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BREAD AND BREAKFAST CAKES.

BREAD-MAKING AND FLOUR.

Much of the health, and consequently much of the happiness, of the family
depends upon good bread: therefore no pains should be spared in learning
the best method of making, which will prove easiest in the end.

Yeast, flour, kneading, and baking must each be perfect, and nothing in
the whole range of cooking is of such prime importance.

Once master the problem of yeast, and the first form of wheat bread, and
endless varieties of both bread and breakfast cakes can be made.

The old and the new process flour--the former being known as the St.
Louis, and the latter as Haxall flour--are now to be had at all good
grocers; and from either good bread may be made, though that from the
latter keeps moist longer. Potapsco flour is of the same quality as the
St. Louis. It contains more starch than the St. Louis, and for this reason
requires, even more than that, the use in the family of coarser or graham
flour at the same time; white bread alone not being as nutritious or
strengthening, for reasons given in Part I. Graham flour is fast being
superseded by a much better form, prepared principally by the Health Food
Company in New York, in which the entire grain, save the husk, is ground
as fine as the ordinary flour, thus doing away with the coarseness that
many have objected to in graham bread.

Flour made by the new process swells more than that by the old, and a
little less quantity--about an eighth less--is therefore required in
mixing and kneading. As definite rules as possible are given for the whole
operation; but experience alone can insure perfect bread, changes of
temperature affecting it at once, and baking being also a critical point.

Pans made of thick tin, or, better still, of Russia iron, ten inches long,
four or five wide, and four deep, make the best-shaped loaf, and one
requiring a reasonably short time to bake.

YEAST.

Ingredients: One teacupful of lightly broken hops; one pint of sifted
flour; one cupful of sugar; one tablespoonful of salt; four large or six
medium-sized potatoes; and two quarts of boiling water.

Boil the potatoes, and mash them fine. At the same time, having tied the
hops in a little bag, boil them for half an hour in the two quarts of
water, but in another saucepan. Mix the flour, sugar, and salt well
together in a large mixing-bowl, and pour on the boiling hop-water,
stirring constantly. Now a