Buttermilk Bread

James B White

Captain
Honored Fallen Comrade
Joined
Dec 4, 2011
Mrs. E. F. Haskell's Buttermilk Bread is about as simple a bread recipe as you'll find in the period. It's from her 1861 Housekeeper's Encyclopedia.

Buttermilk Bread.--With one quart of buttermilk mix two quarts of flour and two even teaspoons of soda; knead well, make the dough into two loaves, let rise ten minutes, and bake.

The chemistry behind this is the acid of the buttermilk reacts with the alkali of the soda to produce carbon dioxide which is trapped in the bread and causes the bread to rise. Kneading activates the gluten of the bread, making it hold together better.

Commercial buttermilk will do, though obviously the closer you can get to "real" buttermilk left over from churning, the better. Soda is regular baking soda (bicarbonate of soda). In older recipes, one sees the bicarbonate of soda or potash dissolved in water before being added, probably to deal with lumps and impurities, but Mrs. Haskell seems to want it added dry, not unusual for 1861. In a few other recipes on the linked page, she suggests sifting the soda with the flour, and that would be an excellent way to mix the soda evenly before adding the buttermilk.

The flour is the real problem. The wheat-growing region of the US was working its way west, but unlike modern hard wheat grown on the plains, wheat grown locally around the Mississippi River and east needed to withstand humidity, and that meant soft wheat. Mediterranean Wheat was one popular variety, but there were many local ones, spring wheat in the north, winter wheat where it could survive the winter.

Soft wheat makes flour with less gluten than "all-purpose flour," and even less than "bread flour." Today, it's made into "cake flour" or "pastry flour," and I've used cake flour to make bread, but it seems ground finer than it should be. Then there's bleaching... If anyone knows of a commercial flour today that fits the parameters of typical period white flour from east of the Mississippi, I'd love to know.

So now you're ready to sift your soda and flour together. A round screen with a wooden hoop rim was typical, maybe a foot or so in diameter. You added some of the flour, shook the sieve right and left till the flour fell through, leaving behind bugs and impurities, then added more till it had all gone through and was fluffy and free of lumps. In this case, the soda would be shaken up with it, and when done, you would add the buttermilk, then turn it out on a floured surface to knead it.

Soda is single-acting, unlike modern double-acting baking powder which releases some more of its gas immediately and the restwhen heated. So you don't have a whole lot of time to get the bread in the oven before the gas leaks out and no more will appear. I'd knead it just enough, and consider the ten minute rising time an upper limit. Have ready two standard loaf pans greased with butter, and preheat the oven.

If you haven't kneaded bread by hand before, it's easier to look at a YouTube video than have me try to describe it. As far as oven temperature, a hot oven, maybe 400 to 450 degrees, works for bread. Watch to see when it's done, golden brown on top, hollow sounding when you tap it, loose in the pan.
 
Mrs. E. F. Haskell's Buttermilk Bread is about as simple a bread recipe as you'll find in the period. It's from her 1861 Housekeeper's Encyclopedia.

Buttermilk Bread.--With one quart of buttermilk mix two quarts of flour and two even teaspoons of soda; knead well, make the dough into two loaves, let rise ten minutes, and bake.

The chemistry behind this is the acid of the buttermilk reacts with the alkali of the soda to produce carbon dioxide which is trapped in the bread and causes the bread to rise. Kneading activates the gluten of the bread, making it hold together better.

Commercial buttermilk will do, though obviously the closer you can get to "real" buttermilk left over from churning, the better. Soda is regular baking soda (bicarbonate of soda). In older recipes, one sees the bicarbonate of soda or potash dissolved in water before being added, probably to deal with lumps and impurities, but Mrs. Haskell seems to want it added dry, not unusual for 1861. In a few other recipes on the linked page, she suggests sifting the soda with the flour, and that would be an excellent way to mix the soda evenly before adding the buttermilk.

The flour is the real problem. The wheat-growing region of the US was working its way west, but unlike modern hard wheat grown on the plains, wheat grown locally around the Mississippi River and east needed to withstand humidity, and that meant soft wheat. Mediterranean Wheat was one popular variety, but there were many local ones, spring wheat in the north, winter wheat where it could survive the winter.

Soft wheat makes flour with less gluten than "all-purpose flour," and even less than "bread flour." Today, it's made into "cake flour" or "pastry flour," and I've used cake flour to make bread, but it seems ground finer than it should be. Then there's bleaching... If anyone knows of a commercial flour today that fits the parameters of typical period white flour from east of the Mississippi, I'd love to know.

So now you're ready to sift your soda and flour together. A round screen with a wooden hoop rim was typical, maybe a foot or so in diameter. You added some of the flour, shook the sieve right and left till the flour fell through, leaving behind bugs and impurities, then added more till it had all gone through and was fluffy and free of lumps. In this case, the soda would be shaken up with it, and when done, you would add the buttermilk, then turn it out on a floured surface to knead it.

Soda is single-acting, unlike modern double-acting baking powder which releases some more of its gas immediately and the restwhen heated. So you don't have a whole lot of time to get the bread in the oven before the gas leaks out and no more will appear. I'd knead it just enough, and consider the ten minute rising time an upper limit. Have ready two standard loaf pans greased with butter, and preheat the oven.

If you haven't kneaded bread by hand before, it's easier to look at a YouTube video than have me try to describe it. As far as oven temperature, a hot oven, maybe 400 to 450 degrees, works for bread. Watch to see when it's done, golden brown on top, hollow sounding when you tap it, loose in the pan.
Will show to the wife this morning as she is the expert bread baker and get her feel for this.
 
James,if you have a good bakery near you that bakes from scratch you can go to them and ask if they will sell you clear flour.clear flour is soft wheat flour that you are looking for.they would get it in 100lb. Bags or in some cases 50lb. Bags. A 50lb. Bag may cost you from $38.00-$45.00.if you ask nicely they may sell you a few pounds.
 
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