Rye Bread

Set a sponge, as above, but with half the quantity of water.

In the morning mix with this:

1 quart warm milk.

1 tablespoonful salt.

1 cup Indian meal.

And enough rye flour to make it into pliable dough.

Proceed as with wheat bread, baking it a little longer.

It is a mistake to suppose that acidity, greater or less, is the normal state of rye bread. If you find your dough in the slightest degree sour, correct by adding a teaspoonful of soda dissolved in warm water. It is safest to add this always in warm weather.

Milk Bread

1 quart of milk.

1/2 teacupful of yeast.

1/4 lb. butter, one tablespoonful white sugar.

Stir into the milk, which should be made blood-warm, a pint of flour, the sugar, lastly the yeast. Beat all together well, and let them rise five or six hours. Then melt the butter, and add with a little salt. Work in flour enough to make a stiff dough; let this rise four hours, and make into small loaves. Set near the fire for half an hour, and bake.

In warm weather, add a teaspoonful of soda, dissolved in warm water, to the risen sponge, as all bread mixed with milk is apt to sour.

Buttermilk Bread

1 pint buttermilk heated to scalding.

Stir in, while it is hot, enough flour to make a tolerably thick batter. Add half a gill of yeast, and let it rise five or six hours. If you make it over night you need not add the yeast, but put in, instead, a tablespoonful of white sugar. In the morning, stir into the sponge a tablespoonful of soda, dissolved in hot water, a little salt, and two tablespoonfuls melted butter. Work in just flour enough to enable you to handle the dough comfortably; knead well, make into loaves, and let it rise until light. This makes very white and wholesome bread.

Rice Bread

Make a sponge of -

1 quart warm water. 1 teacupful yeast.

1 tablespoonful white sugar.

Beat well together, and when it has risen, which will be in about five hours, add three pints of warm milk and three teacupfuls rice-flour wet to a thin paste with cold milk, and boiled four minutes as you would starch. This should be a little more than blood-warm when it is stirred into the batter. If not thick enough to make out into dough, add a little wheat-flour. Knead thoroughly, and treat as you would wheat bread in the matter of the two • risings and baking.

This is nice and delicate for invalids, and keeps well. If you cannot procure the rice-flour, boil one cup of whole rice to a thin paste, mashing and beating it smooth.

French Rolls. (No. 1.)+

In kneading dough for the day's baking, after adding and working in the risen sponge, set aside enough for a loaf of tea-rolls. Work into this a heaping tablespoonful of lard or butter, and let it stand in a tolerably cool place (not a cold or draughty one) for four hours. Knead it again, and let it alone for three hours longer. Then make into rolls, by rolling out, very lightly, pieces of the dough into round cakes, and folding these, not quite in the centre, like turn-overs. The third rising will be for one hour, then bake steadily half an hour or less, if the oven is quick.

Having seen these rolls, smoking, light, and delicious, upon my own table, at least twice a week for ten years, with scarcely a failure in the mixing or baking, I can confidently recommend the receipt and the product. You can make out part of your Graham dough in the same manner.