, about eight inches in length, four in width, and five
in depth, are the most satisfactory. After the dough is molded, divide
it into loaves which will fill such pans to the depth of two inches. Let
them rise until double their first volume, and then put them in the
oven. In baking, the loaves will rise still higher, and if about five
inches high when done, will have expanded to about the right
proportions.

[Illustration: Bread Pan]

PROPER TEMPERATURE OF THE OVEN.--The objects to be attained in the
baking of bread are to break up the starch and gluten cells of the Sour
so as to make them easily digestible, to destroy the yeast plant, and
render permanent the cells formed by the action of the carbonic acid
gas. To accomplish well these ends, the loaf must be surrounded by a
temperature ranging from 400 deg. to 600 deg. The oven should be one in
which the heat is equal in all parts, and which can be kept at a steady,
uniform heat. Old-fashioned brick ovens were superior in this respect to
most modern ranges. The fire for baking bread should be of sufficient
strength to keep the oven heated for at least an hour. If the oven has
tendency to become too hot upon the bottom, a thin, open grate, broiler,
or toasting rack, should be placed underneath the tins to allow a
circulation of air and avoid danger of burning. If the heat be
insufficient, fermentation will not cease until the bread has become
sour; the cells will be imperfectly fixed or entirely collapsed; too
little of the moisture will have evaporated, and the result will be a
soft, wet, and pasty or sour loaf. If the heat be too great, the bread
will be baked before it has perfectly risen, or a thick, burned crust
will be produced, forming a non-conducting covering to the loaf, which
will prevent the heat from permeating the interior, and thus the loaf
will have an overdone exterior, but will be raw and doughy within. If,
however, the temperature of the oven be just right, the loaf will
continue for a little time to enlarge, owing to the expansion of the
carbonic acid gas, the conversion of the water into steam, and the
vaporizing of the alcohol, which rises in a gaseous form and is driven
off by the heat; a nicely browned crust will be formed over the surface,
the result of the rapid evaporation of water from the surface and
consequent consolidation of the dough of this portion of the loaf, and a
chemical change caused by the action of the heat upon the starch by