Yeast Cakes+

2 quarts water (cold.)

1 quart pared and sliced potatoes.

Double-handful hops, tied in coarse muslin bag.

Flour to make stiff batter.

1 cup Indian meal.

Boil the potatoes and hop-bag in two quarts of water for three-quarters of an hour. Remove the hops, and while boiling hot, strain the potatoes and water through a cullender into a bowl. Stir into the scalding liquor enough flour to make a stiff batter. Beat all up well; add two tablespoonfuls lively yeast and set in a warm place to rise. When light, stir in a cup of Indian meal, roll into a sheet a quarter of an inch thick, and cut into round cakes. Dry these in the hot sun, or in a very moderate oven, taking care they do not heat to baking. It is best to put them in after the fire has gone down for the night, and leave them in until morning. When entirely dry and cold, hang them up in a bag in a cool, dry place.

Use one cake three inches in diameter for a loaf of fair size; soak in tepid water until soft, and add a pinch of soda or saleratus, then mix.

These cakes will remain good a month in summer, two in winter.

Baking Powders

1 ounce super-carbonate soda.

7 drachms tartaric acid - (in powder.)

Roll smoothly and mix thoroughly. Keep in a tight glass jar or bottle. Use one teaspoonful to a quart of flour.

Or,

12 teaspoonfuls carb. soda. 24 " cream tartar.

Put as above, and use in like proportion.

Bread Sponge (Potato.)+

6 potatoes, boiled and mashed fine while hot. 6 tablespoonfuls baker's yeast. 2 " white sugar.

1 even teaspoonful soda.

1 quart warm - not hot - water.

3 cups flour.

Mash the potatoes, and work in the lard and sugar. Stir to a cream, mixing in gradually a quart of the water in which the potatoes were boiled, which should have been poured out to cool down to blood warmth. Beat in the flour, already wet up with a little potato-water to prevent lumping, then the yeast, lastly the soda. Cover lightly if the weather is warm, more closely in winter, and set to rise over night in a warm place.

Bread Sponge (Plain.)+

1 quart warm water.

6 tablespoonfuls baker's yeast.

2 tablespoonfuls lard.

1 teaspoonful soda.

Flour to make a soft batter.

Melt the lard in the warm water, add the sugar, then the flour by degrees, stirring in smoothly. A quart and a pint of flour will usually be sufficient if the quality is good. Next comes the yeast, lastly the soda. Beat up hard for several minutes, and set to rise as above.

Bread mixed with potato-sponge is more nutritious, keeps fresh longer, and is sweeter than that made with the plainer sponge, But there are certain seasons of the year when good old potatoes cannot be procured, and new ones will not do for this purpose.

The potato-sponge is safer, because surer for beginners in the important art of bread-making. After using it for fifteen years, I regard it as almost infallible - given the conditions of good flour, yeast, kneading, and baking.