Leaven Bread

The Art Of Cookery · Hannah Glasse · 1747
Source
The Art Of Cookery
Status
success · extracted 12 days ago
Not a recipe
No
Ingredients (8)
Leaven
Dough for baking
For future leaven
Instructions (12)
Preparing the Leaven
  1. Take a lump of dough, about two pounds, which has been raised by barm.
  2. Keep it by you in a wooden vessel, and cover it well with flour. This is your leaven.
  3. The night before you intend to bake, put the said leaven to a peck of flour, and work them well together with warm water.
  4. Let it lie in a dry wooden vessel well covered with a linen cloth and a blanket, and keep it in a warm place.
  5. This dough that warm will rise again next morning.
Mixing and Baking the Bread
  1. The risen leaven will be sufficient to mix with two or three bushels of flour, being worked up with warm water and a little salt.
  2. When it is well worked up, and thoroughly mixed with all the flour, let it be well covered with the linen and blanket, until you find it rise.
  3. Then knead it well, and work it up into bricks or loaves, making the loaves broad, and not so thick and high as is frequently done, by which means the bread will be better baked.
  4. Then bake your bread.
Maintaining Leaven
  1. 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.
  2. The more leaven is put to the flour, the lighter and spungier the bread will be.
  3. The fresher the leaven, the bread will be less sour.
Original Text
TAKE a lump of dough, about two pounds of your last making, which has been raised by barm, keep it by you in a wooden vessel, and cover it well with flour. This is your leaven; then the night before you intend 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 that warm will rise again next morning, and will be sufficient to mix with two or three bushels of flour, being worked up with warm water and a little salt. When it is well worked up, and thoroughly mixed with all the flour, let it be well covered with the linen and blanket, until you find it rise; then knead it well, and work it up into bricks or loaves, making the loaves broad, 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 spungier the bread will be. The fresher the leaven, the bread will be lets sour.
Notes
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