{"id":3850,"date":"2015-07-12T15:53:48","date_gmt":"2015-07-12T21:53:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cooking.pfeist.net\/?p=3850"},"modified":"2025-06-20T15:07:55","modified_gmt":"2025-06-20T21:07:55","slug":"250-cookbooks-the-bread-basket","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/cooking.pfeist.net\/?p=3850","title":{"rendered":"250 Cookbooks: The Bread Basket"},"content":{"rendered":"

Cookbook #119:<\/strong>\u00a0The Bread Basket<\/em>, Standard Brands Incorporated, 1941.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/a>“Baking day isn’t on the American housewife’s calendar any more. For at her bakery or grocery . . . fresh every day . . . is a profusion of breads, rolls, cakes and pastries that’s one of the world’s wonders.”<\/p>\n

“How tempting they are . . . how delicious . . . how cheap . . . and what a world of work they save!”<\/p>\n

“But there are times when women like to run up a batch of rolls of their own, or try their hand at a coffee cake, just to see if they can still do it!”<\/p>\n

So begins this delightful 1941 cookbook. I smile as I turn the pages.<\/p>\n

The breads in this cookbook are all yeast breads, and Fleischmann’s<\/em> yeast is specified in every recipe. (Standard Brands was formed in 1929 by J. P. Morgan by a merger of Fleischmann’s and four other companies<\/a>. In 1981, Standard Brands merged with Nabisco to form Nabisco Brands, Inc.)<\/p>\n

The copy right has expired on this cookbook, so I am going to share with you a few of my favorite pages. Let the book speak for itself!<\/p>\n

\"page<\/a>\"page<\/a>Bagles! And yes, the recipe below is for “bagels”, as we spell it.<\/p>\n

\"page<\/a>\"page<\/a>\"Corn<\/a>I always google my cookbook titles. This time I find the Fresh Loaf website<\/a> has reproduced a later version of The Bread Basket<\/em>. The cover is the same, the layout is the same, but the content is different and refers to war rationing.<\/p>\n

This was one of my mother’s cookbooks, but she didn’t make any notes in it, nor are their food stains. She must have got it soon after she was married.<\/p>\n

I decide to make “Corn Meal Muffins” for this blog. The original recipe is in the picture just above. I think it might be interesting to use yeast as the leavening in corn muffins instead of baking powder! I hope they turn out.<\/p>\n

A couple notes. The recipe calls for “scalded milk”. This is simply milk heated to just below boiling. This kills any bacteria that might interfere with the yeast and\/or the taste of the bread. With today’s pasteurized milk, most (but not all) cooks consider this an unnecessary step.<\/p>\n

“1 cake of yeast” probably means a 2 ounce cake of wet, compressed yeast. Although caked yeast is supposedly still available, I haven’t seen it in years, so I will use my usual active dry yeast<\/a>. According to the Red Star website<\/a>, 1\/3 of a 2 ounce yeast cake is equal to 2 1\/4 teaspoons of dry yeast. I am making a half recipe, so I should use 3 3\/8 teaspoons of dry yeast. (I actually used 1 1\/2 teaspoons yeast but would use more next time.)<\/p>\n

Yeast Corn Muffins<\/strong><\/a>
\nmakes 10<\/em><\/p>\n