Baking | Casting and Moulding | Colliers | Tanners

The life of the 19th Century Baker and his apprentices began about 4 o’clock in the morning. The apprentices would arise and take care of fetching the water for the day and then lighting the fires in the oven. The fires, which use one quarter of a cord of wood, would be lit between 5 and 7 o’clock in the morning. After the lighting the bread would be prepared.

In the 19th century the average person ate approximately one pound of bread per day, usually with their mid day meal, which usually consisted of meat pies or left-over of boiled meats, stews, cold chicken, cheeses and fruits. The main staple of the mid day meal was bread, most commonly white bread, which helped to extend a sometimes sparse meal and added the extra carbohydrates to provide quick energy for the afternoon’s labors. 

The bread preparation consisted of mixing the yeast with tepid water, then adding sugar and milk to feed the yeast. After this mixture was completely incorporated into itself the first dry ingredients were added, a blend of flour and salt. After this the flour was added about one to two pounds at a time, depending on the quantity of dough required and then, after thoroughly mixed and kneaded, set in dough boxes to rise for two hours. The mixing was done in large dough troughs using wooden paddles with one person at either end. The workers would place their feet on either side of the trough’s legs to steady it and work the dough with the paddles using their hands, scraping along the sides and then drawing the dough back towards them in the centre.

After the initial batch of dough, which took about 15 minutes to make, was set to rise, a second batch would be started and made in the same matter and also set to rise in a dough box. During the time of the initial risings, the apprentices would busy themselves with slicing fruits, cleaning the shop and chopping wood for that evening’s charge.

After two hours the dough would be turned out of the dough box and kneaded a second time. During this kneading process the baker was correcting the texture of the dough, making it smooth to the touch and the sight. Much of 19thg century baking was done incorporating all the senses, especially touch, sight and smell. Once the dough was kneaded a second time and the baker was satisfied it was ready, the dough would again be put in the dough boxes to rise again for an hour. After the dough was placed into the boxes a second time the apprentices would begin to pull the fires in the oven slowly toward the front, leaving the smoldering embers at about two thirds of the way to the rear.

After the dough completed its second rise, it was divided into one pound portions and kneaded into loaves. It was very important that the bread be a minimum of one pound, and most bakers made their loaves an ounce or two over. There were laws in the early 19th Century specifying the weight of the loaves at one pound. The loaves were then placed on the bread pans and allowed to rise directly on the pans for their third rising. During the time of the third rising the apprentices would again pull the fires towards the front of the oven, this time one third of the way back. As the fires heated the oven the black carbon which covered the roof of the oven form the initial lighting would burn off and the bricks would return to their original coloring.

Shortly before the bread was finished with its third and final rising, the apprentices pulled the hot embers out of the oven through a fire grate in the floor of the oven where they would drop into a fire pit below. About this time the bread was ready for baking and the trays would be placed into the oven.

For proper baking the oven would be at a temperature of 400 degrees. In the days before oven thermometers the baker would test the temperature by the color of flour tossed on the oven floor. He would toss a small handful of flour into the oven and if it turned a golden brown the oven was ready for baking bread. If it burned and turned black the oven was too hot and if it took a while to turn golden brown the temperature was too low and the bread would take longer to bake.

The bread took 15 minutes to bake and come to a deep golden brown color. The bread would have a rather crisp crust which was important as this was a way of preserving it and extending the shelf life. Once the bread was taken home, the loaf was cut in half and the two halves placed face down on a cutting board. The person cutting the bread would cut the sliced across the bottom working the way up and the end cuts or crusts were saved as thickening agents in that night’s stews and boiled meats. Sometimes the crusts were allowed to stale over the course of a day or two and a special treat, bread pudding, was made.

After the white breads were completed baking fruits breads, especially raisin bread was baked next. By this time the oven had cooled to a temperature of about 375 degrees f. After the fruit breads were finished, sugar breads were, cinnamon rolls and the like were baked. These were done in shallow oblong pans which retained their heat after being pulled from the oven and continued to bake the breads.

After the sugar breads finished baking, the next item were cookies, or as we call them in the Historic Village at Allaire, flat cakes. After the cookies were finished the apprentices would recharge the oven, or stack it back with wood for the following day’s firing, and after doing so, the pies and cakes would be baked. By this time the oven had cooled considerably, to about 300 to 325 degrees and the pies and cakes cooked slowly. When the pies and cakes were finished baking it was about mid afternoon and the local women would begin to bring in their pies, both fruit and meat, to have them baked in the ovens for a small fee. Most homes at the time did not have bake ovens and to have a baker nearby was almost a necessity. On holidays and Sundays it was quite common for the women to bring things like turkey, goose and other fowl to be baked. If one recalls Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol, you will remember Mrs. Crachit taking the goose to the baker to have it prepared for Christmas Dinner.

The last task of the apprentices, as far as baking went, was to place the fruits they had cut earlier in the day onto wooden peals and place them in the oven to dry over night. Drier fruits such as apples and pears would dry in one night’s time, while fruits like plums and peaches and even tomatoes took two nights to dry. They would be pulled out of the oven in the following morning and then placed back in that evening. During the course of the night, not only would the fruit dry out but the wood, or charge, for the following day’s baking would cure as well.

The final duties of the apprentices included cleaning the shop, washing all the cooking implements used during the day and doing any prep work assigned by the baker for the following day. During the night the apprentices, which usually had a pallet upstairs from the bakery to sleep on, would sleep in two hour shifts. The “man up” was responsible for keeping the mice and other vermin away from the barrels of flour stored on the second or third floor of the bakery while his partner slept. After two hours he would wake his partner apprentice and they would switch off, the first apprentice sleeping while the second became the “man up.” The following morning it would all being again.