Unfermented Bread

Instructions

1. Know what you are making: in this bread carbonate of soda and muriatic acid are substituted for yeast or other leaven. It has been highly recommended and much eaten of late years, but it is not in general by any means so pleasant in flavour as bread fermented in the usual way, and there is much more chance of failure with it in private families, as it requires some skill to mix the ingredients with exactness and despatch.
2. It is absolutely necessary that the dough be set into the oven the instant it is ready.
3. The receipt as printed: "For each pound of flour (or meal) take forty grains of sesquicarbonate of soda, mix it intimately with the sugar and flour, then add fifty drops of muriatic acid of the shops, diluted with half a pint of water, or with as much as may be requisite to form the dough, stirring it constantly into a smooth mass. Divide it into a couple of loaves, and put them immediately into a quick oven." Bake them thoroughly.
4. Acton's own improvement on the mixing: rub the soda, mixed with the sugar and a small portion of the flour, through a hair sieve with a wooden spoon into the remainder of the flour, and stir it up with it until the whole is perfectly mingled, before the liquid is added.
5. Should lighter bread be desired, the soda may be increased to fifty or even sixty grains, if the quantity of acid be proportionately augmented.
6. No salt is needed besides: as common salt is formed by the combination of these two agents, none beside is needed in the bread.
7. Proportions (her closing line; the sugar is quantified here and nowhere else in the receipt): flour, 1 lb.; sesquicarbonate of soda, 40 grains; sugar, 1 teaspoonful; muriatic acid of the shops, 50 drops; water, 1/2 pint (or as needed).
8. Where this receipt comes from, and how far it has been tested: the substance of the quoted receipt is taken from Dr. Pereira's book on diet. He reports that delicious bread was made by it in his presence by the cook of Mr. John Savory, of Bond Street, equal to any bread fermented by the usual process. Acton adds that in some hydropathic and other large establishments, where this bread is always supplied to the table in lieu of the more common kinds, patients who had partaken of it there for many months together have told her it was exceedingly and uniformly good. She refers the reader to her "Cookery for Invalids" for fuller information, want of space compelling her to reserve it.