1900 Good Bread

White Raised Bread.

Sift two quarts of flour into a mixing bowl. Rub into the flour two tabespoonfuls of butter or lard until it is fine, like meal; add one scant tablespoonful of salt, and one tablespoonful of sugar. Draw the flour to the edges of the bowl leaving a hole in the middle with about two inches of flour covering the bottom of the bowl.

Dissolve thoroughly one cake of compressed yeast in a teacupful of lukewarm water, and pour the liquid into the hole in the flour. stir in the flour from the edges, adding sufficient lukewarm water, or milk and water mixed, to knead well. Knead for half an hour, then cover to exclude all air, and set to rise. When it is well risen, knead again for ten minutes, divide into loaves and put in well greased pans. Cover, and let it rise again to the top of the pans. Bake in a moderatly hot oven nearly one hour.

Editor’s Note: Fresh Baker’s Yeast, or Compressed Yeast is not typically available in supermarkets. Compressed Cake Yeast has a short shelf life. Busy pizza restaurants that make their own dough and bakeries may purchase the fresh cakes, if you’re daring enough to ask if you may buy a small block! Otherwise, here is a Red Star conversion table from cake yeast to dry yeast, and Red Star’s history of yeast.