208 
THE COTTAGE GARDENER AND COUNTRY GENTLEMAN, Janhaby 8, 1861. 
FUCHSIA VENUSTA. 
In answer to “An Inquibee,” this is a species, and not a 
garden variety. It was first discovered by Mr. Hartweg growing 
in New Grenada, near Santa Fe de Bogota, at an elevation of 
8000 feet, about the year 1840, but the seeds he sent home were 
destroyed during the voyage. Mr. Linden was more successful 
and introduced it in 1847 by 
the agency of Ids collectors, 
M.M. Schlim and Funck. 
It is a handsome greenhouse 
shrub; branches slender and 
rather hairy; leaves in whorls 
of three, acutely elliptic, entire, 
glabrous; flowers pendant, from 
axils of leaves, solitary, three 
inches long, and their stalks full 
two inches more, tube tapering 
to the base; sepals five, ovate- 
lanceolate, salmon red, tipped 
with green ; petals oblong, lan¬ 
ceolate, undulated, recurved, 
orange red. 
A coloured drawing of it is in 
“Flore des Serres,” v. 538. 
BREAD AND BREAD- 
MAXING. 
The subject of our present 
article on household science is 
one of the most important that 
can come under our notice, and 
will, therefore, require a careful 
consideration at our hands. 
Before entering on the subject 
of bread-making, it is essential 
to investigate the chemical 
characters of the various sub¬ 
stances that compose wheaten 
flour; as far as our purpose is 
concerned, this is readily done, 
for a rough analysis of flour may 
be made by the aid of a basin of 
water and a piece of muslin. If 
a small quantity of flour is tied 
up in a muslin rag and then 
well washed and kneaded in 
water, a milky liquid is obtained, 
and a remarkably tough elastic 
substance remains in the rag; 
this latter is termed gluten, from 
its peculiarly glutinous character 
when moist, though, when dried, 
it becomes of the consistence of 
horn. Gluten is the flesh¬ 
forming or nutritive ingredient 
in the flour, partaking much 
more of the nature of animal 
than of vegetable food. The 
milky liquid, on being allowed 
to stand, deposits a fine white 
insoluble powder, which is 
starch, and there remains dis¬ 
solved a certain amount of gum, sugar, albumen, and other 
soluble ingredients. When wheaten flour is mixed with water 
and yeast, so as to form dough, and then allowed to stand at 
rest for some time, it undergoes the process of fermentation, the 
sugar which it contains in small quantity is converted, as in the 
ordinary cases of fermenting liquids, into spirit and carbonic 
acid gas ; the latter owing to the tough glutinous character of 
the dough, cannot escape: hence the dough rises or swells, 
assuming a spongy character, which greatly contributes to the 
excellency of the bread. The plan usually followed in preparing 
ordinary home-made bread is to place the required quantity of 
flour in a pan, and to pour into the centre the requisite amount 
of J ei j s t along with a proportion of warm water; sufficient flour 
then is stirred into the mixture to make a thin batter, which is 
dusted over with dry flour, and the whole is allowed to stand in 
a warm place until the batter swells and cracks the flour 
strewed above it, the whole is then kneaded up with a sufficient 
amount of warm water, and thus formed into a tough dough, 
which is allowed to rise, and when sufficiently light is made into 
loaves and baked. 
Bakers, however, adopt a very different course; they follow 
the plan known as that of 
“ setting the sponge ; ” this is 
accomplished by mixing a pro¬ 
portion of the flour and water 
with the yeast, and allowing it 
to ferment some time before 
making the mass of dough. The 
great advantage of this prooess 
is, that as the whole sponge acts- 
as a ferment so much yeast is 
not required, and the bread is 
much lighter than that made in 
the ordinary plan. 
The following directions have 
been obtained from one of the 
most celebrated west-end bakers, 
and produce, with good flour, a 
very superior bread:—To make 
a half-peck loaf, take three- 
quarters of a pound of well- 
boiled mealy Potatoes, and mash 
them through a fine cullender 
or coarse sieve, add one-eighth 
of a pint of yeast (about two 
tablespoonfuls), or three-quar¬ 
ters of an ounce of German 
dried yeast, and one pint and 
three-quarters of lukewarm 
water (88° Fahr.), together with 
about three-quarters of a pound 
of flour, to render the mixture 
the consistence of thin batter; 
this mixture should be set aside 
to ferment: if placed in a warm 
situation it will rise in less than 
two hours, when it will resemble 
yeast in appearance, except as 
to colour. The sponge so made 
is then to bo mixed with one 
pint of water, nearly blood 
warm—viz., 92° Fahr., and 
rUCHSIA VENUSTA 
poured into half a peck of flour, 
which has previously had one 
ounce and a quarter of salt 
mixed with it; the whole should 
then be kneaded into dough, 
and allowed to rise in a warm 
place for two hours, when it 
shoidd be kneaded into loaves 
and baked. 
The object of adding the 
mashed Potatoes is to increase 
the amount of fermentation in 
the sponge, which it does to a 
(5 very remarkable degree, and, 
consequently, renders the bread 
lighter and better. 
In such seasons as the present, 
■when the harvest time is damp, and the Wheat consequently not 
well matured, the flour is apt to undergo a peculiar change- 
in fermentation, and yield a clammy, sticky, dark-colourecl 
bread, that adheres to the teeth dining mastication. Such 
flour cannot be made into useful bread without some addition 
to correct its altered character; for this purpose the bakers, 
employ a certain portion of alum, or lime water may be used 
instead of plain water. These substances prevent the clammy 
character and brown colour of the bread, and enable flour to 
be advantageously and usefully employed that would other¬ 
wise be quite unfit for human food. 
At the present time a reformation appears likely to be effected 
in the manufacture of bread ;' hand labour, which is very ob¬ 
jectionable, promises to be superseded to a very great extent 
by a machine invented by Mr. Stevens, of Cambridge Road, 
London. 
