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I thought you might like to see this recipe reprinted from Domestic
Cookery from 1864. It was an English book.
“To make bread let flour be kept four to five weeks before it is
begun to be used to bake with. Put half a bushel of good flour into
a trough or kneading tub; mix with it between four and five quarts of
warm water and a pint and a half of good hop yeast. Stir well with
your hands until it becomes tough. Let it rise about an hour and a
half or less if it rises fast; then, before it falls, add four more
quarts of warm water and half pound of salt. Work it well and cover
with a cloth. Put the fire then into the oven and by the time it is
warm enough the dough will be ready. Make the loaves about five
pounds each; sweep out the oven very clean and quick, and put in the
bread; shut it up close and two and one half hours will bake it. In
summer the water should be milk warm, in winter a little more and in
frosty weather as hot as you can well bear your hands in but not
scalding else the whole will be ruined. If baked in tins the crust
will be very nice.
The oven should be round, not long; the roof twenty to twenty-four
inches high, the mouth small and the door of iron to shut close. This
construction will save firing and time and bake better than long and
high-roofed ovens.”
Yields
1 Servings