BAKING. 185 



ceeded far enough, he adds about twice as much 

 more flour as he originally took. 



449. The sponge and flour are then very fully and 

 carefully kneaded together, so as to insure the com- 

 plete mixture of the half-fermented sponge with the 

 fresh flour ; this is a very laborious part of the opera- 

 tion, but it is quite essential to the success of the 

 process, for if it is not very thoroughly attended to, 

 the ferment will not be equally and uniformly dif- 

 fused throughout the whole of the dough. 



450. The dough is then left for about an hour and 

 a half; it is then kneaded a second time, divided into 

 pieces of proper size and weight to form loaves, and 

 then set aside in a warm place for a short time. 

 Lastly, the loaves are put into the oven and baked, 

 during which operation they are still more expanded 

 and enlarged. In baking, the loaves generally rise 

 or swell up to about twice the size which they pre- 

 viously had. 



451. The object of all these diff*erent processes is 

 to decompose the sugar which the flour contains, for 

 the purpose of generating carbonic acid, and thus 

 rendering the dough light and porous. The sugar, 

 therefore, which the flour contains is essential to 

 bread-making : but though the whole, or the greater 

 part, of this sugar is of necessity thus decomposed, 

 by the action of the yeast, yet when bread is analyzed 

 it is found to contain very nearly as much sugar as 

 flour does. 



452. When the yeast is mixed w^ith the flour, it 



16* 



