Breadstuffs and Bread-making

Ingredients

• half teaspoonful of one kind of soda
• two teaspoonfuls of baking powder to the quart of flour be used
• 45 grains more than is to be found in a seidlitz powder
• a teaspoonful of saleratus
• one
• two cups of sour milk may at one time be sufficiently acid to neutralize a teasp
• salt

Directions

1. hand until flattened into thin, wafer-like cakes, and baked over a quick fire, on a thin iron jDlate or a flat stone.

2. Unquestionably, unleavened bread, well kneaded and prop- erly baked, is the most wholesome of all breads, but harder to masticate than that made light by fermentation, but this is an advantage ; for it insures more thorough mixing with that im- portant digestive agent, the saliva, than is usually given to more easily softened food.

3. What is usually termed unfermented bread, however, is prepared with flour and liquid, to which shortening of some kind is added, and the whole made light by the liberation of gas generated within the dough during the process of baking. This is brought about either by mixing with the flour certain chemical substances, which, when wet and brought into contact, act upon each other so as to set free car- bonic acid gas, which expands and puffs up the loaf; or by intro- ducing into the dough some volatile sub- stance, as carbonate

4. of ammonia, which the heat during baking will cause to vapor- ize, and which in rising produces the same result.

5. Carbonic acid gas may be for this purpose developed by the chemical decomposition of bicarbonate of potassa (saleratus), or bicarbonate of soda, by some acid such as sour milk, hydro- chloric acid, tartaric acid, nitrate of potassa, or the acid phos- phate of lime.

6. The chemical process of bread-raising originally consisted in adding to the dough definite proportions of muriatic acid and carbonate of soda, by the union of which carbonic acid gas and common salt were produced. This process was soon aban- doned, however, on account of the propensity exhibited by the acid for eating holes in the fingers of the baker as well as in his

7. Stone Metate.

8. I50 SCIENCE IN THE KITCHEN.

9. bread pans ; and the more convenient one for hands and pans, that of using soda or saleratus with cream of tartar or sour milk, was substituted. When there is an excess of soda, a por- tion of it remains in the loaf uncombined, giving to the bread a yellow color and an alkaline taste, and doing mischief to the delicate coating of the stomach. Alkalies, the class of chem- icals to which soda and saleratus belong, when pure and strong, are powerful corrosive poisons. The acid used with the alkali to liberate the carbonic-acid gas in the process of bread-making, if rightly proportioned, destroys this poisonous property, and unites with it to form a new compound, which,, although not a poison, is yet unwholesome.

10. We can hardly speak too strongly in condemnation of the use of chemicals in bread-making, when we reflect that the majority of housewives who combine sour milk and saleratus, or cream of tartar and soda, more frequently than otherwise guess at the proportions, or measure them by some " rule of thumb," without stopping to consider that although two cups of sour milk may at one time be sufficiently acid to neutralize a teaspoonful of saleratus, milk may vary in degree of acidity to such an extent that the same quantity will be quite insuffi- cient for the purpose at another time ; or that though a tea- spoonful of some brand of cream of tartar will neutralize a half teaspoonful of one kind of soda, similar measures will not always bring about the same result. Very seldom, indeed, will the proportions be sufficiently exact to perfectly neutralize the alkali, since chemicals are subject to variations in degree of strength, both on account of the method by which they are manufactured and the length of time they have been kept, to say nothing of adulterations to which they may have been sub- jected, and which are so common that it is almost impossible to find unadulterated cream of tartar in the market.

11. Baking powders are essentially composed of bicarbonate of soda and cream of tartar, mixed in the proper proportions to exactly neutralize each other, and if they were always pure, would certainly be as good as soda and cream of tartar in any form, and possess the added advantage of perfect propor-

12. BREADSTUFFS AND BREAD-MAKING. 151

13. tions ; but as was demonstrated not long ago by the govern- ment chemist, nearly every variety of baking powder in the market is largely adulterated with cheaper and harmful sub- stances. Alum, a most frequent constituent of such baking powders, is exceedingly injurious to the stomach. Out of several hundred brands of baking powder examined, only one was found pure.

14. Even when in their purest state, these chemicals are not harmless, as is so generally believed. It is a very prevalent idea that when soda is neutralized by an acid, both chemical com- pounds are in some way destroyed or vaporized in the process, and in some occult manner escape from the bread during the process of baking. This is altogether an error. The alkali and acid neutralize each other chemically, but they do not destroy each other. Their union forms a salt, exactly the same as the Rochelle salts of medicine, a mild purgative, and if we could collect it from the bread and weigh or measure it, we would find nearly as much of it as there was of the baking powder in the first place. If two teaspoonfuls of baking powder to the quart of flour be used, we have remaining in the bread made with that amount of flour 165 grains of crystallized Rochelle salts, or 45 grains more than is to be found in a Seidlitz powder. It may be sometimes useful to take a dose of salts, but the daily consumption of such chemical substances in bread can hardly be considered compatible with the conditions necessary for the maintenance of health. These chemical substances are unusable by the system, and must all be removed by the liver and excretory organs, thus imposing upon them an extra and unnecessary burden. It has also been determined by scientific experimentation that the chemicals found in baking powders in bread retard digestion.

15. These substances are, fortunately, not needed for the pro- duction of good light bread. The purpose of their use is the production of a gas ; but air is a gas much more economical and abundant than carbonic-acid gas, and which, when introduced into bread and subjected to heat, has the property of expand- ing, and in so doing, puffing up the bread and making it

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

One typical portion per ingredient; the recipe's quantities are not counted. A rough guide only, not for medical or dietary planning.