The royal baker and pastry cook : $b A manual of practical cookery

is very bad. Never have sticky plates or dishes; use very hot water for washing them; when greasy, change it. Take care that you look at the meat the butcher brings, to see that it is good. Let there be no waste in the kitchen. [Illustration: (Decorative Design)] Bread and Rolls Bread was first made without leaven, heavy and solid. Then yeast was discovered, and yeast-risen bread came into use throughout the civilized world. Finally baking powder was devised, the most healthful, economical, and convenient of all leavening or lightening agents. Yeast is a living plant. Mixed with the dough it causes fermentation and destruction of a part of the flour, and this produces carbonic-acid gas. The bubbles of this gas become entangled in the dough, swelling it up and making it spongy. In this process, however, a part of the most nutritious elements of the flour (estimated at ten per cent.) is destroyed in producing the leavening gas; there is always danger of sour dough, and there is a delay of many hours for the sponge to rise. Perfect bread is that in which wheat is transposed into an available food without loss of any of its valuable properties. Royal Baking Powder is now largely used in place of yeast to leaven bread. It does precisely the same work—that is, swells up the dough and makes it porous and spongy. But the process is not destructive: the baking powder by itself produces the leavening gas. No part of the flour is decomposed or destroyed. Moreover, there is no mixing or kneading with the hands, no setting of sponge overnight, as the loaf is mixed and ready for the oven at once. Bread thus made cannot sour, but will retain its moisture and freshness, and may be eaten while hot or fresh without distress even by persons of delicate digestion. The ease with which Royal Baking Powder bread is made, its cleanliness and healthfulness, have caused it to supersede yeast bread with many of the best pastry cooks. In making this bread the materials and utensils should be brought together