1-1/4 lb. fine wholemeal flour to 3/4 pint water. Put the meal into a basin, add the water gradually, and mix with a clean, cool hand. (Bread, pastry, etc., mixed with a spoon, especially of metal, will not be so light as that mixed with a light cool hand.) Knead lightly for 20 minutes. (A little more flour may be required while kneading, as some brands of meal do not absorb so much water as others, but do not add more than is absolutely necessary to prevent the fingers sticking.) Put the dough on to a floured board and divide into four round loaves. Prick with a fork on top. The colder the water used, the lighter the bread, and if the mixing be done by an open window so much the better, for unfermented bread is air-raised. Distilled or clean boiled rain-water makes the lightest bread. But it should be poured backwards and forwards from one jug to another several times, in order to aerate it. Another method of mixing is the following:--Put the water into the basin first and stir the meal quickly into it with a spatula or wooden spoon. When it gets too stiff to be stirred, add the rest of the meal. Knead for two minutes, and shape into loaves as above. BAKING.--Bake on the bare oven shelf, floored. If possible have a few holes bored in the shelf. This is not absolutely necessary, but any tinker or ironmonger will perforate your shelf for a few pence. Better still are wire shelves, like sieves. (This does not apply to gas ovens.) Start with a hot oven, but not too hot. To test, sprinkle a teaspoonful of flour in a patty pan, and put in the oven for five minutes. At the end of that time, if the flour is a light golden-brown colour, the oven is right. Now put in the bread and keep the heat of the oven well up for half an hour. At the end of this time turn the loaves. Now bake for another hour, but do not make up the fire again. Let the oven get slightly cooler. The same result may perhaps be obtained by moving to a cooler shelf. It all depends on the oven. But always start with a hot oven, and after the first half hour let the oven get cooler. Always remember, that the larger the loaves the slower must be the baking, otherwise they will be overdone on the outside and underdone in the middle. Do not open the oven door oftener than absolutely necessary. If a gas oven is used the bread must be baked on a baking sheet placed on a sand tin. A sand tin is the ordinary square or oblong baking tin, generally supplied with gas stoves, filled with silver sand. A baking sheet is simply a piece of sheet-iron, a size smaller than the oven shelves, so that the heat may pass up and round it. Any ironmonger will cut one to size for a few pence. Do not forget to place a vessel of water (hot) in the bottom of the oven. This is always necessary in a gas oven when baking bread, cakes or pastry. It must not be forgotten that ovens are like children they need understanding. The temperature of the kitchen and the oven's nearness to a window or door will often make a difference of five or ten minutes in the time needed for baking. One gas oven that I knew never baked well in winter unless a screen was put before it to keep away draughts! ROLLS.--If you desire to get your bread more quickly it is only a question of making smaller loaves. Little rolls may be cut out with a large egg-cup or small pastry cutter, and these take any time from twenty minutes to half an hour.
1/2 lb. pine kernels, 2 medium-sized tomatoes, 1 medium onion, 2 new- laid eggs. Wash, dry and pick over the pine kernels and put them through the macerating machine. Skin and well mash the tomatoes. Grate finely the onion. Mix all together and beat to a smooth batter. Whisk the eggs to a stiff froth and add to the mixture. Pour into a greased pie-dish. Bake in a moderate oven until a golden-brown colour. It should "rise" like a cake. It may be eaten warm with brown gravy or tomato sauce, or cold with salad. 16. STEWED NUTTOLENE. Slice one half-pound nuttolene into a baking dish, adding water enough to cover nicely. Place it in the oven, and let it bake for an hour. A piece of celery may be added to give flavour, or a little mint. When done, thicken the water with a little flour, and serve.
1/4 lb. butter, 1/2 lb. castor sugar, 1/2 lb. Manhu flour, 1 oz. rice flour, 6 ozs. crystallised ginger, 4 eggs. Cream butter and sugar, adding eggs, two at once, not beaten. Beat each time after adding eggs, add rice flour, ginger, and lastly flour. Bake in moderate oven.
8 ozs. butter, 1 lb. flour, 1/4 lb. cane sugar, currants. Mix flour and sugar, and rub in the butter. Mix with water to plastic dough. Divide dough into two cakes, 1 inch in thickness. Cover one evenly with currants, lay the other on top, and roll out to the thickness of one-third of an inch. Cut into sections, and bake in a hot oven for about 30 minutes.
For small, open tarts, the following mixture is a good substitute for the lemon curd that goes to make cheese cakes. Peel, core and quarter some juicy apples. Put in a double saucepan (or covered jar) with some strips of lemon peel (yellow part only) and cane sugar to taste. Cook slowly to a pulp and, when cold, remove the lemon rind. Grate finely, or mill some Brazil nuts. Mix apple pulp and ground nut together in such proportions as to make a mixture of the consistency of stiff jam. Fill tarts with mixture and sprinkle top with ground nut. It must be used the same day as made.
Mix ingredients and prepare 2 jam sandwich tins as for Sponge Cake (see recipe). Pour mixture in tins and bake for about 10 minutes in a hot oven. Take out, spread one round with warmed jam, place the other on top, and cut when cold.
Blanch the almonds and flake them in a nut mill. Whisk the eggs to a stiff froth adding the sugar a teaspoonful at a time. Add the almonds, and stir lightly. Drop the mixture, a dessertspoon at a time, on to well-oiled paper, or, better still, rice-paper. Shape with a knife into small cakes and put the half of a blanched almond into the centre of each. Bake in a moderate oven.
Put into a basin a pint of cold water, and beat it for a few minutes in order to aerate it as much as possible. Stir gently, but quickly, into this as much fine wholemeal as will make a batter the consistency of thick cream. It should just drop off the spoon. Drop this batter into very hot greased gem pans. Bake for half an hour in a hot oven. When done, stand on end to cool. They may appear to be a little hard on first taking out of the oven, but when cool they should be soft, light and spongy. When properly made, the uninitiated generally refuse to believe that they do not contain eggs or baking-powder. There are proper gem pans, made of cast iron (from 1s.) for baking this bread, and the best results are obtained by using them. But with a favourable oven I have got pretty good results from the ordinary baking-tins with depressions, the kind used for baking small cakes. But these are a thinner make and apt to produce a tough crust.
1 lb. fine wholemeal, 6 oz. raisins, 2 oz. Mapleton's nutter, water. Well wash the raisins, but do not stone them or the loaf will be heavy. If the stones are disliked, seedless raisins, or even sultanas, may be used, but the large raisins give rather better results. Rub the nutter into the flour, add the raisins, which should be well dried after washing, and mix with enough water to form a dough which almost, but not quite drops from the spoon. Put into a greased tin, which should be very hot, and bake in a hot oven at first. At the end of twenty minutes to half an hour the loaf should be slightly browned. Then move to a cooler shelf, and bake until done. Test with a knife as for ordinary cakes. For this loaf a small, deep, square-cornered tin is required (price 6-1/2d.), the same as for the egg loaf. 3 ozs. fresh dairy butter may be used in place of the 2 ozs. nutter.
Take the weight of two eggs in castor sugar and flour. For a richer cake take the weight of two eggs in sugar and the weight of one only in flour. Well grease the cake-tin, and sprinkle with castor sugar until thoroughly covered, and shake out any that remains loose. Well whisk the eggs with a coiled wire beater. They must be quite stiff when done. Add the sugar, a teaspoon at a time, while whisking. Or separate the yolks and whites, beating the yolks and sugar together and whisking the whites on a plate with a knife before adding to the yolks. Lastly, dredge in the flour. Stir lightly, but do not beat, or the eggs will go down. Pour mixture into tin, and bake about one hour in a moderate oven.
