CREAMED TOAST

Partly fill a large tureen with slices of crisply-browned and buttered toast. (Slices of bread which have become dry and hard may be used for this dish.) When ready to serve, not before, pour over the toasted slices 1 quart of hot milk to which 1 teaspoonful of flour or cornstarch has been added, after being mixed smoothly with a little cold milk or water and cooked a few minutes until thick as cream.  Add also a pinch of salt.

If milk is not plentiful, prepare one pint of milk and dip each slice of toasted bread quickly in a bowl of hot water; place in a deep dish and quickly pour over the hot milk, to which a tablespoonful of butter has been added, and serve at once.

BREAD AND ROLLS

Bread, called the “Staff of Life,” on account of its nutritive value, should head the list of foods for human consumption.  Bread making should stand first in the “Science of Cooking,” as there is no one food upon which the comfort, health and well-being of the average family so largely depends as upon good bread.  There is absolutely no reason why the housewife of the present day should not have good, sweet, wholesome, home-made bread, if good yeast, good flour and common-sense are used.  The milk or water used to mix with flour for making bread sponge should be lukewarm.  If too hot, the loaves will be full of holes and coarse grained.  If too cold the bread, chilled, will not rise as it should have done had the liquid used been the right temperature.  Good bread may be made by using milk, potato water or whey (drained from thick sour milk), and good bread may be made by simply using lukewarm water.  I prefer a mixture of milk and water to set sponge.  Milk makes a fine-grained, white bread, but it soon dries out and becomes stale.  Bread rises more slowly when milk is used.  When mashed potatoes are used, the bread keeps moist a longer time.  Should you wish extra fine, white, delicate bread, add one cup of sweet cream to the liquid when setting sponge.  When milk is used the dough is slower in rising, but makes a creamy-looking and fine-flavored bread.  When one Fleischman yeast cake is used in any recipe the ordinary half-ounce cake of compressed yeast is intended, twenty-eight cakes in a pound.  These are usually kept in a large refrigerator in a temperature of 44 degrees and should not be kept longer in the home than three days in Summer or six days in Winter, and should always be kept in a cool place until used, if the cook would have success when using.

Use the best hard, Spring wheat flour obtainable for baking bread, or any sponge raised with yeast, as this flour contains a greater quantity of gluten and makes bread of high nutritive value.

Winter wheat maybe used for cake-making and for baking pastry with excellent results, although costing less than Spring wheat.