Chase - Buffalo Cake and Indian Pudding

Buffalo Cake and Indian Pudding

ALVIN WOOD CHASE (18171885) was born in Cayuga County, New York, and spent his early years peddling household wares and medicines along the Maumee River near Toledo, Ohio, where he also collected folk remedies. His first edition of A Guide to Wealth! Over One Hundred Valuable Recipes for Saloons, Inn-Keepers, Grocers, Druggists, Merchants and Families Generally was published in 1858, and by the 1863 edition the book contained over 800 recipes. In 1897 he published Dr. Chases Third, Last and Complete Receipt Book. His books were great sellers, especially among pioneers and settlers who were eager to have a multi-purpose how-to guide to assist them in everyday life.

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Dr Chases Third, Last and Complete Receipt Book first published 1887

This extract published in Penguin Books 2010

All rights reserved

Cover design based on a pattern from a Chochoti Pueblo jar, American School, c. 1885. (Photograph copyright Bridgeman Art Library.) Picture research by Samantha Johnson. Lettering by Stephen Raw

Except in the United States of America, this book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publishers prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser

ISBN: 978-0-14-196579-6

Remarks If the simple word bread only, is spoken, it is always understood to mean white, or bread made from wheat flour. Other kinds always have a descriptive attachment, as Graham, Indian, brown, Boston brown, corn, etc. Two things are especially essential in good bread lightness and sweetness. If bread is heavy not light and porous or if it is sour, it is only fit for the pigs. And it is important to know that good bread cannot be made out of poor flour. In the following these points are nicely explained, together with full and complete instructions in the three necessary processes of making good bread making sponge, kneading, and baking.

How to Make Good Bread A loaf of perfect bread, white, light, sweet, tender, and elastic, with a golden brown crust, is a proof of high civilization; and is so indispensable a basis of all good eating that the name lady, or loaf-giver, applied to the Saxon (English, as now understood, for England was overrun and conquered by the people of Saxony, in northern Germany, in an early day, so that now, to say a Saxon, or of the Saxon race, refers to the English, descended from them, more often than to the people of Saxony itself and especially Anglo-Saxon always means English) matron, may well be held in honor by wife or maiden. But do all the gracious ladies who preside in our country homes see such loaves set forth as daily bread?

Inexperienced housekeepers and amateur cooks will find it a good general rule to attempt at the beginning only a few things, and learn to do those perfectly. And these should be, not the elaborate dishes of special occasions, but the plain every-day things. Where can one better begin than with bread? The eager patronage of the over-crowded, carelessly served, high-priced Vienna bakery at the Centennial gave evidence that Americans appreciate good bread and good coffee, and had, perhaps, some effect in stimulating an effort for a better home supply. To make and to be able to teach others to make bread of this high character is an accomplishment worth at least as much practice as a sonata (a piece of music); and the work is excellent as a gymnastic exercise. With good digestion, honest personal pride, and the grateful admiration of the family circle as rewards, surely no girl or woman who aspires to responsibilities and joys of home, will shrink from the labor of learning to make bread.

The whole art and science of bread-making is no mean study. The why, as well as the how, should be aimed at, although exact knowledge or science, even in bread-making, is not so simple a matter as some might fancy. Varying conditions, even the temperature of the kitchen, work confusion in the phenomena of a batch of bread as surely as in the delicate experiments of a Tyndall or a Huxley. Fortunately, an exhaustive knowledge is not essential to practical success. Skillful manipulation will come with experience, and I have taught the actual art to a succession of uneducated cooks so that, with a little supervision, they satisfactorily supplied an exacting family. But the mistress, the house-mother, who must give intelligent direction, will not be satisfied without going to the root of the matter. Let her not rest upon her laurels without making sure that her table is constantly supplied with such delicious loaves of the staff of life as, with the fragrant, highly-flavored butter of May or June, shall make a fit repast even for the good women whose hand have prepared them.

Good Flour Essential The first requisite to good bread is good flour (and sifted, to enliven it and make it mix more readily). If the very best seems too expensive, make up the difference in cost by eating less cake. With really delicious bread you will do this naturally, and almost unconsciously.

The Yeast, to Make In the country, where fresh yeast from breweries is out of the question, the first process must be making yeast; and it is well to begin there, and know every step of your way. The commercial yeast cakes must form a basis; from them it is easy to make the potato yeast, which is perhaps the simplest and best of several good forms of soft yeast. Dry yeast cake used directly will not make bread of the first quality. For the yeast, soak three yeast cakes in a cup of tepid water, while six or eight fair-sized potatoes are boiling. When they are perfectly soft, put the potatoes, with a quart of water in which they were boiled, through a colander, and add a teaspoonful of salt and two of sugar. When tepid, add the yeast cakes, rubbed with a spoon to a smooth paste, and place the whole in a stone jar, and keep the contents at blood heat for twelve hours, when a lively effervescence should have taken place. The yeast will be in perfect condition the next day, and will remain good for ten days or more if kept in a cool cellar in a closely covered jar.

Setting the Sponge