Page:Art of Cookery 1774 edition.djvu/337

Rh When you eat them, toast them with a fork crisp on both sides, then with your hand pull them open, and they will be like a honeycomb; lay in as much butter as you intend to use, then clap them together again, and set it by the fire. When you think the butter is melted turn them, that both sides may be buttered alike, but don't touch them with a knife, either to spread or cut them open, if you do they will be as heavy as lead, only when they are quite buttered and done, you may cut them across with a knife.

Note, Some flour will soak up a quart or three pints more water than other flour; then you must add more water, or shake in more flour in making up, for the dough must be as light as possible.

TAKE a lump of dough, about two pounds of your last baking, which has been raised by barm, keep it by ou in a wooden vessel, and cover it well with flour. This is your leaven: then the night before you intende to bake, put the said leaven to a peck of flour, and work them well together with warm water. Let it lie in a dry wooden vessel, well covered with a linen cloth and a blanket, and keep it in a warm place. This dough kept warm will rise again the next morning, and will be xdufficient to mix with two or three bushels of flour, being worked up with warm water an a little salt. When it is well worked up and thoroughly mixed with the flour, let it be well covered with linen and blanket, until you find it rise; then knead it well, and work it up into bricks or loaves, making the loaves borad, and not so thick and high as is frequently done, by which means the bread will be better baked. Then bake your bread.

Always keep by you two or more pounds of the dough of your last baking well covered with flour to make leaven to serve from one baking day to another; the more leaven is put to the flour, the lighter and spongier the bread will be. The fresher the leaven, the bread will be the less sour. From the Dublin society. WHEN you have yeast in plenty, take a quantity of it, stir and work it well with a whisk until it becomes liquid and thin, then get a large wooden platter, cooler, or tub, clean and dry, and