Bakery

“ It is a great bakery here, which for years has distributed every night at twelve all the bread left over from the day's bake, one loaf to each man. I know that in winter the line extends many blocks, but at this season I am surprised to see such a line at this hour ”

“ However, if they were unable to exhibit a model bakery in full working order, and including a biscuit oven as well as bread making, they were able to secure a stance where they were able to make a display of goods which attracted much attention. ”

“ They are now conducting their interests under the name of the Model Bakery and Confectionery, Incorporated, and they have a splendidly equipped establishment, in which are found all of the latest improved machines that are used in connection with the mixing of bread, cakes and other bakery goods. The most sanitary conditions prevail in the establishment and the excellence of the product is such as insures a very gratifying patronage. ”

“ The kitchens are almost bare of utensils with which to cook. Even rolling pins and bread boards are unknown, for both bread and pastry are obtained from the bakery. The bread, by the way, is close grained, its almost solid condition being due to the excessive kneading it receives. ”

“ The evolution of the machine bakery has been slow, and the mechanical operations of the bakehouse were long limited to the mixing of the sponge and the kneading of the dough, but now the work of the bakery engineer extends over almost every operation of bread-making. ”

“ Nearly all of the vegetable and dairy products that are needed are so provided. A bakery, bath-houses, homes for laborers and officials, were added, and bakers, shoemakers, carpenters, and blacksmiths formed part of the staff of the great establishment. ”

“ Awareness of bread quality is growing. One excellent new U.S. business, called Great Harvest Bakery is a fast-growing national franchise chain. They bake and sell only whole grain breads; all their wheat flour is freshly ground daily on the premises in the back. ”

“ Each night d' bakery don't do a t'ing but give every poor hobo who fronts up to d' window a loaf of bread. That's for fair! an 'd' gezebo who runs d' bakery is a Dutch Sheeny at that. Would youse get bread if you was to go chasin' nex' door to d' choich? Nit; t'ree times nit! If you was to go slammin' 'round d! choich makin' a talk for a hand-out, all youse would get would be d' collar, see!
“Onct a week that sanchewary would fill youse to d' chin on chimes; oh, yes! but no buns; not on your life! Chimes is d' limit wit' that choich. An' say! it's got money to boin! Bread at d' bakery! ”

“ A word now under the head of Confectionery, meaning by this the whole range of ornamental cookery—or pastry, ices, jellies, preserves, etc. The art of making all these very perfectly is far better understood in America than the art of common cooking. There are more women who know how to make good cake than good bread—more who can furnish you with a good ice-cream than a well-cooked mutton-chop; a fair charlotte-russe is easier to gain than a perfect cup of coffee; and you shall find a sparkling jelly to your dessert where you sighed in vain for so simple a luxury as a well-cooked potato. ”

“ A flour-dredger and a pepper-pot, a potato-cutter, patty pans, and those little tall tins that you bake castle puddings in, the round wooden moulds with which dairy-maids imprint cows and swans upon pats of butter, the kitchen mortar, especially the big marble one, so heavy that cook does not care to use it, brown earthenware bowls and stewing-pots, the lids of tea-pots, clothes-pegs, jars that have held ginger, and jars that have held jam—especially the brownish corrugated kind of jar—all these things and many more you may glean in a kitchen whose Queen is kind. ”

“ Let the children use building blocks to represent the baker’s shop with its show case and shelves where he sells his bread and cake and pies. His kitchen, too, is of great interest to children; if suitable arrangements can be made, take the class to visit a baker’s kitchen. After such a visit the baker’s kitchen and oven should be constructed; the children will doubtless find ways of making bread tins and long wooden shovels or paddles for taking bread from the oven. ”

“ But the messenger went on again and he came to the baker's shop. The baker's boy stood at the door, dressed in his best white suit, and holding an empty basket on his arm. He was quite sure that he would be chosen to go to the palace, for his father's bake shop was an important place in the village. They measured their flour carefully, and weighed the loaves so that they might receive the utmost penny for each. They very seldom had any crumbs left for the poor, but they were selling a great deal of bread every day. ”

“ I shall never forget the first morning I went to the bakehouse. There was a long trough, which stretched the full length of the bakehouse. Overhead there was a strong beam of timber, with ropes hanging down for a balance. In this big trough I saw six men with their trousers up to the knees, and they were tramping in the dough to make the bread. I put up my hands and gave a scream, and someone threw a flour bag at my head. I felt as if I did not want to eat any more bread. ”

“ The191 baker of brown bread not to make white bread and the converse. A baker shall not buy corn to sell it again. A baker shall not sell his flour to cooks for making pastry. Once a month every baker’s bread shall be examined.
If a baker be found to be selling bread under weight he is to be placed on a hurdle with the faulty loaf hanging from his neck and dragged through the “great streets where there may be most people assembled and through the great streets which are the most dirty.” For a second offence he is to be dragged in like manner and set in pillory. ”

“ Broiled chicken, fried chicken, in quantity, whole hams simply entreating to be sliced, barbecue, pickle in great variety, drained and sliced for eating, beaten biscuit, soda biscuit, egg bread, salt-rising bread, or rolls raised with hop-yeast—only a few attempted them—every manner of pie, tart, and tartlet that did not drip and mess things, all the cakes in the calendar of good housewifery—with, now and then, new ones specially invented. Even more than a wedding, a bran-dance showed and proved your quality as a cake-maker. ”

“ The baker has come to see that a larger knowledge of the proper conditions of baking and what takes place during the process of bread-baking gives him better bread.
In going through the bakeries of the United States, we find the uppermost question in mind of the master baker is “QUALITY.” His constant endeavor is to make a better lot of bread. The people of the United States are receiving a better loaf of bread each year, as the increase in the sale of baker’s bread testifies. ”

“ On Sunday morning the baker’s cart came with hot pots of beans crested with burnt lumps of pork. We had to learn to eat beans and brown bread.
“I’m sure,” said my aunt when I brought home a five-cent loaf, “that they rise the dough with potatoes; its so light and like dried chips!” For the first time in my life I was surfeited with pastry. I bought several square inches of frosted cake from the baker for five cents, and ate it in place of the substantial food I had lived on in England. ”

“ As the time went on I grew strong and hardy, and there was plenty of good food. All had porridge and milk in the morning, with plenty of hot scones and butter, and relishes of some sort. There was no waste, and the mistress was a good cook. I was told that when she and her husband began business that she did all the fancy cooking. Even in my time she did a lot of things for the bakehouse. I used to help with the raisins and currants and lemon-peel, and the meat for the raised Scotch mutton pies and so on. Those Scotch pies produced more profit than any other item in their trade. ”

“ We know very well, my dear Marianne, that the bread we buy of the bakers is composed of some flour, and some alum, and some plaster-of-paris, and some china-clay, but we don't stop to analyse it at our breakfast; we cut ourselves a slice, butter it, and pop it into our mouths, and like it a thousand times better than home-made bread made of pure, unadulterated flour. ”

“ From out the arch-roofed old brick ovens came famous loaves of rye and Indian bread, biscuits, pans of pork and beans, cards of gingerbread, seed cookies, election and pound cakes, baked as none of our ranges can ever bake. ”

“ Of nights, too, when there is more time for cooking than during the noon halt, bread is baked. In making bread the miner mixes it in his prospecting-pan, as for slapjacks, and when it has been properly kneaded, takes it between his huge paws, and hammers it out in the shape of a large flat cake. This cake he places in his frying-pan and then stands it in front of his fire to bake, turning it over when one side is done. ”

“ Such bright blue eyes, such plump and rosy cheeks suggested that food was plentiful wherever they lived. There must be a butcher and a baker near, I concluded; and by a happy inspiration I turned back to the depressing garen en band shop, and enquired where the local baker was to be found. ”

“ These bas reliefs are most interesting, as they show the whole history of baking. First there is the purchase of the corn, and payment being made for it; then we see it ground, and sifted to separate the bran. Next a man is buying some flour. Then we see the dough being kneaded by horse-power, the bakers making it into loaves, the baker with his peel baking the loaves, which are afterwards carried in55 paniers to be weighed. Then there are the customers, and the bread being sent out for delivery. ”

“ Porridge, Yarmouth bloaters, potatoes, American hash, grilled mutton, bread and butter, tea or coffee.
An American breakfast is as variegated (and I fear I must add, as indigestible) as a Scotch one; and included in the bill of fare are as many, or more, varieties of bread and cake as are to be found in the land o’ shortbread. The writer has, in New York, started the morning meal with oysters, run the gamut of fish, flesh, and fowl, and wound up with buckwheat cakes, which are brought on in relays, buttered and smoking hot, and can be eaten with or without golden syrup. ”

“ During the twelfth century the house-wife’s plan of preparing bread for the table, in the absence of public bakehouses, common in some neighbourhoods, was to knead the dough into large flat cakes and lay them on the hearth in full glare of the fire, where they were permitted to remain until thoroughly baked. ”

“ On the second day of the year, the 'prentice boys all returned to their business, and Boomptie once more solaced himself with the baking of the staff of life. The reader must know that it is the custom of bakers to knead a great batch at a time, in a mighty bread tray, into which they throw two or three little apprentice boys to paddle about, like ducks in a mill pond, whereby it is speedily amalgamated, and set to rising in due time. ”

“ The problem in baking, then, is the quick application of heat rather below than above the loaf, and its steady continuance till all the air-cells are thoroughly dried into permanent consistency. Every housewife must watch her own oven to know how this can be best accomplished.
Bread-making can be cultivated to any extent as a fine art—and the various kinds of biscuit, tea-rusks, twists, rolls, into which bread may be made, are much better worth a housekeeper's ambition than the getting-up of rich and expensive cake or confections. ”

“ Experience has proved, that pastry, cakes, &c. prepared precisely according to these directions will not fail to be excellent: but where economy is expedient, a portion of the seasoning, that is, the spice, wine, brandy, rosewater, essence of lemon, &c. may be omitted without any essential deviation of flavour, or difference of appearance; retaining, however, the given proportions of eggs, butter, sugar, and flour. ”

“ When therefore the bread is thoroughly baked, let it be taken from the oven and placed on a perfectly clean and sweet shelf, in a perfectly clean and well ventilated pantry. Do not, as you value the character of your bread, put it into a pantry where you set away dishes of cold meat, cold potatoes, and other vegetables, and keep your butter, cheese and various other table provisions—in a pantry which perhaps is seldom thoroughly cleansed with hot water and soap, and where the pure air of heaven seldom if ever has a free circulation. ”

“ Others ran in and out of the kitchen, bearing to the waiters, to be dispensed among the guests, interminable relays of the waffles of those times, golden brown, delicately rich, soft, yet crisp, of a peculiar lightness,—a kind that will be seen no more, despite the food inventions and dietetic improvements, for the artists of that choice cookery are all dead and their receipts only serve to mark the decadence of proficiency. ”

“ The bakeries excel in their [77] artistic displays. Here you have painted bread from black-moon down to double-knotted twist; cakes, biscuit, rolls, and crackers, and as many other varieties as the genius of the artist may be capable of suggesting. The bakers of Moscow are mostly French or German; and it is a notable fact that the bread is quite equal to any made in France or Germany. The wine-stores, of which there are many, are decorated with pictures of bottles, and bas-reliefs of gilded grapes—a great improvement upon the ordinary grape produced by nature. ”

“ While these are baking I clean the vegetables for dinner and put them on to cook, set [Pg 77] the table and put the dinner on, meanwhile watching the baking pies, the rising bread, and the ripening cream. In the course of the morning ten or a dozen persons have come in for milk, eggs, butter, or something else, and I have to wait on them and keep their accounts up in my book. After dinner the bread is ready to make into loaves and is then set to rise again before baking. While the bread is rising I scald out the churn and rinse with cold water and then put in the cream and churn it by hand. ”