Here’s another bread receipt I want to try. It’s from Gervase Markham’s
The English Hus-wife, published in London, England, in 1615.
Manchets were made of the whitest of white flour (the most preferred),
and they were always leavened with either yeast or barm, and not sour
dough (starter). Few written receipts exist for this bread, most likely
because they weren’t needed; everyone knew how to make it.
Note that, unlike Martha Washington’s receipt (posted 5/20), the one
below has no milk. Adding ingredients such as milk or eggs created
what was known in earlier centuries as an enriched bread. Which,
incidentally, was a characteristic of most all French breads.
Of course, the most intriquing part of the following receipt is
the instruction to fold the dough into a cloth and then knead
it “with your feete.”
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Of baking Manchets
Now for the baking of bread of your simple meales,
your best and principall bread is manchet, which you shall
bake in this manner; first your meale being ground upon
the black stones if it be possible, which makes the whitest
flour, and boulted through the finest boulting cloth, you shall
put it into a clean Kimnel, and opening the flower hollow
in the midst, put into it of the best Ale-barme the quantity
of three pints to a bushel of meale, with som salt to season it
with: then put in your liquor reasonable warme, and kneade
it very well together, both with your hands, and through
the breake, or for want thereof, fould it in a cloth, and
with your feete tread it a good space together, then
letting it lie an howre or thereabout to swel, take it foorth
and mould it into manchets, round, and flat, scorcht
about the wast to give it leave to rise, and prick it
with your knife in the top, and so put into the Oven,
and bake it with a gentle heat.
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Kimnel: kneading tub
brake: kneading device
scorcht: slashed
wast: waist
(copied as written)
