Some Good Old Fashioned Bread Recipes

September 18, 2015

One of my projects is to look for old recipe books.  They often have great recipes in them that are made from scratch and work with foods that we can produce or grow at home.  These particular recipes came from the book Everyday Foods in War Time written in 1917.  They are bread recipes.

Eggless Corn Muffins

  • Corn meal, 1 cup

  • Pastry flour (sifted), ½ cup

  • Sugar, ¼ cup

  • Melted butter, 2 tablespoons

  • Salt, 1 teaspoon

  • Baking powder, 2 teaspoons

  • Milk, 1 cup

Mix dry ingredients and add milk and melted butter. Put in greased muffin pan and bake 30 minutes in a moderate oven.

Oat Bread

  • Boiling water, 2 cups

  • Salt, ½ tablespoon

  • ½ yeast cake, dissolved in ½ cup lukewarm water

  • Rolled oats (dry), 1 cup

  • Molasses, ½ cup

  • Fat, 1 tablespoon

  • Flour, 4½ cups

Add boiling water to the rolled oats, stir well and let stand for one hour. Add molasses, salt, fat, dissolved yeast cake, and flour; let the dough rise to double its bulk, beat well, and turn into greased bread pans, let rise the second time, and bake about one hour in a moderate oven.

War Time Boston Brown Bread

Boston Brown Bread

  • Rye meal, 1 cup

  • Corn meal, 1 cup

  • Finely ground oatmeal, 1 cup

  • Milk, 1½ cups

  • Soda, ¾ teaspoon

  • Salt, 1 teaspoon

  • Molasses, 1 cup

  • Baking powder, 2 teaspoons

Mix and sift dry ingredients, add molasses and milk, stir until well mixed, turn into a well-greased mold, and steam three and one-half hours. The cover should be greased before being placed on mold. The mold should never be filled more than two-thirds full. A one-pound baking powder box makes the most attractive shaped loaf for steaming; place mold on a trivet in kettle containing boiling water, allowing water to come half-way up around mold; cover closely and steam, adding as needed more boiling water. One cup chopped peanuts and 1 cup of cut dates may be added.

Rice Bread

  • Milk, ½ cup

  • Sugar, 6 tablespoons

  • Fat, 4 tablespoons

  • Salt, 1½ teaspoons

  • Compressed yeast, ½ cake, softened in ¼ cup liquid

  • Boiled rice, 7 cups

  • Flour, 8 cups

This proportion makes two loaves of bread.

Scald the milk with sugar, salt, and fat. Let cool until lukewarm and pour over the boiled rice. Add yeast which has been softened in one-quarter cupful warm water. Stir in flour and knead. Let rise until double its bulk. Knead again and put into pans. Let rise until light and bake 50 minutes to one hour in a moderate oven.

The rice should be boiled in a large quantity of boiling water, in order to insure a dry rice. At least eight or ten times as much water as rice should be used.

These bread recipes are a bit different from the ones that we normally see today.  Powdered milk can be used in place of fresh milk.  Yeast can be gathered or replaced by substitutes.  See the following posts for some ideas, Old Ways to Leaven Bread,  Leavening Bread with Homemade Baking Powder, Leavening Agents for baking after TEOTWAWKI,  and Juniper Berries Another Useful Edible Plant.  The rest of the foods should be in your storage, with the possible exception of fat.

Good luck with your bread recipes

Howard

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