by James Beard
Let rise again in a warm place for about 1 to 1¼ hours. Bake the bread in a preheated 375° oven until it is golden on top and shrinks slightly from the sides of the pan. Cool in the pans for about 5 minutes, then turn out onto a rack. (If necessary, loosen from edges of the pans with a knife.) Cut in slices about ½ inch thick for toasting, and butter them well.
English Muffin Bread for Microwave Oven
This recipe was developed for use in a microwave oven. It will not brown during baking, but it makes wonderful toast with excellent flavor, and you don’t need a brown loaf to make toast, really. This is as close to original English muffins as you can possibly get, and I find it highly satisfactory. You are going to be amused watching this bread rise in the microwave oven.
[2 loaves]
5 cups all-purpose flour, approximately
2 packages active dry yeast
1 tablespoon granulated sugar
2 teaspoons salt
2½ cups milk
¼ teaspoon baking soda dissolved in 1 tablespoon warm water
In a large mixing bowl combine 3 cups of the flour, the yeast, sugar, and salt. Heat the milk in a saucepan until warm (100° to 115°) and add to the flour mixture, beating by hand or in a mixer until quite smooth. Stir in enough of the remaining flour to make a stiff batter, adding a little more flour if needed. Cover the bowl, place in a warm place, and let the batter rise until light and doubled in bulk, about 1 hour.
Stir down the yeast batter and thoroughly blend in the dissolved soda. Divide the batter between two oiled 8½ × 4½ × 2½-inch tins or 1½ quart soufflé dishes. Cover and let rise in a warm place until doubled in bulk, about 45 minutes. Cook each loaf, uncovered, in the microwave oven for 6 minutes and 30 seconds, or until no doughy spots remain. Cool for 5 minutes, then loosen the edges and remove from the pan. Cool completely. To serve, slice and toast.
BAKING POWDER AND SODA BREADS
Baking Powder Biscuits
Cream Biscuits
Gingerbread
Irish Whole-Wheat Soda
Helen Evans Brown’s Corn Chili
Clay’s Cornsticks
Boston Brown
Carl Gohs’ Zucchini
Banana Nut
Banana
Prune
Apricot
Quick Cranberry
Quick Fruit
Raw Apple
Pain de Fruits
Lemon
Persimmon
Baking Powder Biscuits
Certainly no bread in America has been more popular over a longer time than baking powder biscuits. In fact, in many homes they were baked three times a day in great quantities, and were eaten hot, with butter and honey or preserves, along with every meal. Nowadays ready-to-bake biscuits that come packaged in tubes have taken the place of the homemade. I myself have seen people buying as many as two and three dozen tubes at a time. But few commercial brands are as good as a well-made biscuit, which should be made quickly and handled as little as possible. This is the standard recipe.
[About 12 biscuits]
2 cups sifted all-purpose flour
1 tablespoon double-acting baking powder
½ teaspoon salt
½ stick (¼ cup) butter or other shortening
¾ cup milk
Sift the flour into a mixing bowl with the baking powder and salt. Then, using your fingers or two knives (I use a heavy fork) blend the butter and flour into very fine particles. Add the milk and stir into the dough just enough to make the particles cling together. (It should be a very, very soft dough.) Turn out on a floured surface and knead for about 1 minute, then either pat or roll out. (If you want very high, fluffy biscuits, the dough should be ½ to ¾ of an inch thick, and if you want thin, crusty biscuits, make it about ¼ inch thick.) Cut in rounds or in squares. For crisp biscuits, place far apart on an ungreased cookie sheet; for fluffier biscuits, place close together on an ungreased cookie sheet. Bake in a preheated 450° oven for about 12 to 15 minutes, and serve piping hot.
VARIATIONS
• Add chopped herbs or grated cheese to the biscuit dough.
• For drop biscuits, add another ¼ cup of milk, drop by spoonfuls onto a buttered baking sheet, and bake the same way.
Cream Biscuits
We had a reputation at home for very special biscuits, which were made by our Chinese cook, who was with us for many years. After he left us they became a standard item in our household, and I still make them very often. The secret of their unique quality is this: They use heavy cream instead of butter or shortening.
[About 12 biscuits]
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon double-acting baking powder
2 teaspoons granulated sugar
¾ to 1 cup heavy cream
Melted butter
Sift the dry ingredients together and fold in the heavy cream until it makes a soft dough that can be easily handled. Turn out on a floured board, knead for about 1 minute, and then pat to a thickness of about ½ to ¾ inch. Cut in rounds or squares, dip in melted butter, and arrange on a buttered baking sheet or in a square baking pan. Bake in a preheated 425° oven for 15 to 18 minutes and serve very hot.
Gingerbread
Many people consider gingerbread to be a cake, but it was originally meant to be a bread served at lunch or dinner with sweet butter. It is best, I think, served slightly warm with plenty of butter; if cold, cut it thin and spread with softened butter. The variation with chopped candied ginger gives it a surprisingly different look.
[6 good servings]
1 cup light or dark molasses
½ cup boiling water
5 tablespoons butter
½ teaspoon salt
1½ to 2 teaspoons ground ginger
1 teaspoon baking soda
2 cups all-purpose flour
Put the molasses in a mixing bowl, add the boiling water and butter, and stir until well mixed. Add the salt, ginger, and soda and stir lightly. Then stir in just enough flour to moisten and mix the ingredients. Turn into a 9 × 9 × 2-inch baking pan. Bake at 375° for 25 to 35 minutes, or until the top springs back when pressed lightly and the bread pulls away from the sides of the pan.
VARIATION
• Sprinkle chopped candied ginger on top of the bread before baking, which will give it a very dark, flecked outer appearance. The baking time may be a few minutes longer.
Irish Whole-Wheat Soda Bread
Traditionally, soda bread is baked over a peat fire in a three-legged iron pot that can be raised or lowered over the fire in the old-fashioned way. Soda bread is very different from any other bread you can find in the world. It’s round, with a cross cut in the top, and it has a velvety texture, quite unlike yeast bread, and the most distinctive and delicious taste. Sliced paper thin and buttered, it is one of the best tea or breakfast breads I know, and it makes wonderful toast for any meal.
[1 round loaf]
3 cups whole-wheat flour
1 cup all-purpose flour
1 tablespoon kosher salt or 2 teaspoons regular salt
1 level teaspoon baking soda
¾ teaspoon double-acting baking powder
1½ to 2 cups buttermilk
Combine the dry ingredients and mix thoroughly to distribute the soda and baking powder, then add enough buttermilk to make a soft dough, similar in quality to biscuit dough but firm enough to hold its shape. Knead on a lightly floured board for 2 or 3 minutes, until quite smooth and velvety. Form into a round loaf and place in a well-buttered 8-inch cake pan or on a well-buttered cookie sheet. Cut a cross on the top of the loaf with a very sharp, floured knife. Bake in a preheated 375° oven for 35 to 40 minutes, or until the loaf is nicely browned and sounds hollow when rapped with the knuckles. (The cross will have spread open, which is characteristic of soda bread.) Let the loaf cool before slicing very thin; soda bread must never be cut thick.
VARIATION
• For white soda bread, use 4 cups al
l-purpose flour, preferably unbleached, and the same amounts of salt and baking powder called for in the master recipe, but decrease the baking soda to ¾ teaspoon. Otherwise, the bread is prepared in exactly the same way as in the master recipe.
Helen Evans Brown’s Corn Chili Bread
The late Helen Evans Brown was a specialist in California’s traditional foods. This recipe of hers is an extremely moist, rich bread that is delicious with plenty of butter. It can be served with such things as roast pork or a roast turkey or even with a good stew. It is one of my oldest bread recipes, and one of my very favorites. As a matter of fact, I have often served it for large parties, doubling the recipe, which is very simple.
[9 to 10 servings]
3 ears of fresh, uncooked corn
1 cup yellow cornmeal
2 teaspoons salt
3 teaspoons double-acting baking powder
1 cup sour cream
¾ cup melted butter
2 eggs, well beaten
¼ pound Gruyere or Monterey Jack cheese, very finely diced
1 4-ounce can peeled green chilis, finely chopped
Scrape the kernels from the corn cobs and combine with the remaining ingredients. Pour into a well-buttered 9-inch-square baking dish or 2½-quart soufflé dish. Bake in a preheated 350° oven for 1 hour. Serve with melted butter or with the sauce from the main dish.
Clay’s Cornsticks
Cornsticks are different in their way from cornbread. They are baked in a mold shaped like a row of corn ears. The mold is heated as hot as possible after you have greased it with bacon fat, goose grease, or homemade lard, which will give a good flavor and won’t burn the way butter will. The cornsticks usually bake to a golden color and are puffy inside and deliriously crunchy on the outside. For a variation, add 2 tablespoons of fresh grated corn.
This recipe will make about 14 sticks. Most cornstick molds make 7 or 8, so you can bake one batch, quickly regrease the mold, and bake another batch during the meal. Before using a new mold it is wise to follow the rules for curing it, generally given on the label. Then try these very good, simple-to-make cornsticks.
“Clay” is Clayton Triplette, who has been my assistant and housekeeper for many years, and who is no mean cook himself.
[About 14 cornsticks]
1 cup all-purpose flour
1 cup cornmeal preferably stone ground if you can get it
3 teaspoons double-acting baking powder
½ teaspoon salt
1 cup milk or buttermilk
2 tablespoons melted butter
2 eggs
Sift the dry ingredients together, and stir in the milk and melted butter to make a light batter, along with the eggs. Generously grease the mold with any fat except butter and heat until very hot. Spoon the batter into the mold to make it three-quarters full. Bake in a preheated 400° oven 18 to 20 minutes, until the cornsticks are brown and puffy. Remove at once, regrease the mold, and refill with the remaining batter. Serve the cornsticks hot from the molds with plenty of butter.
Boston Brown Bread
This is as American as any food can be because it was created by our early settlers as an accompaniment for Boston baked beans. It has a delicious personality of its own. I remember that in our house it was steamed in baking powder tins, which produced a lovely cylindrical loaf, after which it was dried out for a short time in the oven. The one-pound baking powder tins we used to get are no longer quite the same. Nowadays you might try one-pound coffee cans, although they are larger. This recipe will make enough for 2 one-pound tins or 4 half-pound baking powder tins.
1 cup rye meal
1 cup cornmeal
1 cup graham flour
¾ tablespoon baking soda
2 teaspoons salt
¾ cup molasses
2 cups buttermilk
Combine the dry ingredients, add the molasses and the buttermilk, and stir until very well mixed. Then pour two-thirds full into well-buttered 1-pound molds—1-pound coffee tins or baking tins or any type of mold that will be airtight; the long tins in which English biscuits come are ideal, too. (Be sure to butter the lid as well as the tin.) Cover the lid with foil and tie it so it will be watertight. Place the mold on a trivet or a rack in a large kettle containing enough boiling water to come halfway up around the mold. Cover the kettle tightly and steam for 1½ to 2 hours, adding more boiling water if needed. Remove the bread and dry slightly in a 350° oven. Eat warm, with plenty of butter.
VARIATION
• Add 1 cup raisins to the dough before steaming.
Carl Gohs’ Zucchini Bread
This rather unusual loaf has a very pleasant flavor, a little on the sweet side, and a distinctive texture. The built-in moisture provided by the zucchini makes it a very good keeper. It can be prepared with 1 cup of whole-wheat flour instead of all white flour.
[2 loaves]
3 eggs
2 cups granulated sugar
1 cup vegetable oil
2 cups grated, peeled raw zucchini
3 teaspoons vanilla extract
3 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking soda
¼ teaspoon double-acting baking powder
3 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1 cup coarsely chopped filberts or walnuts
Beat the eggs until light and foamy. Add the sugar, oil, zucchini, and vanilla and mix lightly but well. Combine the flour, salt, soda, baking powder, and cinnamon and add to the egg-zucchini mixture. Stir until well blended, add nuts, and pour into two 9 × 5 × 3-inch greased loaf pans. Bake in a preheated 350° oven for 1 hour. Cool on a rack.
Banana Nut Bread
Another extremely popular baking-soda fruit bread, rich in flavor and rather tight in texture, this is more banana-y than the one that follows. It is extraordinarily good for small sandwiches or as a breakfast or luncheon bread, and it makes excellent toast. The top may crack during baking, but that is of no great consequence.
[1 large loaf]
½ stick (¼ cup) butter
½ cup granulated sugar
½ cup honey 2 eggs
1½ cups mashed, very ripe bananas (3 heavy ones should do it)
1½ cups all-purpose flour
½ teaspoon baking soda
½ teaspoon salt
½ cup sliced nuts, almonds or your choice
Cream the butter with a wooden spoon. Add the sugar and honey and beat till creamy and light. Add the eggs, one at a time, then thoroughly mix in the bananas. Sift together the flour, soda, and salt and blend thoroughly into the mixture. Finally fold in the nuts.
Butter a 12 × 4½ × 2½-inch loaf tin and pour in the batter. Bake in a preheated 350° oven 1 hour, or until a knife inserted in the center comes out clean.
Banana Bread
This is another banana bread, which I find lighter and perhaps more flavorful than the previous one, although both are extremely interesting breads. You might experiment and decide for yourself.
[1 loaf]
2 cups sifted all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
½ teaspoon salt
½ cup butter or other shortening
1 cup granulated sugar
2 eggs
1 cup mashed, very ripe bananas (about 2 bananas)
⅓ cup milk
1 teaspoon lemon juice or vinegar
½ cup chopped nuts
Sift the flour with the soda and salt. Cream the butter and gradually add the sugar. Mix well. Add the eggs and bananas and blend thoroughly. Combine the milk and lemon juice, which will curdle a bit. Slowly and alternately fold in the flour mixture and milk mixture, beginning and ending with the dry ingredients. Blend well after each addition. Stir in the nuts, then pour the batter into a lavishly buttered 9 × 5 × 3-inch pan and bake in a preheated 350° oven for 1 hour, or until the bread springs back when lightly touched in the center.
Prune Bread
Like all fruit breads, this is moist
and rather rich and sweet. It is a delicious bread for breakfast or for tea, and it is good for certain types of sandwiches, such as those with fillings of fruit and nuts or olives and nuts. Also, since pork and prunes are complementary, cold pork or ham sandwiches on prune bread make an excellent and novel combination. Be sure to start the prunes marinating the day before you make the bread.
[1 large loaf]
2 eggs
1 cup milk
¼ cup sherry or Madeira, in which the prunes have marinated for 24 hours
½ cup granulated sugar
½ teaspoon salt
½ teaspoon ground cinnamon
2 cups all-purpose flour
3 teaspoons double-acting baking powder
1 cup finely chopped prunes, previously marinated and drained
Mix the eggs, milk, and sherry or Madeira in a mixing bowl, and sift in the sugar, salt, cinnamon, flour, and baking powder. Stir until well mixed, and finally add the prunes. Pour into a well-buttered bread pan or soufflé dish or any 6-cup mold you choose; a round loaf is rather pleasant in this case.
