Buckeye Cookery

page 11

or bread cloth and place each loaf on its edge until cool. If by accident or
neglect the bread is baked too hard, rub the loaves over with butter, wet the
towel in which they are wrapped, and cover with another dry towel. In winter,
bread dough may be kept sweet several days by placing it where it will be cold
without freezing, or by putting it so deep into the flour barrel as to exclude
it entirely from the air. When wanted for use, make into bread, or, by adding
the proper ingredients, into cake, rusk, biscuit, apple dumplings, chicken pie,
etc.

GRAHAM AND CORN BREAD.

It is very desirable that every family should have a constant supply of bread
made of unbolted flour, or rye and Indian corn. Most persons find it palatable,
and it promotes health. For these coarse breads, always add a little brown sugar
or molasses, and the amount given in the recipes may be increased according to
taste. They rise quicker and in a less warm atmosphere than without sweetening.
A little lard or butter improves bread or cakes made of Graham or Indian meal,
rendering them light and tender. Graham rises rather more quickly than fine
flour, and should not be allowed to rise quite as light. The fire should be
steady and sufficient to complete the baking, and the oven hot when the bread is
put in. A fresh blaze will burn the crust, while a steady fire will sweeten it.
Graham bread bakes more slowly than fine-flour bread, and corn bread requires
more time and a hotter oven than either. Use either yellow or white corn, ground
coarse, for mush, and white, ground fine, for bread, etc. In cutting the latter
while warm, hold the knife perpendicularly. Rye is said to absorb more moisture
from the air than any other grain; hence, all bread from this meal needs a
longer application of heat, and keeps moister after being baked than that made
from other grain.

SPONGE FOR WINTER USE.
Peel and boil four or five medium-sized potatoes in two quarts of water, which
will boil down to one quart when done, take out and press through a colander, or
mash very fine in the crock in which the sponge is made; form a well in the
center, into which put one

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