Common mode of Panification practised in Paris

Common mode of Panification practised in Paris.—The white bread of Paris is made with the best flour. If a hundred parts of wheat have yielded seventy of flour it is said to be “bolted to seventy,” which is the quality used for the con-sumers of that capital. This is the process:— “At eight o’clock in the evening a bit of paste * is taken, composed of eight kilogrammes of flour and four kilogrammes of water.† This is left until six o’clock in the morning, and constitutes the main leaven (levain de chef). * This is probably a portion of the paste called leaven: if it were merely flour and water, it would not become a ferment in so short a time: many days keeping in a certain tempera-ture would be required to produce spontaneous fermentation in it. Formerly, this kind of leaven—which always imparts a certain degree of acidity to bread—was used commonly in England, and it is so still in various parts of the Continent. After the first preparation of the ferment, a bit of the dough made with it is kept from one baking to another (well covered with flour), and serves the purpose of yeast when well kneaded up with the other ingredients. † Sixteen pounds of flour and four quarts of water. The gramme is the thirtieth part of an ounce. Eight kilogrammes more of flour and four kilo-grammes of water are then added: this forms the leaven of the first degree. At two o’clock in the afternoon sixteen kilo-grammes of flour and eight of water are added: this is the second quality of leaven. At five o’clock the complete leaven is prepared by adding a hundred pounds of flour and fifty-two kilogrammes of water, mixed with from two hun-dred to three hundred grammes of yeast (levure). At seven o’clock a hundred and thirty-two kilo-grammes of flour and sixty-eight kilogrammes of salt, and mixed with from three hundred to six hundred grammes of yeast, are added to the leaven, and made into well-kneaded dough. With this quantity of paste five or six batches of bread are made in the following manner:— 1st Batch.—This is composed of half the dough prepared as above, which is moulded and left to rise, and then set into the oven. The bread of this first baking is sour (aigre), rather brown, and not particularly light. 2nd Batch.—The dough remaining of the first batch is mixed with a hundred and thirty-two kilogrammes more of flour and sixty-eight kilogrammes of water, mixed with the same proportion of salt and yeast as the preceding batch. Half of this dough forms the second baking, the bread of which is whiter and better than the first. 3rd Batch.—The same quantity of flour, water, and salt, with three hundred grammes of yeast, are again added to the dough, of which half is baked as usual. 4th Batch.—Same proceeding as for the third. 5th Batch.—This is prepared like the foregoing, and produces what is called fancy bread (pains de luxe), the finest quality of any.