Common Sense in the Household 48

Common Sense in the Household 48

FRENCH ROLLS. (_No. 1._) ✠

 

In kneading dough for the day’s baking, after adding and working in

the risen sponge, set aside enough for a loaf of tea-rolls. Work into

this a heaping tablespoonful of lard or butter, and let it stand in

a tolerably cool place (not a cold or draughty one) for four hours.

Knead it again, and let it alone for three hours longer. Then make into

rolls, by rolling out, _very_ lightly, pieces of the dough into round

cakes, and folding these, not quite in the centre, like turn-overs. The

third rising will be for one hour, then bake steadily half an hour or

less, if the oven is quick.

 

Having seen these rolls, smoking, light, and delicious, upon my own

table, at least twice a week for ten years, with scarcely a failure in

the mixing or baking, I can confidently recommend the receipt and the

product. You can make out part of your Graham dough in the same manner.

 

 

FRENCH ROLLS. (_No. 2._)

 

1 quart milk; new, warm milk is best.

1 teacup yeast.

1 quart and a pint of flour.

 

When this sponge is light, work in a well-beaten egg and two

tablespoonfuls melted butter, with a teaspoonful of salt, half a

teaspoonful soda dissolved in hot water, one tablespoonful white sugar

and enough white flour to make a soft dough. Let this stand four

or five hours, roll out into round cakes and fold as in No. 1, or

shape with your hands into balls. Set these closely together in the

baking-pan; let them rise one hour, and just before putting them into

the oven, cut deeply across each ball with a sharp knife. This will

make the cleft roll, so familiar to us in French restaurants. Bake half

an hour.

 

 

RISEN BISCUIT. ✠

 

1 quart milk.

¾ cup lard or butter—half-and-half is a good rule.

¾ cup of yeast.

2 tablespoonfuls white sugar.

1 teaspoonful salt.

Flour to make a soft dough.

 

Mix over night, warming the milk slightly and melting the lard or

butter. In the morning, roll out into a sheet three-quarters of an inch

in thickness; cut into round cakes, set these closely together in a

pan, let them rise for twenty minutes, and bake twenty minutes.

 

These delightful biscuits are even better if the above ingredients be

set with half as much flour, in the form of a thin sponge, and the rest

of the flour be worked in five hours later. Let this rise five hours

more, and proceed as already directed. This is the best plan if the

biscuits are intended for tea.

 

 

SALLY LUNN. (_No. 1._) ✠

 

1 quart of flour.

4 eggs.

½ cup melted butter.

1 cup warm milk.

1 cup warm water.

4 tablespoonfuls yeast.

1 teaspoonful salt.

½ teaspoonful soda, dissolved in hot water.

 

Beat the eggs to a stiff froth, add the milk, water, butter, soda,

and salt; stir in the flour to a smooth batter, and beat the yeast

in well. Set to rise in a buttered pudding-dish, in which it must be

baked and sent to table. Or, if you wish to turn it out, set to rise

in a _well_-buttered mould. It will not be light under six hours. Bake

steadily three-quarters of an hour, or until a straw thrust into it

comes up clean. Eat while hot.

 

This is the genuine old-fashioned Sally Lunn, and will hardly give

place even yet to the newer and faster compounds known under the same

name.

 

 

SALLY LUNN. (_No. 2._) ✠

 

1 scant quart flour.

4 eggs.

1 teacupful milk.

1 teacupful lard and butter mixed.

1 teaspoonful cream-tartar.

½ teaspoonful soda, dissolved in hot water.

1 teaspoonful salt.

 

Beat the eggs very light, yolks and whites separately, melt the

shortening, sift the cream-tartar into the flour; add the whites the

last thing.

 

 

POTATO BISCUIT.

 

8 potatoes of medium size, mashed very fine.

4 tablespoonfuls butter, melted.

2 cups milk, blood-warm.

1 cup yeast.

Flour to make a thin batter.

2 tablespoonfuls white sugar.

 

Stir all the above ingredients together except the butter, and let the

sponge rise until light—four or five hours will do; then add the melted

butter with a little salt and flour, enough to make soft dough. Set

aside this for four hours longer, roll out in a sheet three-quarters of

an inch thick, cut into cakes; let these rise one hour, and bake.

 

 

MRS. E——‘S BISCUIT (_Soda._) ✠

 

1 quart flour.

2 heaping tablespoonfuls of lard.

2 cups sweet—if you can get it—_new_ milk.

1 teaspoonful soda.

2 teaspoonful cream-tartar.

1 saltspoonful of salt.

 

Rub the soda and cream-tartar into the flour, and sift all together

before they are wet; then put in the salt; next the lard, rubbed into

the prepared flour quickly and lightly; lastly, pour in the milk.

Work out the dough rapidly, kneading with as few strokes as possible,

since handling injures the biscuit. If properly prepared the dough

will have a rough surface and the biscuit be flaky. The dough should

also be _very_ soft. If the flour stiffen it too much, add more milk.

Roll out lightly, cut into cakes at least half an inch thick, and bake

in a quick oven. The biscuit made by the friend from whom I had this

receipt were marvels of lightness and sweetness. I have often thought

of them since with regretful longing, when set down to so-called

“soda-biscuit,” marbled with greenish-yellow streaks, and emitting,

when split, an odor which was in itself an eloquent dissuasive to an

educated appetite. Few cooks make really good, quick biscuit—why, I am

unable to say, unless upon the principle of “brains will tell.” I have

had more than one in my kitchen, who, admirable in almost every other

respect, were absolutely unfit to be intrusted with this simple yet

delicate manufacture. The common fault is to have too “heavy a hand”

with soda, and to “guess at” the quantities, instead of measuring them.

Eat while warm.

 

 

GRAHAM BISCUIT. ✠

 

3 cups Graham flour.

1 cup white flour.

3 cups milk.

2 tablespoonfuls lard.

1 heaping tablespoonful white sugar.

1 saltspoonful of salt.

1 teaspoonful of soda.

2 teaspoonfuls cream-tartar.

 

Mix and bake as you do the white soda-biscuit (Mrs. E——‘s). They are

good cold as well as hot.

 

 

MINUTE BISCUIT.

 

1 pint sour, or buttermilk.

1 teaspoonful soda.

2 teaspoonfuls melted butter.

 

Flour to make soft dough—just stiff enough to handle. Mix, roll, and

cut out rapidly, with as little handling as may be, and bake in a quick

oven.

 

 

GRAHAM WHEATLETS.

 

1 pint Graham flour.

Nearly a quart of boiling water or milk.

1 teaspoonful salt.

 

Scald the flour, when you have salted it, into as soft dough as you

can handle. Roll it nearly an inch thick, cut in round cakes, lay upon

a hot buttered tin or pan, and bake them in the hottest oven you can

get ready. Everything depends upon heat in the manufacture of these.

Some cooks spread them on a hot tin, and set this upon a red-hot stove.

Properly scalded and cooked, they are light as puffs, and very good;

otherwise they are flat and tough. Split and butter while hot.

 

 

SWEET RUSK. ✠

 

1 pint warm milk.

½ cup of butter.

1 cup of sugar.

2 eggs.

1 teaspoonful of salt.

2 tablespoonfuls yeast.

 

Make a sponge with the milk, yeast, and enough flour for a thin batter,

and let it rise over night. In the morning add the butter, eggs, and

sugar, previously beaten up well together, the salt, and flour enough

to make a soft dough. Mould with the hands into balls of uniform size,

set close together in a pan, and let them rise until very light. After

baking, wash the tops with a clean soft cloth dipped in molasses and water.