Bread and butter

“ Thus, because it takes less time and attention than cooking smaller dishes, huge pieces of meat are roasted or boiled daily, and the leg-of-mutton style of dietary is perpetuated—declared to be the most economical, and, in short, the best for all the world.
Probably it is because bread and butter can be bought ready made, and involve no trouble, that they are held to be the chief necessaries of life in every English household. Some children almost live, if they do not thrive, on bread and butter. ”

“ The slices of bread and butter, which they give you with your tea, are as thin as poppy leaves. But there is another kind of bread and butter usually eaten with tea, which is toasted by the fire, and is incomparably good. You take one slice after the other and hold it to the fire on a fork till the butter is melted, so that it penetrates a number of slices at once: this is called toast. ”

“ As for the butter, it was exquisite, and so, too, the home-baked bread, the more so, because only touched in the processes of preparing by the whitest and softest of hands. Such simple things become luxuries when brought to perfection by loving care. ”

“ Whip up the eggs, mix them with the milk and pour the mixture over the bread and cheese in the pie-dish. Pour the custard back into the basin, and repeat the pouring over the contents of the pie-dish. If this is done 2 or 3 times the top slices of bread and butter get soaked and then bake better. This should also be done when a bread and butter pudding is made. ”

“ Have some bread and butter. The bread and butter is for Gwendolen. Gwendolen is devoted to bread and butter. ”

“ Sandwiches must be made of thin bread and butter, with potted meat, cream cheese, or jam spread between the slices. Rough edges and crusts must be cut off, and the bread and butter be of the very best. ”

“ I have tested the sustaining power of such a meal by doing some very stiff mountain climbing and long fasting after it. It is rather too good—over nutritious—for a man only doing sedentary work.
A diluted and delicate modification of this may be made by taking slices of bread, or bread and butter, soaking them in a batter made of eggs and milk—without flour—then placing the slices of soaked bread in a pie-dish, covering each with a thick coating of grated cheese, and thus building up a stratified deposit to fill the dish. The surplus batter may be poured over the top ”

“ As the use of butter is designed to improve and not to spoil the flavour of cookery, it is better to omit it altogether, and to substitute something else, unless you can procure that which is good. Lard, suet, beef-drippings, and sweet oil, may be used in the preparation of various dishes; and to eat with bread or warm cakes, honey, molasses, or stewed fruit, &c. are far superior to bad butter. ”

“ Take a piece of the dough from your baking after it has risen once. To a piece as large as a man's fist take a large tablespoonful of butter and a little powdered sugar; work them into the dough, put it in a bowl, cover it, and set it in a warm place to rise—a shelf behind the stove is best; if you make this at the same time as your bread, you will find it takes longer to rise; the butter causes that difference; when very light, much lighter than your bread should be, take your hand and push it down till it is not larger than when you put it in the bowl ”

“ Get a good table-spoonful of butter,—lard would do, but I use it as little as possible for health’s sake—put it near the fire to warm a very little; add to the dough two tea-spoonfuls of sugar; now the butter is pliable, work it in; it will take five minutes’ constant kneading to make the butter and dough quite smooth. Now you see it is softer than bread dough; if a crisp crust is wanted, work in gradually a little more flour, almost a table-spoonful,—if the weather is cold have it warm; if a soft crust is preferred leave it as it is. ”

“ Witness the fashion of eating bread-and-butter at any place of refreshment, and the last thing you will be served with is a plateful of crusts of bread. Many establishments, indeed, make a regular practice of giving away their crusts as unsaleable. Thus, the rectangular loaves used for bread-and-butter in the aërated bread-shops are cut transversely into slices, each loaf thus yielding two end crusts which are put into baskets for the poor, only the soft crumby pieces being reserved for the customers. ”

“ The law with English breads and cakes of whatever nature appears to be to work in all the flour the dough can hold, and pudding must be a slab, and bread compact and dense to satisfy the English palate. Dripping is the substitute for butter, and the children eat the slice of bread and dripping contentedly. Fat of any sort is in demand, the piercing rawness of an English winter seeming to call for heating food no less than that of the Esquimaux for its rations of blubber and tallow. ”

“ If the butter is not good enough to eat on the surface of cold bread or on warm cakes, it is not good enough to eat in the inside of sweet cakes, or in pastry, or in any thing else; and is totally unfit to be mixed with vegetables or sauces. The use of butter is to make things taste well; if it makes them taste ill, let it be entirely omitted: for bad butter is not only unpalatable, but unwholesome. There are houses in which the money wasted on one useless bauble for the drawing-room would furnish the family with excellent fresh butter for a whole year—enough for all purposes. ”

“ And generally she will want the bread cut very thin and spread with soft butter. For ordinary occasions she may use any kind of meat she happens to find in the house, slicing it if she can, then seasoning with mustard, or else putting it through the grinder and seasoning with mustard, a small minced pickle, or finely chopped sweet green pepper. In using the ground meat, however, rub it to a paste with the butter intended for the bread, and it will spread more easily. ”

“ BAD BUTTER. OF all the needless discomforts common to boarding-houses and hotels, we know of none so truly inexcusable, nor which subtracts more from one’s enjoyment, than the use of bad butter for cooking purposes. When placed on the table in the butter-dish, if found to be imperfect or quite unpalatable the butter can easily be rejected. To eat good bread without butter, or, if the bread is unsatisfactory, a fine mealy potato with a little salt, is by no means the greatest hardship that you may be subjected to. ”

“ We have not seen a drop of milk, and the bread is extremely sour. The butter is most filthy—it is Irish butter in a state of decomposition; and the meat is more like moist leather than food. Potatoes we are waiting for until they arrive from France. ”

“ TO FRY BREAD TO SERVE WITH SOUP. Cut some slices a quarter of an inch thick from a stale loaf; pare off the crust and divide the bread into dice, or cut it with a small paste-cutter into any other form. For half a pound of bread put two ounces of the best butter into a frying-pan, and when it is quite melted, add the bread; keep it turned over a gentle fire until it is equally coloured to a very pale brown, then drain it from the butter, and dry it on a soft cloth, or on a sheet of paper placed before a clear fire upon a dish, or upon a sieve reversed. ”

“ You have filled my tea with lumps of sugar, and though I asked most distinctly for bread and butter, you have given me cake. I am known for the gentleness of my disposition, and the extraordinary sweetness of my nature, but I warn you, Miss Cardew, you may go too far. ”

“ Method.—If bread is not made at home, procure the dough from the baker's, and as soon as it comes in, put it into a basin near the fire; cover the basin with a thick cloth, and let the dough remain a little while to rise. In the meantime beat the butter to a cream, and make the milk warm; when the dough has risen, mix with it thoroughly all the above ingredients, and well rub the mixture to obtain a smooth soft paste. ”

“ Mark every one deeply with a cross, bake them brown, and when done brush each bun lightly over with a glazing of white of egg, sweetened with sugar.
CINNAMON BREAD.— On a bread-baking day, (having made more than your usual quantity of wheat bread,) when the dough has risen quite light, and is cracked all over the surface, take out as much as will weigh two pounds. Mix into it a quarter of a pound of fresh butter, that has been cut up and melted in a half pint of milk; and also, three beaten eggs. ”

“ The butter should be soft enough to spread smoothly and the most essential thing is to have good bread and fresh sweet butter. Meat for filling should either be sliced very thin or chopped fine and other ingredients minced or mashed to make as smooth a paste as possible and mix evenly with the salad dressing or other dressing used. Sandwiches are better eaten as soon as made. ”

“ Melt the butter in a frying-pan, fry the bread until brown, then remove and keep hot. Brown the flour in the butter, add the gravy or water, salt, pepper, Worcester sauce, and when boiling draw aside. When the sauce has cooled slightly, stir in the meat, let it become thoroughly hot, then pile on the croûtes of bread, and serve at once. ”

“ For provisions we generally rely on fresh mutton, to be fried in the pan or boiled in the 'billy,' bread, biscuits, rice, oatmeal, Liebig's Extract, chocolate, tea, and so on. A pound or two of fresh butter is always a boon, and a few tins of marmalade, whilst to some men onions supply the oft-felt want of a vegetable diet. ”

“ Two pounds of flour, a quarter of a pound of butter; rub the butter in the flour like grated bread; set it to the fire to dry: put in one pound of currants and a quarter of a pound of moist sugar, with a few caraway seeds, and two spoonfuls of good yest; make the dough into small buns; set them to rise half an hour: you may put two or three eggs in if you like. ”

“ Cut some stale bread into fingers, dip into melted butter, and arrange them round a well-buttered pudding mould, lapping one edge over the other and pressing firmly down, cover the bottom with rounds of bread in the same way, shake in some bread-crumbs, fill up with the apples, place more rounds of bread on the top, put into the oven and bake for an hour. Turn on to a dish, let it stand a few minutes, then draw off the mould and dust sugar over. By allowing the mould to remain a little, there is less danger of it sticking. ”

“ A kind of bread, which is very good for toast and butter, is made by boiling and mashing some mealy potatoes, and then rubbing them into flour which has been previously warmed before the fire, in the proportion of half a pound of potatoes to two pounds of flour. When well mixed, add a proper quantity of salt, with enough yeast, warm milk, and water to make it into dough. ”

“ Soak pieces of dry stale bread in a quart of butter-milk, until soft, break in two eggs, add a little butter or lard, and salt and flour enough to make it stick together, beat it well, add a tea-spoonful of salaeratus, dissolved in warm water; thin it with a little sweet milk, and bake as other batter cakes. They may be prepared in a short time. ”

“ Take pieces of raised bread-dough the size of an egg, drop them into smoking hot fat, and fry to a gold color, the same as doughnuts. Drain and serve on a napkin for breakfast, or sprinkle them with powdered sugar and ground cinnamon mixed, and serve them for luncheon.
BREAD ROLLS
For one panful of biscuits take as much raised bread-dough as will make one loaf of bread. Use any kind of bread-dough, but if no shortening has been used, add a tablespoonful of butter to this amount of dough. Add also more flour to make a stiffer dough than for bread. ”

“ When the bread is baked, set the loaves on their ends, so that the bottom [203] may not steam, and cover it with a cloth. Some persons dampen the cloth to make the crust soft. Some persons put salt in bread, others do not. When bread is not wet with milk it needs salt, and a bit of butter is also an improvement. ”

“ The ingredients are, a cupful of butter, one of yeast, half a cupful of white sugar, four cupfuls of boiled milk, the whites of four eggs beaten to a stiff froth, sixteen cupfuls of flour; the butter should be melted, and the milk blood warm. Mix the bread, and set in a warm place to rise over night. ”

“ The only extra plates ever permitted are the bread and butter plates which are put on at breakfast and lunch and supper above and to the left of the forks, but never at dinner. ”

“ Put into a buttered baking-dish, alternate layers of grated bread, and finely chopped apples seasoned with brown sugar, bits of butter and allspice. Pour over it a pint of wine and water mixed. Let the top layer be bread crumbs, and bake one hour.—Miss N.
Marrow Pudding.
Grate a large loaf of bread and pour on the crumbs a pint of rich milk, boiling hot. When cold, add four eggs, a pound of beef marrow, sliced thin, a gill of brandy with sugar and nutmeg to your taste. Mix all well together and bake it. When done stick slices of citron on the top. ”

“ Mix with 2 tablespoonfuls of flour and 2 tablespoonfuls of butter and 3 eggs. Make into a soft dough; roll out and then spread with fried bread-crumbs. Make into round dumplings and let boil twenty minutes. Serve hot with melted butter poured over. ”

“ In a few minutes tea was brought. Very delicate was the china, very old the plate, very thin the bread and butter, and very small the lumps of sugar. Sugar was evidently Mrs Jamieson's favourite economy. ”

“ Our supper was only half an anchovy each, on a very little strip of bread and butter, and half a pint of ale between us; but the entertainment was in her conversation. ”