=Yeast-Cakes.=--Pour a pint of boiling water over a teaspoonful of hops; let it stand ten or fifteen minutes, then strain the water into a saucepan; heat it boiling hot, stir in flour enough to make a stiff batter, and set it aside to cool. When lukewarm, put in a teacupful of good yeast, or a yeast-cake softened in water. Set in a warm place to rise. When light, add a teaspoonful of salt, two table-spoonfuls of molasses or sugar, and a little soda. Then mix in corn meal to make it stiff enough to roll into a long round roll. Cut it in slices about half an inch thick, spread meal over your board, and lay these cakes to dry. Turn them frequently while drying, and, if possible, get them dried in two or three days, or they may become sour. It is well to dry them in the air, but not in the sun. Put them in bags in a dry place; and when you use one soak it in milk-warm water. BREAD. =General Rules.=--Five quarts of flour and one quart of milk or water are sufficient for two loaves in quart-pans. Rub shortening, salt, and potatoes, if used, into the flour before wetting it. The milk or water for wetting should be about milk-warm, and the yeast be stirred into part of the wetting for the sponge, or into the whole, if the bread is to be made without sponging; then pour it on the flour and knead. =Bread without Sponging.=--Sift five quarts of flour, cover and set by the fire to dry. Pare and boil five medium-sized potatoes. When done, drain them dry from the water and sprinkle over them a teaspoonful of salt. Mash perfectly smooth and free from lumps, adding an even table-spoonful of sugar, and rub all together, till potatoes and flour are perfectly combined. Take a pint of the water in which the potatoes were boiled, and a little more than a pint of milk, and when blood-warm stir into it one cup of home-made or a cent’s worth of bakers’ yeast. Pour it on the flour and potatoes, and knead the whole together without sponging. All bread should be kneaded a full half-hour, then covered with a clean bread-cloth, and over that a bread-blanket, and set in a warm place to rise. If mixed overnight it will be ready for the second molding before breakfast; then make into loaves and put into the pans for the second and last rising. When light let it be well baked, but not long enough to make it hard and dry. When done, take from the pans, wrap a bread-cloth round each loaf, and turn upper side down into the pans, leaving it there till cold. This will help to make the crust tender.