While bread is being baked the door of the oven should be opened as seldom as possible, particularly until the dough has set, or become firm, as cold draughts of air admitted to it will have an unfavourable effect upon it, and cool the oven quickly at the same time.

THE OVEN.

Management of a brick oven.- Much of the quality of bread depends on its being well baked, and therefore, the nature and construction of the oven used for it, when it is required in large quantities, are very important. Of all that are in common use amongst us at present, a brick oven, heated with wood, is generally considered as the best adapted to it; and, certainly, no bread seems so sweet and wholesome as that which is so baked in private families, when perfect cleanliness has been observed in all the operations connected with it, and they have been performed with care and skill. To ensure a sufficient degree of heat to bake bread properly, and a variety of other things in succession after it when they are required, the oven should be well heated, then cleared and cleansed ready for use, and closely shut from half an hour to an hour, according to its size. It will not then cool down as it would if the baking were commenced immediately after the fire was with

drawn, but will serve for cakes, biscuits, sweet puddings, fruit, meat-jelly, jars of sago, tapioca, rice, and other preparations, for several hours. after the bread is taken out.

I have known a very large brick oven, heated in the middle of the day with one full sized faggot or rather more, and a log or two of cord-wood*, which was added when the faggot was partly consumed, still warm enough at eight or nine o'clock in the evening to bake various delicate small cakes, such as macaroons and mesingues, and also custards, apples, &c.

It is both a great convenience and a considerable economy in many families to have such a means of preparing food for several days' consumption, and renders them entirely independent both of bakers and confectioners.

To restore the freshness of pastry, biscuits, or bread, when they begin to taste stale, it is only necessary to heat them through, without hardening them, in a gentle oven of any kind.

To heat a large brick oven.—Lay a quantity of shavings or other dry light fuel into the centre of the oven, and some small branches of faggot-wood upon them; over these place as many of the larger branches as will make a tolerably large fire, and set

* When there is no cord-wood at hand, the large faggotstems can be used instead, but will not have so good an effect. Elm, or beech, or oak is the best of all fuel.

light to the shavings. As the wood consumes keep adding more, throwing in, after a time, amongst the live embers the stout poles of the faggot, and, lastly, two or three moderate-sized logs of cord-wood, when the oven is of large dimensions and the heat is wanted to be long-sustained. When no cord-wood is at hand, the necessary quantity of large faggot or other wood must be used instead.

From an hour and a half to two hours will be required to heat thoroughly a full-sized brick oven. The fire should be spread over it in all parts towards the end of the time, that the whole of the floor may be in a proper state for baking.

After all the embers and ashes have been cleared out, a large mop, kept exclusively for the purpose, dipped into hot water and wrung very dry, should be passed in every direction over it, to cleanse it perfectly for the reception of the bread.

As the heat is greatest at the further part of the oven (and at the sides frequently), it is usual to place loaves of the largest size there, and those which require less baking nearer to the mouth of the oven.

To ascertain whether a brick oven be heated to the proper degree for baking bread, it is customary for persons who have not much experience to throw a small quantity of flour into it. Should it take fire immediately, or become black, the oven

is too hot*, and should be closed, if the state of the dough will permit it to wait, until the temperature is moderated: this is better than cooling it down quickly by leaving the door open. It may also be tested by putting into it small bits of dough about the size of walnuts, which will soon show whether it be over heated or not sufficiently so.

When, from want of due calculation or any other point of good management, the dough is not ready when the oven is fit to receive it, and the heat has too much abated by the time it is so to permit it to be properly baked, the economist should bear in mind that the cost of having it heated anew to the proper degree will be a very trifling consideration compared with the loss of the bread itself, if it should be spoiled by insufficient baking. The price of half a bushel of flour would purchase a large number of faggots.

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Cottage brick oven. To bake half a bushel of bread in the oven of a working man's cottage, a fourpenny faggot-in those counties where wood is to be obtained at a reasonable price is usually found sufficient. The bread in many cases is divided into eight or nine large loaves, which are baked for about two hours. The fire is kindled in the oven immediately after the dough is made; but it is not commonly left to rise so long as two

*This test is to be relied upon only when the flour is not very old and dry, as it will then take fire in an instant.

hours, much more yeast being used for it oftener than is really needed, and the fermentation being much quickened in consequence.

Iron ovens. It is not easy to give very precise directions for heating these; they vary so exceedingly in size and in construction. Those which have a fire under them will sometimes bake extremely well if they are carefully attended to, and not over-heated; but in general they are a little difficult to manage, being apt to burn the surface of bread or pastry before they are half baked; and another disadvantage attached to them is that the iron-plate at the bottom, being so near the fire, becomes greatly over-heated, and quickly blackens what is placed upon it. A remedy for this is, to withdraw the sliding sheet of iron which usually separates these ovens into two compartments, and to set some clean bricks close together on the oven floor to receive the tins of bread or other preparations. A thick layer of sand placed between two sheets of iron will likewise prevent the excess of heat; but the bricks are somewhat preferable. In many of the cooking-stoves of the present day the ovens are so much improved that they bake admirably; and they can always be brought to the required temperature when it is higher than is needed, by leaving the door open for a time.

American ovens.—It is possible to bake bread