Dry Yeast Bread
Ingredients
- 2 quarts flour
- 2 1/2 cupfuls warm water
- 2 tablespoonfuls lard
- 1 yeast cake
- 1 tablespoonful sugar
- 1 teaspoonful salt
Directions
Sift the flour in the bread pan; break up the yeast cake and put in a quart bowl; then add a gill of water, and mash with a spoon until the yeast and water are well mixed. Beat in 1 gill of flour. Cover the bowl and set in a warm place for two hours. At the end of that time the batter should be a perfect sponge. Add to the sponge a pint of warm water, half the lard, also salt and sugar. Stir this mixture into the flour and mix with a spoon. Sprinkle the board with flour, turn out the dough, knead twenty minutes, using as little flour as possible. At the end of this time the ball of dough should be soft, smooth, and elastic. Place the dough in the bowl and rub the second spoonful of butter or lard over it. Cover with a towel, then a tin cover. Set the bowl in a warm place and let it raise over night. In the morning the dough will have increased to three times its original volume and be a perfect sponge. Knead it in the bowl for five minutes--do not use flour--then shape into three small loaves. Put these in deep pans, and with a sharp knife cut lengthwise through the center of each loaf. Put the pans in a warm place and cover with a towel. Let the loaves rise to twice their size, then bake fifty minutes.