M. Einhof, did not determine. Eye flour contains also several salts, principally the 

 phosphates of lime and magnesia. This kind of grain forms a dark coloured bread, 

 reckoned very wholesome ; comparatively little used in this country, but very much 

 in Franco, Germany, and Belgium. 



' Dough, fermented with the aid either of leaven or yeast, contains little or none of 

 the saccharine matter of the flour, but, in its stead, a certain portion, nearly half its 

 weight, of spirit, which imparts to it a vinous smell, and is volatilised in the oven, 

 whence it might be condensed into a crude, weak alcohol, on the plan of Mr. Hick's 

 patent, were it worth while. But the increased complexity of the baking apparatus 

 will probably prove an effectual obstacle to the commercial success of this project, 

 upon which a few years ago upwards of 20.000/. sterling were foolishly squandered. 



'That the sugar of the flour is the true element of the fermentation which 

 dough undergoes, and that the starch and gluten have nothing to do with it, may bo 

 proved by decisive experiments. The vinous fermentation continues till the whole 

 sugar is decomposed, and no longer ; when, if the process bo not checked by the heat 

 of baking, the acetous fermentation will supervene. Therefore, if a little sugar bo 

 added to a flour which contains little or none, its dough will become susceptible of 

 fermenting, with extrication of gas, so as to make spongy succulent bread. But 

 since this sponginess is produced solely by the extrication of gas and its expansion 

 in the heat of the oven, any substance capable of emitting gas, or of being converted 

 into it under these circumstances, will answer the same purpose. Were a solution of 

 bicarbonate of ammonia obtained by exposing the common sesquicarbonate in powder 

 for a day to the air, incorporated with the dough, in the subsequent firing it will bo 

 converted into vapour, and, in its extrication, render the bread very porous. Nay, if 

 water highly impregnated with carbonic acid gas be used for kneading the dough, the 

 resulting broad will be somewhat spongy. Could a light article of food bo prepared 

 in this way, then, as the sugar would remai n unclocomposed, the bread would be so much 

 the sweeter and the more nourishing. How far a change propitious to digestion takes 

 place in the constitution of the starch and gluten during tho fermentative action of 

 the dough has not been hitherto ascertained by precise experiments. 



' Dr. Colquhoun, in his able essay upon tho art of making bread, has shown that its 

 texture, when prepared by a sudden formation and disengagement of elastic fluid 

 generated within the oven, differs remarkably from that of a loaf which has been 

 made after the preparatory fermentation with yeast. Bread which has been raised 

 with the common carbonate of ammonia, as used by the pastrycooks, is porous no 

 doubt, but not spongy with vesicular spaces, like that made in the ordinary way. 

 The former kind of bread never presents that air-cell stratification which is tho boast 

 of the Parisian baker, but which is almost unknown in London. It is, moreover, 

 very difficult to expel by the oven tho last portion of the ammonia, which gives both 

 a tinge and a taste to the bread. The bicarbonate would probably bo free from this 

 objection, which operates so much against the use of the sesquicarbonate.' lire. 



The conversion of flour into bread includes two distinct operations : namely, tho 

 preparation of the dough and the baking. Tho preparation of the dough, however, 

 though reckoned as one, consists, in fact, of three operations : namely, hydrating, 

 kneading, and fermenting. 



When tho baker intends to make a batch of bread, his first care is, in technical 

 language, to stir a ferment. This is done, in London, by boiling a few potatoes, in the 

 proportion of 5 Ibs. or 6 Ibs. of potatoes per sack of flour (which is tho quantity wo 

 shall assume it is desired to convert into bread), peeling thorn, mashing and straining 

 them through a cullender, and adding thereto about three-quarters of a pailful of 

 water, 2 or 3 Ibs. of flour, and one quart of yeast. Tho water employed need 

 not be warmed beforehand, for the heat of tho potatoes is sufficient to impart a 

 proper temperature (from 70 to 90 F.)to tho liquid mass, which should be well stirred 

 up with the hand into a smooth, thin, and homogeneous paste, and then left at rest. 



In the course of an hour or two, the mass is seen to rise and fall, which swelling 



