Bread and Cake Baking

Frederick D. Hauptmann's practical baking manual turns hard-earned bakery experience into a no-nonsense guide for home cooks and professionals alike. Opening with a plainspoken promise that the book should repay its cost in real results, he also speaks forcefully about the baking trade itself, condemning exhausting hours, night and Sunday labor, drinking, and the unhealthy conditions many bakers endure. From there, the book becomes a working baker's field guide, showing how a proper bakeshop should be clean, airy, warm, and efficiently arranged, with careful attention to floors, ventilation, storage, troughs, and hygiene. Hauptmann then leads readers through the science and craft of baking, from judging flour and handling bread to making stock yeast, ferment, and sponge with exact formulas and troubleshooting advice. Detailed instructions cover hearth, rye, French, and Graham breads, along with buns, rolls, rusks, cinnamon cake, doughnuts, apple cake, and glossy finishes. The later chapters expand into rich cakes and delicate pastries—pound cake, lady cake, fruit cake, mountain cake, Paris cake, jelly cake, sponge cake, drop cakes, lady fingers, lemon cakes, cream puffs, custards, cup cakes, jumbles, and more—always stressing precision, timing, appearance, and the baker's art. This edition has been fully restored with modern typesetting, custom cover design.