it
being well remembered by us that baking-day,—a periodical little
festival of childhood's time, and much reckoned on then, because of
certain privileged Doughnuts, hot, sweet, and eagerly eaten,—did not
recur more often than once a week at the outside ; and that the batch
of bread baked at such infrequent times continued to be appetising, and
moist, and of nice flavour, to the last. Loving memories of the dear
old wood-heated brick oven, immediately beyond the kitchen precincts,
still dwell regretfully in our minds. In the " Stan-Myln " mills
already noticed, the tough germ-seed escapes all risk of becoming
flattened out, to the detriment of the flour ; because contact with,
and the friction of, the rough surfaces of the mill-stones reduces the
germ to fine particles which are impalpably miscible with the flour.
But in roller mills the result is far different, because the friction
effected by two iron rollers revolving in opposite directions, is
looser than that brought about by the close millstones ; and thus the
germ-seed becomes quickly liberated in the form of small discs, which
escape altogether from the flour.
Lines—" To God." " Bread for our service, bread for shew ; Meat
for our meals; and fragments too : He gives not poorly,—taking some
Between the finger and the thumb ; But for our glut, and for our store,
Fine flour press'd down, and running o'er."
"
In former days," tells Dr. R. Hutchison, " when good flour was more
expensive than now, adulterants were often added to bread ; of which
alum was one of the most harmful. Inferior flour will not form good
dough because of too great a solubility of its proteids ; but alum
seems to unite with these proteids so that they
