To make a sack of flour into bread, the baker bakes that quantity of flour, and empties it into the kneading trough - it is then carefully sifted through a wire sieve, which makes it lie lighter and reduces any lumps that may have been formed in it. The next process is to dissolve two ounces of alum, technically stuff, or some call it rocky, in a little water placed over the fire. This is then poured into the seasoning tub, and four or five pounds of salt are added to it, with a pailful of water pretty hot, but not too much so. When this mixture, technically liquor, has cooled to the temperature of about 84°, from three to four pints of yeast are mixed in it, and the whole having been strained through the seasoning sieve, is emptied into a hole made in the mass of the flour, and mixed up with a portion of it to the consistence of thick batter. Dry flour is then sprinkled over the top. This is called the quarter sponge, and the operation is denominated setting. The sponge must then be covered up with sacks or woollen cloths to keep it warm, if the weather be cold.

In this situation it is left three or four hours, when it gradually swells and breaks through the dry flour laid upon its surface. Another pailful of water, impregnated with alum and salt, is now added and well stirred in, and the mass sprinkled with flour and covered up as before. This is called setting half sponge.

The whole is then well kneaded, with about two pailsful of more water, for about an hour, when the dough is cut into pieces with a knife; and to prevent it spreading, pinned or kept at one end of the trough by a pin board. In this state it is left to prove, as the bakers call it, for about four hours. After the proving process is over, the dough is again well kneaded for about half an hour. It is then removed from the inside of the trough to its lid, where it is cut into pieces, and weighed into the quanties suitable for each loaf.

The operation of moulding the dough can be learnt only by practice. It consists in cutting the masses of weighed dough, each into two equal parts. They are then kneaded either round or long, and one placed in a hollow made in the other; and the union is completed by a turn of the knuckles on the centre of the upper piece. The loaves are left in the oven from one hour and a half to two hours. They are then taken out, and, to prevent their splitting, are turned their bottom side upwards. They are afterwards covered up with a blanket to prevent as much as possible evaporation, by which weight is lost, and the bread becomes dry and unpalatable.

Mr. Edlin has made one mistake in the above account; namely, as regards the time when the salt and alum are incorporated with the flour. These ingredients ought never to be put into the sponge. If they were, the salt would retard the fermentation, and this Mr. Accum as a chemist ought to have known, and not, like many others, have copied and adopted Mr. Edlin's error.

With the exception just alluded to, the foregoing mode of making bread was pursued by the bakers some years ago, and is still practised by some of them; but the following is the process now pursued.