The CWI Cookbook

Archive for the ‘rolls, biscuits & breads’ Category

 2 lb. flour
Salt
2 oz. sugar
4 oz. butter
2 eggs
2 spoonfuls homemade yeast
1 pint milk

Mix with two pounds of flour a little salt, two ounces of sifted sugar, four ounces of butter, and two eggs beaten with two spoonfuls of yeast, and about a pint of milk; knead the dough well, and set it to rise before the fire. Make twelve rolls, butter tin plates, and set them before the fire again to rise. When of a proper size, bake them for half an hour.

From The Cook’s Own Book by “A Boston Housekeeper” (Mrs. N. K. M. Lee), Boston 1832

Comment: Translating measurements for homemade yeast to the varieties commercially available today is always tricky. Too little and the recipe is ruined; too much and it rises to engulf your kitchen, not to mention the cook who fails to flee quickly enough, and we lose a reader. Based on the quantities of other ingredients this seems to be for a relatively small batch of dough, so we suggest one standard packet of dry yeast.

A “regular baking” which would produce several loaves of bread and possibly some rolls besides might use as much as a pint of homemade yeast. Best of all would be one cake of the “moist” form of yeast, but that has become uncommon in markets in recent years and may be hard to find.