Common Sense in the Household 52

Common Sense in the Household 52

HOMINY CAKES. ✠

 

2 cups fine hominy, boiled and cold.

1 cup white flour.

1 quart milk.

3 eggs, very well beaten.

1 teaspoonful salt.

 

Beat smooth the hominy, work in the milk and salt, then the flour,

lastly the eggs. Bake at once, and keep the mixture well stirred.

 

 

CREAM CAKES. ✠

 

1 pint cream and same quantity of milk, slightly sour.

4 eggs, whites and yolks whipped separately.

1 teaspoonful soda dissolved in boiling water.

1 teaspoonful salt.

Flour to make a good batter, well beaten in.

 

 

VELVET CAKES.

 

1 quart new unskimmed milk—half cream and half milk is preferable.

3 eggs, whites and yolks beaten separately, and very stiff.

1 teaspoonful salt.

Rice flour.

 

Mix the beaten yolks with the milk, add the salt, then rice flour to

make a batter as thick as that for flannel cakes; lastly, whip in the

stiffened whites very lightly, and bake immediately.

 

 

RISEN WAFFLES.

 

1 quart milk.

1 heaping quart flour.

5 tablespoonfuls yeast.

2 eggs.

1 tablespoonful melted butter.

1 teaspoonful salt.

 

Set the mixture—minus the eggs and butter—over night as a sponge; add

these in the morning, and bake in waffle-irons.

 

 

“MOTHER’S” WAFFLES. ✠

 

2 cups milk.

2 eggs.

3 cups flour.

1 teaspoonful cream-tartar.

½ teaspoonful soda.

1 saltspoonful salt.

1 tablespoonful melted butter.

 

Sift the cream-tartar into the flour with the salt. Dissolve the soda

in a little hot water. Beat the eggs very well. Add the flour the last

thing. If the batter is too stiff, put in more milk.

 

 

RICE WAFFLES (_No. 1._) ✠

 

1 cup boiled rice.

1 pint milk.

2 eggs.

Lard, the size of a walnut.

½ teaspoonful soda.

1 teaspoonful cream-tartar.

1 teaspoonful salt.

Flour for a thin batter.

 

 

RICE WAFFLES (_No. 2._)

 

1 quart milk.

1 cup cold boiled rice.

3 cups rice flour, or enough for thin batter.

1 tablespoonful melted butter.

3 eggs.

1 teaspoonful salt.

 

 

QUICK WAFFLES.

 

1 pint milk.

3 eggs, beaten very light.

1 tablespoonful melted butter.

1 teaspoonful cream-tartar sifted in the flour.

½ teaspoonful soda.

1 teaspoonful salt.

A heaping pint of flour, or enough to make soft batter.

 

 

RICE AND CORN-MEAL WAFFLES.

 

1 cup cold boiled rice.

½ cup white flour, and same of corn-meal.

2 eggs well whipped, and milk to make soft batter.

1 tablespoonful melted butter.

½ teaspoonful soda, dissolved in hot water.

1 teaspoonful of salt.

 

Beat the mixture smooth before baking.

 

Be especially careful in greasing your irons for these waffles, as for

all which contain rice.

 

 

 

SHORTCAKE, &C.

 

 

_Sunnybank Shortcake_ (_for fruit._) ✠

 

2 scant quarts flour.

2 tablespoonfuls lard.

3 tablespoonfuls butter.

2½ cups sour or buttermilk. ”Loppered“ cream is still better.

2 eggs, well beaten.

1 teaspoonful soda, dissolved in hot water.

1 teaspoonful salt.

 

Chop up the shortening in the salted flour, as for pastry. Add the

eggs and soda to the milk; put all together, handling as little as

may be. Roll lightly and quickly into two sheets, the one intended

for the upper crust half an inch thick, the lower less than this. Lay

the latter smoothly in a well-greased baking-pan, strew it _thickly_

with raspberries, blackberries, or, what is better yet, huckleberries;

sprinkle four or five tablespoonfuls of sugar over these, cover with

the thicker crust, and bake from twenty to twenty-five minutes, until

nicely browned, but not dried. Eat hot for breakfast with butter and

powdered sugar.

 

If sweet milk be used, add two teaspoonfuls cream-tartar sifted into

the dry flour. It should be mixed as soft as can be rolled. This

shortcake is very nice made with the common “black-caps” or wild

raspberries.

 

 

STRAWBERRY SHORTCAKE. ✠

 

1 quart flour.

3 tablespoonfuls butter.

1 _large_ cup sour cream or very rich “loppered” milk.

1 egg.

4 tablespoonfuls white sugar.

1 teaspoonful soda, dissolved in hot water.

1 saltspoonful salt.

 

Proceed, in mixing and baking, as with the huckleberry short-cake,

except that, instead of putting the berries between the crust, you lay

one sheet of paste smoothly upon the other, and bake until done. While

warm—not hot—separate these. They will come apart easily, just where

they were joined. Lay upon the lower a thick coating several deep,

of strawberries; sprinkle powdered sugar among and over them; cover

with the upper crust. It is best to bake strawberry shortcake in round

jelly-cake tins, or round pans a little deeper than these, as they

should be sent to table whole, while the hot short-cake is generally

cut into square slices, and piled upon a plate.

 

Strawberry shortcake is esteemed a great delicacy in its season. It is

eaten at tea, cut into triangles like pie, and sweet cream poured over

each slice, with more sugar sifted over it, if desired.

 

 

SCOTCH SHORT-BREAD.

 

2 lbs. flour.

1 lb. best butter.

½ lb. powdered sugar.

 

Chop the flour and butter together, having made the latter quite soft

by setting it near the fire. Knead in the sugar, roll into a sheet half

an inch thick, and cut in shapes with a cake-cutter. Bake upon buttered

paper in a shallow tin until crisp and of a delicate yellowish brown.

 

 

GRANDMA’S SHORTCAKE.

 

1 lb. flour, dried and sifted.

¼ lb. butter, and half as much lard.

1 saltspoonful salt.

A pinch of soda, thoroughly dissolved in just enough vinegar

to cover it, and well worked in.

 

Enough ice-water to enable you to roll out into paste half an inch

thick. Cut into squares, prick with a fork, and bake light brown.

Split, butter, and eat while hot.

 

 

EASTER BUNS (“_Hot Cross._”) ✠

 

3 cups sweet milk.

1 cup yeast.

Flour to make thick batter.

 

Set this as a sponge over night. In the morning add—

 

1 cup sugar.

½ cup butter, melted.

½ nutmeg.

1 saltspoonful salt.

 

Flour enough to roll out like biscuit. Knead well, and set to rise for

five hours. Roll half an inch thick, cut into round cakes, and lay in

rows in a buttered baking-pan. When they have stood half an hour, make

a cross upon each with a knife, and put instantly into the oven. Bake

to a light brown, and brush over with a feather or soft bit of rag,

dipped in the white of an egg beaten up stiff with white sugar.

 

These are the “hot cross-buns” of the “London cries.”

 

 

PLAIN BUNS

 

Are made as above, but not rolled into a sheet. Knead them like

biscuit-dough, taking care not to get it too stiff, and after the

five-hour rising, work in two or three handfuls of currants which have

been previously well washed and dredged with flour. Mould with your

hands into round balls, set these closely together in a pan, that they

may form a loaf—“one, yet many”—when baked. Let them stand nearly an

hour, or until very light; then bake from half to three-quarters of

an hour until brown. Wash them over while hot with the beaten egg and

sugar.

 

These are generally eaten cold, or barely warm, and are best the day they are baked.