I was watching the PBS series "Victoria" and researched Francatelli, her chef for part of her reign. One of the cookbooks he authored was "A Plain Cookery Book for the Working Classes". Fascinating reading. Public domain copies are available.
Here are his comments on bread from the Introduction:
And now a few words on baking your own bread. I assure you if you would adopt this excellent practice, you would not only effect a great saving in your expenditure, but you would also insure a more substantial and wholesome kind of food; it would be free from potato, rice, bean or pea flour, and alum, all of which substances are objectionable in the composition of bread. The only utensil required for bread-making would be a tub, or trough, capable of working a bushel or two of flour. This tub would be useful in brewing, for which you will find in this book plain and easy directions.
And now for the recipe itself:
No. 131. How to Bake your own Bread.
Put a bushel of flour into a trough, or a large pan; with your fist make a deep hole in the centre thereof; put a pint of good fresh yeast into this hollow; add thereto two quarts of warm water, and work in with these as much of the flour as will serve to make a soft smooth kind of batter. Strew this over with just enough flour to hide it; then cover up the trough with its lid, or with a blanket to keep all warm, and when the leaven has risen sufficiently to cause the flour to crack all over its surface, throw in a handful of salt, work all together; add just enough lukewarm soft water to enable you to work the whole into a firm, compact dough, and after having kneaded this with your fists until it becomes stiff and comparatively tough, shake a little flour over it, and again cover it in with a blanket to keep it warm, in order to assist its fermentation. If properly managed, the fermentation will be accomplished in rather less than half an hour. Meanwhile that the bread is being thus far prepared, you will have heated your oven to a satisfactory degree of heat, with a sufficient quantity of dry, small wood faggots; and when all the wood is burnt, sweep out the oven clean and free from all ashes. Divide your dough into four-pound loaves, knead them into round shapes, making a hole at the[69] top with your thumb, and immediately put them out of hand into the oven to bake, closing the oven-door upon them. In about two hours' time they will be thoroughly baked, and are then to be taken out of the oven, and allowed to become quite cold before they are put away in the cupboard.
Now, would anyone want to give this a try?
Recipe: (sounds British to me)
Method:
The Preferment: In a bowl add flour. Make a well in the flour and add the barm. Mix in 2 pints of water and just enough flour to make a batter. Sprinkle flour over the top and cover. The preferment will be done when it's risen and the flour is cracked.
The Dough: Throw in a handful of salt and work in the rest of the flour adding just enough water to make a stiff dough. Sprinkle with flour again and cover. Bulk ferment for 30 minutes.
Pre-heat your oven
Shaping and Baking: Divide the dough into 4 equal pieces and shape into boules. Make an indent into the top with your thumb and bake straight away.
Bake for 2 hours (Just how hot or cold were these ovens?)
One bushel of flour is around 19,232g
Barm = around 568g
Water = 1136g
So the "poolish" should be around 568g barm + 1136g water + 1704g flour = 3408g (20% ish)
I would probably do something like this:
P.s. Of course it took so long to bake. These breads were huge. We're talking about 19kg ish of flour and they were only divided into 4 loaves!?
I read that you divided it into "4 pound" loaves ... that each loaf was 4 pounds, not that it was divided into 4 loaves.
I misread that.
And here we are, adding rice, bean and pea flours and definitely potatoes to our bread! We are so objectionable...
sometimes and I though she was talking about drinking but she was talking about bread:-)
What a great recipe. I really need to get a trough and maybe a cow to drink from it. Maybe a cow would be the perfect apprentice to knead 20 pounds of dough......
Cunning and conniving we is...,
Wild-Yeast
Regarding their ovens, you might enjoy the following from the Introduction:
In order to carry out my instructions properly, a few utensils will be necessary. Industry, good health, and constant employment, have, in many instances, I trust, enabled those whom I now address to lay by a little sum of money. A portion of this will be well spent in the purchase of the following articles:—A cooking-stove, with an oven at the side, or placed under the grate, which should be so planned as to admit of the fire being open or closed at will; by this contrivance much heat and fuel are economized; there should also be a boiler at the back of the grate. By this means you would have hot water always ready at hand, the advantage of which is considerable. Such poor men's cooking-stoves exist, on a large scale, in all modern-built lodging-houses. Also, a three-gallon iron pot with a lid to it, a one-gallon saucepan, a two-quart ditto, a frying-pan, a gridiron, and a strong tin baking-dish.
Here is a list of the cost prices at which the above-named articles, as well as a few others equally necessary, may be obtained of all ironmongers:—