About making bread

How to make bread
Try the yeast always by setting to raise in a cup of lukewarm water or milk, if you use compressed yeast add salt and sugar.
If it rises in the course of ten or fifteen minutes, the yeast is fit to use. In making bread always use sifted flour. Set a sponge with lukewarm milk or water, keeping it covered in a warm place until very light, then mold this sponge by adding flour, until very light into one large ball, then knead well and steadily for twenty minutes. Set to rise again in a warm place free from drafts, and when it has risen to double its former bulk, take a knife, cut through the dough in several places, then place this dough on a baking board which has been sprinkled with flour. Work with the palm of the hand, always kneading towards the centre of the ball (the dough must rebound like a rubber ball). When this leaves the board and the hands perfectly clean the dough may be formed into loaves or rolls.
Place in pan, greased slightly with a good oil, let rise until the imprint of the finger does not remain, and bake.
The oven for baking bread should be hot enough to brown a teaspoon of flour in five minutes.
If baked in a coal range, the fire must be just the proper heat so as not to have to add fuel or shake the stove.
If baked in a gas range, light oven to full heat five minutes before putting the bread in the oven, and bake in a moderately hot oven forty-five minutes, unless the loaves are very large when one hour willbe the proper time.
When taken from the oven, the bread may be wrapped in a clean towel wrung out of warm water (this prevents the crust from becoming hard. place bread in slanting position or allow it to cool on a wire rack.