Hannah Glasse wrote her brilliant The Art of Cookery Made Plain and Easy in the 1740s. She is the first author to make the promise we know so well—I will show you how easy it is to make good food! Her 1740s work remained in print well into the following century. Through multiple editions, and through widespread plagiarism, The Art of Cookery made Plain and Easy became one of the most influential English language cookbooks. Hannah Glasse joined E. Smith, whose cookbook came out a few years earlier, in establishing female cookbook authors as money trees for publishers. Cookbook publishing is an area in which women have long been able to thrive.
18th century cookbook authors like Hannah Glasse saw themselves more as curators than inventors of a personal culinary language. Few published cookbooks existed. The primary cookbook model was still the manuscript cookbook—a largely anonymous compilation of culinary wisdom in which authorship was not important. What was important was the collection of recipes. When Glasse used a recipe she found elsewhere, she usually added a few helpful details. I often feel that Hannah Glasse is standing besides me offering a helping hand.
This bread recipe is one in which Hannah Glasse has added useful tips to help make the recipe a success.
While today we associate French bread with an an enriched, crusty loaf, in the 18th century, French bread was associated with a yeast-leavened, lightly enriched loaf very much like our sandwich bread.
What makes this loaf particularly interesting to me is that it has a very high hydration level. It looks to me that this recipe is 80% liquid. 60% is a more normal level for breads in her period—and still a go-to, basic bread hydration level. French bread was in the French “pain mollet” tradition—soft bread. In a similar recipe published in 1711 by the popular French author Louis Liger, the dough is described as “bien mollet.” The “pain mollet” style of bread was first recorded in Cotgrave’s 1611 bilingual French-English dictionary as a salty bread with large eyes. Glasse does not place emphasis on the salt—this was a bread with an open crumb.
French Bread
Take three quarts of water, and one of milk; in winter scalding hot, in summer a little more than milk warm; season it well with salt, then take a pint and a half of good ale yeast not bitter, lay it in a gallon of water the night before, pour it off the water, stir in your yeast into the milk and water, then with your hand break in a little more than a quarter of a pound of butter, work it well till it is dissolved, then beat up two eggs in a bason, and stir them in; have about a peck and a half of flour, mix it with your liquor; in winter make your dough pretty stiff, in summer more slack: so that you may use a little more or less flour, according to the stiffness of your dough: mix it well, but the less you work the better: make it into rolls, and have a very quick oven. When they have lain about a quarter of an hour, turn them on the other side, let them lie about a quarter longer, and then take them out and chip all your French bread with a knife which is better than rasping it, and make it look spungy and of a fine yellow, whereas the rasping takes off all that fine colour, and makes it look too smooth. You must stir your liquor into the flour as you do for the pie-crust. After your dough is made, cover it with a cloth, and let it lie to rise while the oven is heating.
French Bread Broken into Lines
- Take three quarts of water, (6.2 pounds) and one of milk (2.07 pounds); in winter scalding hot, in summer a little more than milk warm; season it well with salt,
- then take a pint and a half of good ale yeast (1.5 pounds) not bitter, lay it in a gallon of water the night before, pour it off the water,
- stir in your yeast into the milk and water, then with your hand break in a little more than a quarter of a pound of butter (4-5 oz), work it well till it is dissolved,
- then beat up two eggs (100g) in a bason, and stir them in;
- have about a peck and a half of flour (12 pounds), mix it with your liquor; in winter make your dough pretty stiff, in summer more slack: so that you may use a little more or less flour, according to the stiffness of your dough:
- mix it well, but the less you work the better: make it into rolls, and have a very quick oven.
- When they have lain about a quarter of an hour, turn them on the other side,
- let them lie about a quarter longer, and then take them out and chip all your French bread with a knife which is better than rasping it, and make it look spungy and of a fine yellow, whereas the rasping takes off all that fine colour, and makes it look too smooth.
- You must stir your liquor into the flour as you do for the pie-crust. After your dough is made, cover it with a cloth, and let it lie to rise while the oven is heating.
The Recipe for French Bread in Baker’s Math
100% white flour
51% water (if using the barm, else if using dry yeast make this 63% water. Warm in summer, hot in winter. Aim for dough temperate around 25C (78F).
17% milk
12% yeast in the form of barm. If you use barm, then use the 51% figure for the water.
0-1% salt. Salt is at your discretion. Period salt for this bread would have been minimal. Modern recipes are often 2% salt.
.03% softened butter
.018 beaten egg
The Recipe for French Bread in Baker’s Math with Modern Dried Yeast
100% white flour
63% water. Warm in summer, hot in winter. Aim for dough temperate around 25C (78F).
17% milk
1% dried yeast
0-1% salt. Salt is at your discretion. Period salt for this bread would have been minimal. Modern recipes are often 2% salt.
.03% softened butter
.018 beaten egg
Note: This recipe has a total hydration of 80%. Based on the E. Smith recipe for French bread she published in the 1720s, a recipe that Hannah Glasse will have known well, speaks of a dough that is worked with the hands and can be described as a “thin paste.” E. Smith also had the bread rise in wooden bowls. I do not know what technique was used to strengthen such a wet dough. Today, we use the method called, “stretch and fold.”
William Rubel 