The mysteries of "panification," as the scientific cooks term bread-making, are few and simple, but require more attention and judgement than any other branch of cooking. One rule I would advise every housekeeper to establish from the very beginning, and that is, never to allow poor flour to be used for any purpose whatever, especially for bread-making, for unless this one article be of the best quality, baking after baking will prove but failures, and a vexation of spirit to the ambitious baker.

Bread-making seems a simple process enough, but it requires a delicate care and watchfulness, and a thorough knowledge of all the contingencies of the process, dependent on the different qualities of flour, the varying kinds and conditions of yeast, and the change of seasons; the process which raises bread successfully in winter making it sour in summer. There are many little things in bread-making which require accurate observation, and, while valuable recipes and well-defined methods in detail are invaluable aids, nothing but experience will secure the name merited by so few, though earnestly coveted by every practical, sensible housekeeper - "an excellent bread-maker." Three things are indispensable to success - good flour, good yeast, and watchful care. To tell good flour: It should be dry, elastic, and odorless. To detect bad flour: If, in handling the flour, you discover a heaviness, like that of ground plaster; if, in squeezing a handful tightly, you discover that it retains the imprint of palm and fingers, and rolls back into the tray a compact ball, it is bad, and not fit to use.

Novices in bread-making, and many who should have learned better by long experience, fall into a sad mistake in the consistency of the dough. It should be mixed as soft as it can be handled. Bread will rise sooner, and lighter, be more digestible, and keep fresh much longer, if this rule is followed. Kneed your bread faithfully, and from all sides until it rebounds like India-rubber after a smart blow of the fist upon the center of the mess. Half an hour will be sufficient for working. The second point of importance in bread-making is the yeast; and herein are more failures than can be attributed even to poor flour, for a wise housekeeper will insist upon having fine flour, when, perhaps, she will not be so careful with her yeast, and will, either from carelessness or ignorance, utterly fail. I say ignorance, because so many, even experienced housekeepers, are constantly asking the question: "How do you judge yeast? By what means can you tell whether it is lively, as you term it?" My answer is, by taste and smell. If good, the taste if a little is touched to the tongue, will be rather biting, not sour by any means, but quick and somewhat pungent; while the odor is that of weak ammonia, or fresh ginger beer, and the color the opposite to "leaden," a clear, yellowish-white; if sour, blue and lifeless, like unleavened buckwheat batter; empty the jar, and at once make a fresh supply, with rising from some other source. I have gone into all the details, for I feel that it is because of the neglect of small things that so many fail in cooking, as in everything else.