95 



in the oven; eighth, the temperature of the oven, and the 

 time consumed in baking, has much to do with the perfection 

 of the process. 



If this method is followed with the exercise of good judg- 

 ment and ordinary skill, white bread of the highest perfection 

 will be uniformly produced. 



XJnfermented, or "cream of tartar" bread, is never placed 

 upon the table in my family. There are special dietary, 

 or sanitary reasons for its exclusion. All '* quick made " 

 bread is usually prepared in haste, and the adjustment of acid 

 and alkali is apt to be imperfect. Not one pound in a hun- 

 dred of cream of tartar sold in the market is free from adulter- 

 ation. In ten specimens procured from as many different 

 dealers, in a town of ten thousand inhabitants, I ascertained 

 by analysis that the least per centage of adulterating material 

 was twenty-two per cent., and several were over seventy per 

 cent. The " yeast powders " so common in the market are 

 composed of acids in association with alkaline carbonates, us- 

 ually bi-carbonate of soda. If tartaric acid, or cream of tar-*! 

 tar, is used with the soda, there remains in the bread after 

 baking a neutral salt, the tartrate of soda, which is diffused 

 through the loaf and is consumed with it. This salt has aperi- 

 ent properties — in fact is a medicine — and thus at the daily 

 meal, those who use bread made with *' powders," or with 

 cream of tartar, are taking food and medicine together. 



Some years ago. Prof. Horsford, of Cambridge, proposed 

 substituting phosphoric acid for the tartaric, and this excellent 

 idea has been put into practical effect in the production of 

 yeast powders. In the use of this acid, phospJiate of soda 

 would remain in the loaf, and as this is made up of the ele- 

 ment which we lose in sifting out the bran from the flour, it 

 must prove healthful, or at least unobjectionable. But bread 

 prepared by ejfervesing powders is, at best, a poor substitute 

 for that which results when the dough is raised through the 

 agency of vinous fermentation — regular yeast, in some of its 

 forms, being employed. Effervescents may be used in ex- 



