Robert Wells

“ We know that malt is not inferior in nutritive power to barley from which it is derived, although the gluten contained in it has undergone a much more profound alteration than that of flour in the dough, and experience has taught us that in distilleries where spirits are made from potatoes, the plastic constituents of the potatoes, and of the malt which is added after having gone through the entire course of the processes of the formation and the fermentation of the sugar, have lost little or nothing of their nutritive value. ”

“ Two of the most essential things in bread-baking, in order to produce a full-flavoured, showy, and sweet loaf, are good yeast and good flour. A good oven is also necessary. An oven which is either too hot or too cold will spoil what would otherwise be a good batch of bread: so great care should be used in order to have the oven of the proper heat. Pan bread, or bread baked in tins, need a greater heat than batch bread, as pan-bread dough is of a lighter nature than batch-bread dough, and consequently requires more heat to keep it up. ”

“ Select the best refined sugar with a good grain, pound it and pass through a coarse hair sieve; sift again in a lawn sieve, to take out the finest part, as the sugar, when it is too fine, makes the drops heavy and compact and destroys their brilliancy and shining appearance. Now put the sugar into a pan and moisten it with any aromatic spirit you intend to use, using a little water to make it of such a consistence as to allow of its dropping off the spoon without sticking to it. ”

“ The preserving of fruits has always been considered a principal branch of confectionery, and one which requires no small degree of attention and diligence. As you are instructed in the boiling of sugars in its several degrees, named in each recipe, should it be boiled lower the fruit will lose its colour, turn windy, and spoil; if it is boiled higher it will rock and cannot be got out of the jars. Another important point is to preserve such fruit only as is quite fresh picked, the flavour, which is a very essential consideration, being lost if the fruit be stale. ”

“ Still, the spirit of competition is so strong that a baker has to work much harder proportionally than other working men, and his mind is in no condition, in the little spare time he has, to study the problems of science ”

“ Fermentation is caused by the decomposition of the starch and gluten of a solution of either potatoes, flour, or malted barley, which decomposition is accompanied by an evolution of gas. There is also a peculiar vibration given to the various bodies in contact, which agitates the whole. This agitation is increased by the bursting of the starch-cells and the formation therefrom of maltose, and also by the changing of the maltose sugar into carbonic acid gas. ”

“ And do not the meaning and use of terms familiar in scientific chemistry—such as diastase, cerealin, gluten, and others—only perplex the ordinary journeyman baker, and make him think that the less he has to do with science, the more easily he will get his life “rubbed through.” It is impossible for working bakers to become acquainted with these things while in the bakehouse; and while there are in many towns such valuable institutions as free libraries, mechanics’ institutes, &c., they are not available to the ordinary baker, as his hours are so exceptional. ”

“ Make a bay; after the butter is rubbed in with the flour, add the sugar and beat up the eggs and water together; pour into your bay, make the whole into a dough, break it clear and make it quite thin. When you finish it roll it out the tenth of an inch in thickness, cut with your coffee biscuit cutter and bake them in a brisk oven. If the oven should not be hot enough to raise them round the edges twist up a handful of shavings rather hard and place them round the edges of the biscuits when baking. ”

“ As regards the importance of the constituents of bran, I say that the analyst, and the physician who makes use of the analyst as his supporter, in bringing before us the importance of brown bread as compared with white, and who assert that in rejecting the bran we are guilty of a serious waste of flesh-forming and bone-forming material, should not take a mere chemical analysis as all-sufficient to establish their point. ”

“ A baker we take to mean a person who bakes and prepares any farinaceous substance intended for human food. Therefore baking not only includes loaf-bread baking, biscuit baking, fancy-bread baking, but also pastry-making and confectionery. ”

“ We cannot bring flour and water together without the formation of sugar from the starch, and it is this sugar and not the gluten of which a part enters into fermentation, and is resolved into alcohol and carbonic acid. ”

“ One great point to guard against in fermenting cakes or bread, is to see that your sponge or dough does not get chilled. By the time your muffins are ready, have the stove or hot plate properly heated, then row them gently on to the hot plate so as not to knock the proof out of them; when they are a nice brown turn them gently on the other side and bake a nice delicate brown. ”

“ Put some sugar in a pan with water and place it on the fire to boil; when it is at the feather add a little lemon juice and continue boiling to the caramel; when done add a few drops of essence of lemon. Pour it on a marble slab previously oiled, [76] cut into strips. When nearly cold take the strips in your fingers and twist them, and when quite cold put them into tin boxes and keep them closed down. The reason that barley sugar is so named is that it was originally made with a decoction of barley. ”

“ If the old-fashioned biscuit brake is replaced by a biscuit machine so much the better for the baker and the goods he turns out. If so, then all that is necessary will be to properly adjust the rollers whether for braking (that is making the dough) or rolling out for the cutter. If an amateur tries to make biscuits he will always experience some difficulty in moulding them if they are hand-made. ”

“ It is better under all circumstances to boil the potatoes and eat them as such, than to add potatoes or potato starch to flour before it is made into bread, which should be strictly prohibited by police regulation on account of the cheating to which it would inevitably give rise. ”

“ Whisk two whites of eggs in one pint of water; break 30 lbs. of good lump sugar into small pieces and put it into the pan; pour over it 6 quarts of water, set it on a clear stove to melt, but be careful it does not blubber and boil before it is melted; when you see it rise it is then boiling, and must be stopped immediately by putting in 1 quart of water; when it rises again add the same quantity of water, and so on two or three times; this prevents the scum from boiling into the sugar and makes it rise to the top. Draw the pan to one side of the fire and take all the scum off ”

“ This is called a mixing-rod. Provide a tall pot, as upright as can be procured, which make hot; work your butter on a marble slab, then put it in the pan and work it well round with the rod until it is nicely creamed; put in the sugar and incorporate both together; add one or two eggs at a time, and so on progressively until they are all used up; work away with the rod with all speed, and as soon as it is properly light (which you may know by its rising in the pan) take it out and mix in the flour, spices, currants, &c., with a spatter. ”

“ When setting your ordinary sponges at night for fine bread, dissolve 21⁄2 ozs. of yeast and 21⁄2 ozs. of salt in 11⁄2 gallons of water, about 4° to 6° Fahr., under whatever heat at which you may be setting your fine sponges (according to the nature of the meal you are using) ; take as much whole meal flour as will make this quantity of water into a weak sponge, and in the morning, when it is ready, give it half a gallon of water off same heat as your fine sponges, with 5 ozs. ”

“ If you have two or three sugars to spin you must use two or three pans. One person may be attending to the boiling while another is spinning. A teaspoonful of lemon juice must be put to a pint of clarified sugar. If the sugar is likely to boil over the top of the pan drop one drop of sweet oil from your finger into the sugar, which will stop it immediately.
226.—A Spun Sugar Bee-hive.
Mould twenty or thirty bees in gum paste, as near the colour and shape as possible, make a hole with a pin on each side of the mouth and let them dry; make some of the wings extend as if flying. ”

“ Potato starch, dextrine, or the pressed pulp of turnips, and beet-root, when added to flour, yield a mixture the nutritive value of which is equal to the entire potato, or lower still, but no one can consider the change of grain or flour into a food of equal value with potatoes or rice an improvement. ”

“ Rose water is the best; it should be poured in slowly, stirring all the time with a wooden spoon. Colour the sugar with prepared cochineal or any other colour, ground fine and moistened with a little water; the tint should be light and delicate. Then take a small pan, made with a lip on the right side, so that when it is held in the left hand the drops may be detached from the right. Put in the paste and place the pan in the stove on a ring that just fits it. ”

“ When flour is made into dough with water, and allowed to stand at a gentle warmth, a change takes place in the gluten of the dough, similar to that which occurs after the steeping of barley in the commencement of germination in the seeds in the preparation of malt ”

“ As soon as cold take them out and fix one above another with hot sugar, then spin long lengths of sugar round until they form a complete pyramid. You may spin long threads of sugar to represent a feather, and place them on the top, or you may place a sprig of myrtle on the top and spin long lengths of sugar round it. The way to do it is to take the shank of your spoon, dip it into the cool sugar at the side of the pan, take hold of a bit of the sugar with your finger and thumb and pull it out to any length and fineness you please. ”

“ Take a round-bottomed pan and put it on a warm stove, pour in your lot of sugar, stir it about with a dry whisk until the sugar is warm, add the colour, stir it well with the whisk to make the sugar all of that colour, then stir it about till the sugar is nearly dry, when you may spread it about on the sheet of paper. ”

“ Simmer the sugar and a little milk over a slow fire, rub the butter into the flour; after the sugar has become cold put it into the bay and make into a stiffish dough. Put the dough into blocks, and give them the impression of half a walnut, after which cut off the surplus dough with a sharp knife, knock out the biscuits, and bake on slightly buttered tins until a nice brown. ”