Common Sense in the Household 49

Common Sense in the Household 49

DRIED RUSK. ✠

 

1 pint of warm milk.

2 eggs.

½ teacup of butter.

Half a cup of yeast.

1 teaspoonful salt.

 

Set a sponge with these ingredients, leaving out the eggs, and stirring

in flour until you have a thick batter. Early next morning add the

well-beaten eggs, and flour enough to enable you to roll out the dough.

Let this rise in the bread-bowl two hours. Roll into a sheet nearly an

inch thick, cut into round cakes, and arrange in your baking-pan two

deep, laying one upon the other carefully. Let these stand for another

half-hour, and bake.

 

These are now very nice for eating, and you may, if you like, reserve

a plateful for tea; but the rule for the many, handed down through,

I am afraid to say how many generations, in the family where I first

ate this novel and delightful biscuit, is to divide the twins, thus

leaving one side of each cake soft, and piling them loosely in the

pan, set them in the oven when the fire is declining for the night,

and leave them in until morning. Then, still obeying the traditions of

revered elders, put them in a clean muslin bag, and hang them up in

the kitchen. They will be fit to eat upon the third day. Put as many

as you need in a deep dish, and pour over them iced milk, or water, if

you cannot easily procure the former. Let them soak until soft, take

them out, drain them for a minute in a shallow plate, and eat with

butter. Invalids and children crave them eagerly. Indeed, I have seen

few refuse them who had ever tasted them before. There is a pastoral

flavor about the pleasant dish, eaten with the accompaniment of fresh

berries, on a summer evening, that appeals to the better impulses of

one’s appetite.

 

Try my soaked rusk—not forgetting to ice the milk—and you will find out

for yourself what I mean, but cannot quite express.

 

Dried rusk will keep for weeks, and grow better every day. The only

risk is in their being eaten up before they attain maturity.

 

 

BUTTER CRACKERS.

 

1 quart of flour.

3 tablespoonfuls butter.

½ teaspoonful soda, dissolved in hot water.

1 saltspoonful salt.

2 cups sweet milk.

 

Rub the butter into the flour, or, what is better, cut it up with a

knife or chopper, as you do in pastry; add the salt, milk, and soda,

mixing well. Work into a ball, lay upon a floured board, and beat with

a rolling-pin half an hour, turning and shifting the mass often. Roll

into an even sheet, a quarter of an inch thick, or less, prick deeply

with a fork, and bake hard in a moderate oven. Hang them up in a muslin

bag in the kitchen for two days to dry.

 

 

WAFERS. ✠

 

1 pound of flour.

2 tablespoonfuls butter.

A little salt.

 

Mix with sweet milk into a stiff dough, roll out very thin, cut into

round cakes, and again roll these as thin as they can be handled. Lift

them carefully, lay in a pan, and bake very quickly.

 

These are extremely nice, especially for invalids. They should be

hardly thicker than writing-paper. Flour the baking-pan instead of

greasing.

 

 

CRUMPETS (_Sweet._)

 

1 pint raised dough.

3 eggs.

3 tablespoonfuls butter.

½ cup white sugar.

 

When your bread has passed its second rising, work into the above-named

quantity the melted butter, then the eggs and sugar, beaten together

until very light. Bake in muffin-rings about twenty minutes.

 

 

CRUMPETS (_Plain._) ✠

 

3 cups warm milk.

½ cup yeast.

2 tablespoonfuls melted butter.

1 saltspoonful salt, and the same of soda, dissolved in hot water.

Flour to make good batter.

 

Set these ingredients—leaving out the butter and soda—as a sponge.

When very light, beat in the melted butter, with a _very_ little flour,

to prevent the butter from thinning the batter too much; stir in the

soda hard, fill pattypans or muffin-rings with the mixture, and let

them stand fifteen minutes before baking.

 

This is an excellent, easy, and economical receipt.

 

 

GRAHAM MUFFINS. ✠

 

3 cups Graham flour.

1 cup white flour.

1 quart of milk.

¾ cup yeast.

1 tablespoonful lard or butter.

1 teaspoonful salt.

2 tablespoonfuls sugar.

 

Set to rise over night, and bake in muffin-rings twenty minutes in a

quick oven. Eat hot.

 

 

QUEEN MUFFINS. ✠

 

1 quart of milk.

¾ cup of yeast.

2 tablespoonfuls white sugar.

1 tablespoonful of lard or butter.

1 teaspoonful salt.

Flour to make a good batter.

4 eggs.

 

Set the batter—leaving out the eggs—to rise over night. In the

morning beat the eggs very light, stir into the batter, and bake in

muffin-rings twenty minutes in a quick oven.

 

 

CREAM MUFFINS. ✠

 

1 quart sweet milk (half-cream, if you can get it).

1 quart flour—heaping.

6 eggs.

1 tablespoonful butter, and the same of lard—melted together.

 

Beat the eggs light—the yolks and whites separately; add the milk,

with a little salt, then the shortening, lastly the flour, stirring in

lightly. Bake immediately in well-greased rings half-filled with the

batter. Your oven should be hot, and the muffins sent to table so soon

as they are taken up.

 

 

BUTTERMILK MUFFINS.

 

1 quart buttermilk, or “loppered” sweet milk.

2 eggs.

1 teaspoonful soda, dissolved in hot water.

1 teaspoonful salt.

Flour to make good batter.

 

Beat the eggs well and stir them into the milk, beating hard all the

while; add the flour and salt, and at the last the soda. Bake at once

in a quick oven.

 

 

“MOTHER’S” MUFFINS. ✠

 

1 pint milk.

1 egg.

1 tablespoonful lard.

½ cup yeast.

Flour for stiff batter.

1 teaspoonful salt.

 

Set to rise over night.

 

 

CHARLOTTE MUFFINS. ✠

 

1 quart of flour.

3 eggs—the whites and yolks beaten separately and until stiff.

3 cups of milk. If sour, no disadvantage, if soda be added.

A little salt.

 

The excellence of these depends upon thorough beating and quick baking.

 

 

RICE MUFFINS. ✠

 

1 cup cold boiled rice.

1 pint of flour.

2 eggs.

1 quart of milk, or enough to make thin batter.

1 tablespoonful lard or butter.

1 teaspoonful salt.

 

Beat hard and bake quickly.

 

 

HOMINY MUFFINS. ✠

 

2 cups fine hominy—boiled and cold.

3 eggs.

3 cups sour milk. If sweet, add one teaspoonful cream tartar.

½ cup melted butter.

2 teaspoonfuls salt.

2 tablespoonfuls white sugar.

1 large cup flour.

1 teaspoonful soda.