Bread — From the COOKS.COM Culinary Archive.

BREAD

  Bread is a form of food made from the meal or flour of certain grains.

  The word is derived from the verb "to bray or pound," expressive of the old method of preparing the grain.  Bread is therefore made of something brayed, as brayed wheat or corn.  The brayed grain is moistened and made into dough.  Various substances are used to raise the dough, and the raised mass is stiffened by the heat in cooking, and thus held in shape, becomes a loaf.

  Bread is made principally from wheat flour, because wheat is the only grain which contains the right proportion of gluten essential to the making of light, spongy bread.  Rye used alone makes a moist, close, sticky bread.  Corn meal alone makes too dry and crumbly a loaf, but either of these grains may be used to advantage with wheat.

  The gluten of wheat is a tough, gray, elastic substance and will swell to four or five times its original bulk.  Wheat also contains a large amount of starch and considerable mineral matter.  When the whole of the nutritious part is used, wheat is the most useful food we have, but fine white flour contains only a part of the nutriment.

  Bread is sometimes made by using soda and an acid to make the dough light; but these mixtures are usually baked in small forms, and called biscuit, or muffins.  In all these methods there is no chemical change in the flour, as the dough is simply made light by the gas from the soda.

  But the perfect loaf of light spongy bread is made by the addition of something which produces fermentation and causes chemical changes in the flour.

  Yeast is a minute form of plant life and when introduced into any substance which is rich in sugar, starch, or gluten, and exposed to air, warmth, and moisture, causes fermentation, which produces new compounds.

  There are several kinds of fermentation, — lactic fermentation, which causes milk to sour; alcoholic fermentation, which is illustrated by the changes juices undergo in the making of wine, cider, and beer; acetic fermentation, which is caused by too prolonged alcoholic fermentation, as in making vinegar from cider.

  Alcoholic fermentation produces carbon dioxide gas, which has no unpleasant taste and is, therefore, the kind of fermentation best suited for bread-making, the object being not to produce alcohol, but to puff up the dough and make the bread light.

  Wheat flour contains starch and gluten, and a ferment called diastase, and if moistened and kept warm it would change in time or ferment; but when this change takes place slowly the dough will be sour.  This change may be hastened by the addition of yeast.

  Yeast, in its natural state, when viewed under the microscope, is found to be a plant of the fungus tribe, of which mold and mildew are familiar forms.  It is one of the simplest and smallest forms of vegetable life, and is made up of cells which contain liquid or sap.  These cells are found in fruit juices and sprouting grains, and they expand rapidly when exposed to air and moisture, and start the decomposition of the sugar in the grain or fruit.

  To make yeast, grains which contain starch and gluten are moistened and left for the yeast cells to grow.  Fermentation is checked after a time and the product is prepared in various ways for keeping and sold under the forms of dry, liquid, and compressed yeast.

  The life of the yeast cells is not destroyed and they will grow again when exposed to warmth and moisture, and supplied with food; the same as other forms of vegetable life, after being kept for a time, will grow when planted in proper soil.

  The temperature of boiling water will kill the yeast plant, and so in using yeast, it is necessary to have the proper temperature.

  In making bread, put the yeast into the flour; moisten it; keep it warm, and thus provide the food and conditions necessary to waken the yeast plant into life again.  The yeast cells begin to grow in the dough, thus causing a change in the flour.

  The diastase ferments and causes some of the starch to change into a kind of sugar, and the sugar changes into carbon dioxide gas and alcohol.  In converting the starch into sugar in the dough, there is no change evident to the eye; but as soon as the sugar is changed to carbon dioxide gas and alcohol, large bubbles of gas appear.  The gas, being lighter than the dough, rises, and in its efforts to escape, puffs up the gluten, and as the gluten is elastic it can stretch to several times its original bulk.  It is on account of this peculiar tenacity or power of the wheat gluten to hold the gas that wheat flour makes the lightest bread.  The gas fills the dough with minute air cells, which — should the yeast have been mixed uniformly with the flour — make it light and spongy.  When this expansion has reached the desired limit, — that is, before the alcoholic fermentation has changed to the acetic and soured the dough, or the tough, glutinous walls of the air cells are broken, making large, unequal holes, — check the fermentation by baking the dough in a hot oven.  The alcohol escapes into the oven; the starch is swollen and ruptured, and absorbs water.  Some of the starch is changed to gum and forms the crust, which by the intense heat assumes a brown color.

  In yeast bread the chemical change in some of the starch is similar to the change which takes place in starch during digestion, namely, its conversion into sugar.  This gives a sweet, nutty flavor and a light, spongy texture, both different from those of soda bread.  It is, when properly made and baked, usually considered the most wholesome form of bread.

BREAD

1 c. water or milk (lukewarm)
1/2 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. sugar.
1/4 c. yeast or
1/8 yeast cake dissolved in 1/4 c. water.
3 to 3 1/2 c. flour.

  Put the salt, sugar and yeast into the mixing bowl, add the water, and when the sugar is dissolved add about three cups of the flour and mix with a knife.  Add more flour till stiff enough to knead.  Turn it out on a floured board, and knead until it is soft and elastic and can be worked without any flour.  Put it back in the bowl, cover with a cloth and tin cover, and let it rise in a warm place (80 degrees Fahrenheit) till double its bulk (overnight in winter, three or four hours in summer).  When light, work it over in the bowl, doubling it over from the edges to the center of the bowl until smooth.  Let it rise again till double its bulk, then divide into two parts, shape into round or long loaves, or into biscuit.  Once more let it rise, closely covered, till double its bulk.  Bake in a hot oven (400 degrees Fahrenheit).

  One third white flour and two thirds brown flour may be used in the same way, but without kneading.  Brown flour means any good flour prepared from the whole grain.

GRAHAM OR WHEAT MEAL BREAD (NO KNEADING)

  Dissolve half a yeast cake in one fourth cup warm water, add one cup warm milk, half teaspoon salt, one teaspoon sugar, and white flour sufficient to make a batter that breaks when you pour it.  Let this rise an hour, or until light, keeping the pan in a bowl of warm water, hot enough to bear the hand.  Then stir in fine, granulated wheat, or sifted Graham meal, or entire wheat flour, until the dough will keep up round when you stop mixing.

  Mix it with a knife until smooth, then raise again until double its bulk.  Cut it down, turnout, and shape into a long, thin loaf with as little kneading as possible.  Let it rise in the pan until double; then bake in a hot oven about forty minutes.

MILK BREAD

  When milk is used in making bread, scald the milk in a double boiler; then cool it until lukewarm, and proceed as directed for water bread.

With the bread eaten up, up breaks the company.
 
  Cervantes Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra — Don Quixote