Dough

“ I then commenced making the dough-boys by mixing a little salt and water with the flour, and put them into a kettle swung over a fire on two sticks placed perpendicularly on each side with a cross-bar on the top, gipsy fashion, and by night our supper was hot and well done. As is perhaps well known, dough-boys (p. 142) cannot be very greasy without fat or suet of any kind, but they were quite passable in the hungry state we were then in, and as we had no bread, we used some more of the mutton to help them down. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The exactly right notch can only be found by trying, and after a while a cook will learn to know by the looks of the dough when it is just right.
Always smell of the dough, and if there is the least sourness, knead some dissolved pearlash in, and it will remove it. ”

“ Take two pounds, or pint cups, full of light risen dough; add to it half a pound of butter, one half pound of sugar, one half pint of milk, three eggs, a little cinnamon and nutmeg. Cover it and set it to rise; when light, cut it into shapes and fry in boiling lard. Add a little flour to stiffen the dough. ”

“ Even with the most careful observation of a dough at a warm temperature, a loss of flavor or a tinge of sourness develops. Our advice is to be wary of a warm dough.
The age of dough is the critical point in bread-making. How to tell the age of a dough is a question we have never seen satisfactorily answered. Most bakers tell intuitively, and this has required long experience. The color, texture, volume and flavor of the resulting bread are dependent almost entirely on the age of the dough. ”

“ Take as much dough as will make a quartern-loaf (either made at home, or procured at the baker’s) , work into this a quarter of a pound of butter, a quarter of a pound of moist sugar, and a handful of caraway seeds. When well worked together, pull into pieces the size of a golden pippin, and work it together again. ”

“ The lump of dough being placed exactly in the centre of a raised platform, the man sits upon the end of the machine, and literally rides up and down throughout its whole circular direction, till the dough is equally indented ”

“ As soon as the whole is tempered with a proper quantity of warm water, the wheel is turned round, by which the dough is expeditiously and completely kneaded. In general, a quarter of an hour is sufficient to make very good dough ”

“ We made bread out of the dough which our comrades had prepared while we slept. The whole day, from dawn till ten at night, some of us sat at the table rolling out the dough, and, to avoid becoming torpid, we would constantly rock ourselves to and fro while the others kneaded in the flour. ”

“ Take the Yolks of Eggs well beaten, put to them some Mace finely powder'd, with a few spoonfuls of Wine, a little Salt, and as much Sugar as you please; then add as much Flour as is necessary, and a small quantity of Ale-Yeast, and work your Dough pretty stiff; then add some fresh Butter, broken in little bits, and work it in till all the Paste has partaken of it, and the Dough becomes as stiff as at first. Make your Cakes then, and bake them. They will keep some time. ”

“ When the dough is ready, put on a well-floured board and roll out in a rectangular shape to about half an inch in thickness. Brush with melted fat and sprinkle with the mixed sugar, cinnamon and raisins. Commencing with the long side of the dough, make into a roll. ”

“ Here let it be understood, that the starch of the meal is of such a nature that, by a delicate process peculiar to itself, it becomes changed into sugar or saccharine matter; and when the fluid used in mixing the dough is of a proper temperature, and the dough is properly mixed and kneaded, this process, to some small extent, takes place, and a small portion of the starch is actually converted into sugar, and thereby increases the sweetness of the bread. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The remedy lies in the ingenuity of the man who forms the pieces of dough, and who, by imperceptible degrees, proportionably diminishes their size, till the loss of that time, which is taken up during the filling of the oven, has no more effect to the disadvantage of one of the biscuits than to another. ”

“ The dough, if worked by a careful artist, is first tested as to its fitness for molding by putting a piece of the paste to the tongue, the sensitiveness of which is such as to detect any gritty substance or particles, when the fingers fail to do so. ”

“ I have witnessed at a baker’s, who has the reputation for making excellent rolls, forty-eight pounds of dough moulded into one hundred (penny) rolls; they weighed, when drawn out of the oven, twenty-six pounds.
The bread called in this metropolis French rolls, and French bread, is made precisely in the same manner, namely, from common bread dough, but of a less stiff consistence; they are suffered to rise to a greater extent than dough intended for loaf-bread. ”

“ Novices in bread-making, and many who should have learned better by long experience, fall into a sad mistake in the consistency of the dough. It should be mixed as soft as it can be handled. Bread will rise sooner and higher, be lighter and more digestible, and keep fresh much longer, if this rule be followed. Stiff bread is close in texture, often waxy to the teeth, and after a day or so becomes very hard. ”

“ One abominable woman's fat body spreads out on an arm-chair "like sour dough." And indeed, this novel bears about the same relation to a finished work of art that sour dough bears to a good loaf of bread. ”

“ In the winter, dough may be kept sweet many days in a place where it will be cold, without freezing, and it will grow better till the last. It should be raised light, then kneaded a little, and then covered with a damp cloth, so that a dry crust will not form on the top. Fresh bread can thus be furnished for the table every day, without extra work. Doughnuts, bread, cake, or rusks can be made of it by adding butter, sugar, and spice; tea biscuit also, fried biscuit, crust for apple dumpling, and for pan pie. ”

“ A good allowance of bread each day is as follows: for a man two pounds, costing six cents; for boys and women one pound and a half, costing five cents; for children a pound each, costing three cents.
Homemade Bread.—Put seven pounds of flour into a deep pan, and make a hollow in the centre; into this put one quart of lukewarm water, one tablespoonful of salt, one teaspoonful of sugar, and half a gill of yeast; have ready three pints more of warm water, and use as much of it as is necessary to make a rather soft dough, mixing and kneading it well with both hands. ”

“ This is the substance that produces elasticity in the dough mixture, a condition that is absolutely essential in the making of raised bread. In fact, the toughness and elasticity of bread dough are what make it possible for the dough to catch and hold air and gas and thus produce a light, porous loaf. ”

“ It is an established fact that dough is rendered tough and elastic by working and kneading; but as the same result can be accomplished sooner and less laboriously by pulling and stretching, it is advisable, in making bread, to pull and stretch as well as to work and knead the dough. ”

“ When the dough has been properly mixed and thoroughly kneaded, cover it over with a clean napkin or towel, and a light woollen blanket kept for the purpose, and place the bread trough where the temperature will be kept at about 60° F., or about summer heat, and there let it remain till the dough becomes light. ”

“ With the dough is commonly mixed a small quantity of sugar, and a little aniseed or cinnamon. The baking is executed by women only, and they seldom begin their work till after sunset, and a night or two before the Fair. ”

“ When sufficiently risen, mix the eggs, butter, sugar, and salt with a little more warm milk, and knead the whole well together with the hands, beating the dough until it is perfectly smooth, and it drops from the fingers. ”

“ It acts slowly in the dough, so that none of its strength is lost before the baking is completed.
It makes food that will keep sweet, moist, and fresh longer, or that may be eaten hot and fresh with impunity. ”

“ It gradually swells and breaks through the dry flour scattered on its surface. An additional quantity of warm water, in which one ounce of alum is dissolved, is now added, and the dough is made up into a paste as before ”

“ A great increase on home-made bread, even equal to one-fifth, may be produced by using bran water for kneading the dough. The proportion is three pounds of bran for every twenty-eight pounds of flour, the bran to be boiled for an hour, and then strained through a hair-sieve.
3568. Indian cake made with buttermilk, or sour milk with a little cream or butter rubbed into the meal, and a tea-spoonful of pearlash in the milk, is very light and nutritious. ”

“ When the dough is well cooked, it is either left en masse in the basket or scooped out in rolls and put into cold water to cool and warden before being eaten. Sometimes the thick paste is made into cakes and baked on hot rocks. ”

“ I made a study of the ancient and indispensable art of bread-making, consulting such authorities as offered, going back to the primitive days and first invention of the unleavened kind, when from the wildness of nuts and meats men first reached the mildness and refinement of this diet, and travelling gradually down in my studies through that accidental souring of the dough which, it is supposed, taught the leavening process, and through the various fermentations thereafter, till I came to "good, sweet, wholesome bread," the staff of life. ”

“ Stale bread digests much easier than fresh bread for the reason that when thoroughly masticated in the mouth the saliva acts directly upon the starchy content. Fresh bread, unless thoroughly chewed, so that it may be well broken up, becomes a hard, pasty ball in the stomach, which requires that organ to manufacture the additional gastric juices to break up this dough ball. ”

“ All that is needed is to weigh 8 lbs. of dough, place it in the pan, and at one stroke of a lever thirty buns or cakes are divided ready to mould.
21.—Chelsea Buns.
Take plain bun dough (or if for common buns, bread dough) , roll it out in a sheet, break some firm butter in small pieces and place over it, roll it out as you would paste; after you have given it two or three turns, moisten the surface of the dough, and strew over it some moist sugar; roll up the sheet into a roll, and cut it in slices; or cut the dough in strips of the required size and turn them round ”

“ RAISED MUFFINS
Scald the milk. Soften the yeast in the lukewarm water and add to the remaining water and scalded milk. Add the egg yolks, sugar, fat and salt and flour to make a soft dough. Let rise. Beat well and fill very well-greased muffin tins half full. Let rise. Bake in a hot oven.
Number of servings 216
Amount in one serving 1⁄5 c. dough
Calories in one serving______
Cost of one serving______ [Pg 129]
**BROWN BREAD
Soak the stale bread or cake in the cold water until soft. ”

“ Breakfast was always a bowl of bread and milk boiled, and a rather thick slice of bread and butter after it. Fresh meat was sparingly given us at dinner, but we had plenty of broth, vegetables, and Yorkshire pudding. Our evening meal was bread and milk, rice or tapioca pudding, and a thick slice of sweet loaf—that is, bread made with currants, and caraway seeds, and a little sugar. But when we went out for dinner or tea, we had our share of the good things going; and, if the company was at our house, Ann Oddy usually put a couple of Christ Church tarts, or cheesecakes, among our plain bread. ”

“ A cupful of flour means about four good-sized slices of bread, and although a man can live very well upon two slices of bread for breakfast and two at dinner, with a rasher of bacon and a little weak tea at each meal, and nothing between meals except twelve hours' hard work in the open air, he ought not to be sneered at if he feels a craving for some little luxury in the way of sugar or butter, or even another slice of bread. ”

“ It is quite easy; breakfast, consisting of an egg, which the grocer, with pleasing optimism, insists upon calling "fresh," one penny; bread and butter, per week, one shilling and sixpence; tea, milk, and sugar, per week, one and fourpence. Lunch, a really good, substantial meal, of savoury sausage or succulent fish and mashed potato, and a bun. If you are a lady the bun is indispensable; for if there is one faith implanted firmly in the feminine breast, it is that which accepts the penny bun as a form of nutrition not to be equalled. ”