bottle it, and tie over the corks. Or, to eleven gallons of water put ten pounds of loaf-sugar, half a pound of bruised ginger (tied in linen), the peel of four lemons, and the whites of four eggs, beat into a strong froth; mix and put all into the copper, and as soon as it boils, skim it well; then add two ounces of cream of tartar, and the inside of six lemons sliced, the pips removed; when it is nearly cold, put into a cloth four table-spoonfuls of yeast, and pour the liquor in upon it. When done working, bung it up, and let it stand a fortnight; then bottle it, and it will be fit to drink in ten days.

ירווווו

BREAD-MAKING.

ONSTANT experience proves that bakers' bread,

after it is two days old, becomes more dry and husky than good home-made bread is at four or five days old.

The difference of consuming new bakers' bread of the first day, and that which has been baked the day before, is computed to be at least one-fourth more of the new bread. If bread made in a private family of the same flour as the baker uses, is much less white and more moist, it is a clear proof that the bakers' bread is whitened, and artificially.

Families who buy flour and make their own bread will escape a great deal of mischief; but the corn must be bought fine, and ground in the house, to secure the safety of the bread entirely.

The small or tail corn, which the farmer separates before bringing his grain to market, and usually grinds for his own. use, is richer in gluten than the plump, full-grown grain, and is therefore more nutritious.

The whitest bread is made from flour freed from pollard and bran; but this is not an economical flour.

A bushel of flour will make a batch of bread sufficient for one week's supply of a large family. To convert this into bread will require one pint of brewers' yeast, or a pint of the

thick sediment from the yeast of home-brewed beer. In either case the yeast should be mixed with as much milkwarm water.

If flour be new, after a wet season, sal-ammoniac dissolved in warm water, and mixed with the dough when stiff, will make the bread light which would otherwise be heavy. The quantity of sal-ammoniac required is one ounce to fourteen pounds of flour; and it is harmless, as this article is much used by bakers in making light biscuits. New flour never makes good bread: it should lie over for three months before it will be fit for baking. On the other hand, too much age damages flour. Old flour requires little salt; new flour requires twice as much salt as old.

The French bakers do not put so much salt into their bread as the English bakers do; in fact, French bread is insipid to an English palate, whilst the Frenchman shrinks from the quantity of salt commonly used by our bakers.

When the starch of wheat has already acquired a tendency to change, from the sprouting of the wheat, the flour forms a sweet, heavy, and sticky bread. In order to prevent this, alum is employed. Alum is not necessary to the making of palatable bread from 'sound' flour, but it is necessary for the making of saleable bread from unsound flour made from sprouted grain. The use of alum in bread is particularly injurious. It is true, it causes the bread to be whiter than it would be otherwise; but it hardens the nutritious constituent of the bread-the gluten,—and so renders the bread wholly indigestible: it enables the baker to adulterate his bread with greater quantities of rice and potatoes than he could otherwise employ; and lastly, as we have shown, by the use of alum he is able to pass off an inferior, and even a damaged flour, for one of superior quality.

Again, the mistaken taste of the public for very white bread, which cannot be obtained even from the finest and best flour, except by the use of alum or some other substance similar in its operation, tends to the serious injury of the bread in another way.

The outer part of the grains of wheat has been proved by analysis to be much richer in nourishing principles-in gluten, and in oily matters especially-than the central and more floury parts of the grain. Now, in preparing the finer descriptions of flour, the utmost pains are taken to separate this highly nutritious exterior portion of the grain; and thus, although the flour so obtained is very fine and white, very suitable for making a white loaf-that fallacious test of quality-it is yet not nearly so nutritious as whole meal flour, or even the less finely-dressed qualities of wheat-flour. The difference in nourishing properties between whole meal flour and very finely-dressed flour, amounts, in many cases, to fully one-third.

The use of potatoes by bakers in making bread has, doubtless, been much overstated. Mr. Donovan shows that five stones of potatoes, added to four hundredweights of flour, made into bread, will increase the weight only by about half a stone. In this case the potatoes are added to improve the bread, the small advantage by the increase of weight being scarcely enough to repay the additional trouble which the use of potatoes occasions.

Bread is vesiculated (that is, rendered lighter), without being fermented, by two processes: 1st, By the addition of substances which, during their decomposition, give out carbonic acid, as carbonate of soda and hydrochloric acid. 2d, By making the bread with water charged with carbonic acid. The first is the process recommended by the late Dr. Whiting, and sold in London under the name of Dodson's Unfer

mented Bread.' The second process consists in mixing intimately water containing carbonic acid with flour, so that when the dough is baked the escape of the carbonic acid gas vesiculates the bread. This process is worked in

1 This Unfermented Bread, recommended in a pamphlet by a Physician, is made as follows:-Take for White Bread: Flour, dressed or household, 3 lbs.; bi-carbonate of soda, 9 drams; muriatic acid, 113 drams; water, about 25 ounces. Brown Bread: Wheat meal, 3 lbs. ; bi-carbonate of soda, 10 drams; muriatic acid, 12 drams; water, 25 ounces. First, mix the soda and flour, by shaking the soda from a small sieve over the flour, stirring with the hand, and then passing the mixture through the sieve. Next, pour the acid into the water, and stir it with a glass or wood rod. Mix the flour and water as speedily as possible with a wooden spoon or spatula. Make it into two loaves, which bake in a quick oven in earthen pans, or in flower-pots, which are better than tin or iron. Or: the loaves may be baked with a thin flat tile between them. The oven should be made hotter than for fermented bread. A portable one, where there is no other, and a common fire, will answer the purpose. About an hour and a half will be required for the baking. Much handling and hot water are hurtful, by causing the union to take place before the proper time. For this reason the water should be as cold as possible; and more or less of it must be used, as experience will readily direct, to suit the varying quality of the flour. The dough should not be made stiff. The thinner it is, so that it can be handled conveniently, the lighter will be the bread. When too much water has been used, the bread will be unpleasantly moist. Milk may be used on particular occasions, either wholly or in part, instead of water. The largest quantity of flour that can be mixed with ease at one time by a beginner is 12 lbs. ; but three times that amount will not be too much for an experienced workman. The whole process of preparation for the oven need not exceed a quarter of an hour; and any person capable of ordinary attention may conduct it: for, on a small scale, it is as simple and easy as the making of a common pudding, except, perhaps, that accuracy in quantities is more important. The only apparatus required, in addition to the usual kitchen furniture, is a graduated glass measure, to measure the acid; a small set of apothecaries' weights, to weigh the soda; a small sieve, and a wooden spatula.