A Course of Lectures on the Principles of Domestic Economy and Cookery

is firm and solid, that is, if the bread is heavy, it can not be easily penetrated by the gastric juice, and consequently is indigestible. So that the most healthy bread is that which is sufficiently light and porous to allow the gastric juice to penetrate it easily. Only a mechanical operation is required to make the bread light. Now that process which will most quickly make the bread dough light is the most desirable. The longer you take to raise bread, the more slowly you raise, the more of the nutriment of the flour you destroy by the process of fermentation that lightens the bread. The yeast combining with water at a certain temperature causes fermentation, and from that fermentation carbolic acid gas is evolved, which forces its way up through the dough and fills it with little bubbles,--in other words, makes it light. Now the more quickly you can accomplish that fermentation, or rather lightening of the dough by the formation of little air cells, the more you will preserve the nutriment of the flour. The idea prevails to some extent that if ladies use as much yeast as I have to-day the bread will taste of the yeast. It will not if the yeast is fresh. If the yeast is old or sour it will taste. But you can use as much as I have shown you and not have the bread taste after it is done. You see my object in using a great deal of yeast, proportionately, is to accomplish the lightening of the dough in a very short time. The best bread that ever was made or that ever was put on the market was raised mechanically, without the action of yeast; it was called aerated bread. It was bread dough lightened by a mechanical process. Carbonic acid gas was driven into the dough by machinery after the flour was mixed with salt water; and the bread made was very light and every particle of the nourishment preserved in that way. _Question._ Do you ever put sugar in bread? MISS CORSON. You can put