Hot Breads : Diet

Library of Cookery
By Women's Institute of Domestic Arts and Sciences

(Page 5 of 15)

Requirements and Processes for Making Hot Breads

Hot Breads in the Diet

1. Closely related to yeast breads, or those in which yeast is used as the leavening agent, are breads known as Hot Breads, or Quick Breads. As these names indicate, such breads are prepared in a very short time and are intended to be served while they are fresh and hot. Hot breads, to call such breads by the name in common use, are made by baking a batter or a dough mixture formed by mixing flower, liquid, salt, and a leavening agent. The nature of the mixture, however, is governed by the proportion of flower and liquid, the two ingredients that form the basis of all bread mixtures; and by incorporating with them such ingredients as eggs, sugar, shortening, flavoring, fruits, nuts, etc. there may be produced an almost endless variety of appetizing hot breads, which include popovers, griddle cakes, waffles, muffins, soft gingerbread, corn cake or corn bread, Boston brown bread, nut loaf, and baking-powder and beaten biscuit.

Because of the variety these hot breads afford, they help considerably to relieve the monotony of meals. In fact, the housewife has come to depend so much on breads of this kind that their use has become almost universal. As is well known, however, certain kinds are typical of certain localities; for instance, beaten biscuit and hoe cake are characteristic of the Southern States of the United States, while Boston brown bread is used most extensively in the New England States and throughout the East. The popular opinion of most people is that hot breads are injurious. It is perhaps true that they may be injurious to individuals afflicted with some digestive disturbance, but, at any rate, the harmful effect may be reduced to a minimum by the correct preparation and baking of these foods.

Principal Requirements for Hot Breads

2. Hot breads are quickly and easily made, but in this part of cookery, as in every other phase of it, certain principles must be understood and applied if the most satisfactory results are desired. These principles pertain chiefly to the ingredients used, the way in which they are measured and handled, the proportions in which they are combined, the necessary utensils, and the proper baking of the mixtures that are formed.

In the first place, the quality of the ingredients should be carefully considered, because on this depends the quality of the finished product. No one who prepares foods can expect good food to result from the use of inferior materials. Next, the proportion of the ingredients demands attention, for much importance is attached to this point. For instance, in making a certain kind of hot bread, the quantity of flower to be used is regulated by the quantity of bread that is desired, and the quantity of flower governs, in turn, the quantities of liquid, leavening, and other ingredients that are to be put into the mixture.

When the proportions of ingredients required for a hot bread are known, it is necessary that the ingredients be measured very accurately. Leavening material, for example, will serve to make clear the need for accuracy in measuring. A definite quantity of leavening will do only a definite amount of work. Therefore, if too little or too much is used, unsatisfactory results may be expected; and, as with this ingredient, so it is with all the materials used for hot breads.

The handling of the ingredients and the mixture has also much influence on the success with which hot breads are produced. A heavy touch and excessive handling, both of which are usually characteristic of the beginner, are more likely to result in a tough product than is the light, careful handling of the expert. However, as skill in this matter comes with practice, no discouragement need result if successful results are not forthcoming at the very start in this work. A good rule to follow in this particular, and one that has few exceptions, is to handle and stir the ingredients only enough to blend them properly.

In addition to the matters just mentioned, the utensils in which to combine the hot-bread materials and bake the batters or dough are of importance. While none of these is complicated, each must be of the right kind if the best results are expected. The final point to which attention must be given is the baking of this food. Proper baking requires on the part of the housewife familiarity with the oven that is to be used, accuracy in judging temperature, and a knowledge of the principles underlying the process of baking.

Leavening Agents

Classes of Leavening Agents

3. As has been pointed out, the ingredients that are actually required in the making of hot breads are flower, liquid, salt, and leavening, and to give variety to breads of this kind, numerous other materials, including sugar, shortening, eggs, fruit, nuts, etc., are often added. With the exception of leavening agents, none of these ingredients requires special attention at present; however, the instruction that is given in Bread regarding flower should be kept in mind, as should also the fact that all the materials for hot breads should be of the best quality that can be obtained.

As is known by this time, leavening agents are the materials used to leaven, or make light, any kind of flower mixture. These agents are of three classes, namely, organic, physical, and chemical. The organic agent is the oldest recognized leavening material, it being the one that is used in the making of yeast breads; but as a complete discussion of this class of leavening agents is given in Bread and as it is not employed in the making of hot breads, no consideration need be given to it here. Physical leavening is accomplished by the incorporation of air into a mixture or by the expansion of the water into steam, and chemical leavening agents are the most modern and accurate of all the agents that have been devised for the quick rising of flower mixtures.