ve no conception; and thus
they will even regard this process of spoiling the paste by the
acetous fermentation, and then rectifying that acid by effervescence
with an alkali, as something positively meritorious. How else can they
value and relish baker's loaves, such as some are, drugged with
ammonia and other disagreeable things, light indeed, so light that
they seem to have neither weight nor substance, but with no more
sweetness or taste than so much white cotton?

Some persons prepare bread for the oven by simply mixing it in the
mass, without kneading, pouring it into pans, and suffering it to rise
there. The air-cells in bread thus prepared are coarse and uneven; the
bread is as inferior in delicacy and nicety to that which is well
kneaded as a raw Irish servant to a perfectly educated and refined
lady. The process of kneading seems to impart an evenness to the
minute air-cells, a fineness of texture, and a tenderness and
pliability to the whole substance, that can be gained in no other
way.

The divine principle of beauty has its reign over bread as well as
over all other things; it has its laws of aesthetics; and that bread
which is so prepared that it can be formed into separate and
well-proportioned loaves, each one carefully worked and moulded,
will develop the most beautiful results. After being moulded, the
loaves should stand a little while, just long enough to allow the
fermentation going on in them to expand each little air-cell to
the point at which it stood before it was worked down, and then
they should be immediately put into the oven.

Many a good thing, however, is spoiled in the oven. We cannot but
regret, for the sake of bread, that our old steady brick ovens
have been almost universally superseded by those of ranges and
cooking-stoves, which are infinite in their caprices, and forbid all
general rules. One thing, however, may be borne in mind as a
principle,--that the excellence of bread in all its varieties,
plain or sweetened, depends on the perfection of its air-cells,
whether produced by yeast, egg, or effervescence; that one of the
objects of baking is to fix these air-cells, and that the quicker this
can be done through the whole mass, the better will the result be.
When cake or bread is made heavy by baking too quickly, it is
because the immediate formation of the top crust hinders the
exhaling of the moisture in the centre, and prevents the air-cells
from cooking. The weight also o