  If eminence of importance entitled a subject to pre-eminence of position, that of which we are now about to speak should have stood foremost in this work. It is not a pleasant thing to think or write about, but it is a stubborn fact, that upon thousands of tables, in otherwise comfortable “I’m told you have a receipt for making bread,” laughed another to me; “I never heard of such a thing in my life, and I’ve been keeping house eighteen years. I wisely kept my thoughts to myself, and dictated the receipt, which she jotted down in a memorandum-book laughing all the while at the “excellent joke.” “You really use this?” she demanded, when this was done. “I do. I have used no other for many years.” “And the bread I ate upon your table, the other night, was made according to this?” Again an affirmative answer. “I guess your cook could tell another story,” rejoined the skeptic. “You can’t make me believe that bread is made by rule. I put my materials together anyhow, and I have as good luck as most of my neighbors.” I regarded my visitor as an impertinent simpleton; but I have been amazed, in subsequent years, at finding that her creed is that of hundreds of housewives more or less sensible. “Luck” rules the baking, and upon the shoulders of this Invisible are laid the deficiencies of the complacent cook. Cheap flour and laziness are at the bottom of more mishaps in the bread line than any other combination of circumstances. From the inferior grades of flour, it is possible to make tolerable biscuit, crumpets, and muffins, plain pastry, and very good griddle-cakes. You cannot, by any stretch of art, produce excellent bread from poor flour. It is no economy to purchase it for this purpose. It is judicious to lay in two barrels at a time, and to use the best only for the semi- or tri-weekly baking. Chiefest then among the conditions to good bread, I place good “family” flour—dry, elastic, and odorless. Whiteness is a secondary consideration, although, to American eyes, this is a recommendation. A little experience Sometimes new flour can be ripened for use by sifting enough for each baking into a large tray, and exposing it to the hot sun for some hours, or by setting it upon the kitchen hearth for the same time. And it not unfrequently happens that flour improves greatly after the barrel has been open for several days or weeks. It dries out and becomes lighter, more elastic. Next in importance to the quality of the flour is that of the yeast. This should be light in color and lively, effervescing easily when shaken, and emitting an odor like weak ammonia. If dull or sour, it is bad. In cities it is easiest, perhaps cheapest, to buy yeast from a brewery or bakery, exercising your discrimination as to quality. Unless you can satisfy yourself in this regard, you had better make your own. I can confidently recommend the receipts given in this work as easy and safe, having tried them in my own family. Novices in bread-making, and many who should have learned better by long experience, fall into a sad mistake in the consistency of the dough. It should be mixed as soft as it can be handled. Bread will rise sooner and higher, be lighter and more digestible, and keep fresh much longer, if this rule be followed. Stiff bread is close in texture, often waxy to the teeth, and after a day or so becomes very hard. Set the dough to rise in a moderately warm place, and keep it in an even temperature. There is force in the old lament—“My bread took cold, last night.” Cold arrests the process of fermentation. There is a chance, should this occur, that a removal to a more genial atmosphere and careful nursing may cure the congestion, should it be only partial. Too much heat carries forward the work too rapidly. In this case, you will find your dough puffy and sour. Correct the latter evil by dissolving a little soda or saleratus in hot water, and working it well in. Knead your bread faithfully and from all sides, until it rebounds like india-rubber after a smart blow of the fist upon the centre of the mass. The oven should not be too hot. If you cannot hold your bare arm within it while you count thirty, it is too quick. Keep the heat steady after the bread goes in. Too much fire at first, and rapidly cooling, produce the effect upon the bread which is technically called “slack-baked,” i. e., the inside of the loaf is never properly done. Practice and intelligent observation will, in time, make you an adept in the management of your ovens. If the bread rises rapidly while baking, and the crust begins to form before the lower part of the loaf is baked, cover the top with clean paper until you are ready to brown it. Grate away the burned portions of the crust, should there be such. This is better than chipping with a knife. One of the best bread-makers I know bakes in round pans, each loaf by itself, and grates the whole outer surface, top, bottom, and sides, quickly and lightly, toning down the brown to a uniform and pleasing tint. Tilt your loaves upon the edge, the lower part resting upon the table, the upper supported by the wall or other upright object, and throw a coarse dry cloth over them until they cool. This position allows the air to get at all sides, Yeast (Hop.) ?
Peel the potatoes, and put them with the hop-bag into a saucepan containing two quarts cold water. Cover and boil until the potatoes break and fall apart. Take these out with a perforated skimmer, leaving the water still boiling, mash them fine with a potato-beetle, and work in the flour and sugar. Moisten this gradually with the boiling hop tea, stirring it to a smooth paste. When all the tea has been mixed in, set it aside to cool. While still slightly warm, add four tablespoonfuls of lively yeast, and turn all into a large open vessel to “work.” Keep this in a warm place until it ceases to bubble up, or until next day. In summer it will work well in a few hours. When quite light, put in earthen jars with small mouths, in which fit corks, or bottle it, and remove to ice-house or cellar. It will keep good for a fortnight—longer in winter. When you wish to use it for baking, send a small vessel to the cellar for the desired quantity, and re-cork at once. A half-hour in a hot kitchen may spoil it. Yeast (Self-working).
Tie the hops in a coarse muslin bag, and boil one hour in four quarts of water. Let it cool to lukewarmness before removing the bag. Wet with the tepid liquor—a little at a time—the flour, making to a smooth paste. Put in the sugar and salt, beat up the batter three minutes before adding the rest of the tea. Set it away for two days in an open bowl covered with a thin cloth, in a closet which is moderately and evenly warm. On the third day peel, boil, and mash the potatoes, and when entirely free from lumps and specks, stir in gradually the thickened hop-liquor. Let it stand twelve hours longer in the bowl, stirring often, and keeping it in the warm kitchen. Then bottle or put away in corked jars, which must be perfectly sweet and freshly scalded. This will keep a month in a cool cellar. It is more troublesome to make it than other kinds of yeast, but it needs no other “rising” to excite fermentation, and remains good longer than that made in the usual way. Yeast (Potato.) ?
Peel and boil the potatoes until they break. Leaving the water on the fire, take them out and mash fine with the flour and sugar, wetting gradually with the hot water until it is all used. When lukewarm, add a gill of good This yeast is very nice and white, and is preferred by many who dislike the bitter taste of hops. It is also convenient to make when hops cannot be obtained. Yeast Cakes. ?
Boil the potatoes and hop-bag in two quarts of water for three-quarters of an hour. Remove the hops, and while boiling hot, strain the potatoes and water through a cullender into a bowl. Stir into the scalding liquor enough flour to make a stiff batter. Beat all up well; add two tablespoonfuls lively yeast and set in a warm place to rise. When light, stir in a cup of Indian meal, roll into a sheet a quarter of an inch thick, and cut into round cakes. Dry these in the hot sun, or in a very moderate oven, taking care they do not heat to baking. It is best to put them in after the fire has gone down for the night, and leave them in until morning. When entirely dry and cold, hang them up in a bag in a cool, dry place. Use one cake three inches in diameter for a loaf of fair size; soak in tepid water until soft, and add a pinch of soda or saleratus, then mix. These cakes will remain good a month in summer, two in winter. Baking Powders.
Roll smoothly and mix thoroughly. Keep in a tight glass jar or bottle. Use one teaspoonful to a quart of flour. Or,
Put as above, and use in like proportion. Bread Sponge (Potato.) ?
Mash the potatoes, and work in the lard and sugar. Stir to a cream, mixing in gradually a quart of the water in which the potatoes were boiled, which should have been poured out to cool down to blood warmth. Beat in the flour, already wet up with a little potato-water to prevent lumping, then the yeast, lastly the soda. Cover lightly if the weather is warm, more closely in winter, and set to rise over night in a warm place. Bread Sponge (Plain.) ?
Melt the lard in the warm water, add the sugar, then the flour by degrees, stirring in smoothly. A quart and a pint of flour will usually be sufficient if the quality is good. Next comes the yeast, lastly the soda. Beat up hard for several minutes, and set to rise as above. Bread mixed with potato-sponge is more nutritious, keeps fresh longer, and is sweeter than that made with the plainer sponge, But there are certain seasons of the year when good old potatoes cannot be procured, and new ones will not do for this purpose. The potato-sponge is safer, because surer for beginners in the important art of bread-making. After using it for fifteen years, I regard it as almost infallible—given the conditions of good flour, yeast, kneading, and baking. Family Bread (White.) ?Having set your sponge over night, or, if you bake late in the afternoon, early in the morning, sift dry flour into a deep bread-tray, and strew a few spoonfuls of fine salt over it. The question of the quantity of flour is a delicate one, requiring judgment and experience. Various brands of flour are so unequal with respect to the quantity of gluten they contain, that it is impossible to give any invariable rule on this subject. It will be safe, however, to sift two quarts and a pint, if you have set the potato-sponge; two quarts for the plain. This will make two good-sized loaves. Make a hole in the middle of the heap, pour in the risen sponge (which should be very light and seamed in many places on the top), and work down the flour into it with Do not make your first baking too large. Practice is requisite to the management of an unwieldy mass of dough. Let your trial-loaf be with say half the quantity of sponge and flour I have set down, and increase these as skill and occasion require, carefully preserving the proportions. Seven or eight quarts of flour will be needed for the semi-weekly baking of a family of moderate size. If I have seemed needlessly minute in the directions I have laid down, it is because I wish to be a guide, not a betrayer, and because I am deeply impressed with the worth of such advice as may tend to diminish the number of those who know not for themselves the comfort and delight of eating from day to day, and year to year, good family bread. Family Bread (Brown.) ?I wish it were in my power, by much and earnest speaking and writing, to induce every housekeeper to make brown bread—that is, bread made of unbolted, usually called Graham flour—a staple article of diet in her family. I only repeat the declaration of a majority of our Prepare a sponge as for white bread, using potatoes or while flour. My rule is to take out a certain quantity of the risen sponge on baking day, and set aside for brown bread. Put into a tray two parts Graham flour, one-third white, and to every quart of this allow a handful of Indian meal, with a teaspoonful of salt. Wet this up with the sponge, and when it is mixed, add, for a loaf of fair size, half a teacupful of molasses. The dough should be very soft. If there is not enough of the sponge to reduce it to the desired consistency, add a little blood-warm water. Knead it diligently and long. It will not rise so rapidly as the white flour, having more “body” to carry. Let it take its time; make into round, comfortable loaves, and set down again for the second rising, when you have again kneaded it. Bake steadily, taking care it does not burn, and do not cut while hot. The result will well repay you for your trouble. It will take a longer time to bake than white bread. Brown flour should not be sifted. Boston Brown Bread.Set a sponge over night, with potatoes or white flour, in the following proportions:—
Beat up well and let it rise five or six hours. When light, sift into the bread-tray—
Mix this up very soft with the risen sponge, adding warm water, if needed, and working in gradually
Knead well, and let it rise from six to seven hours. Then work over again, and divide into loaves, putting these in well-greased, round, deep pans. The second rising should last an hour, at the end of which time bake in a moderate oven about four hours. Rapid baking will ruin it. If put in late in the day, let it stay in the oven all night. Rye Bread.Set a sponge, as above, but with half the quantity of water. In the morning mix with this:
Proceed as with wheat bread, baking it a little longer. It is a mistake to suppose that acidity, greater or less, is the normal state of rye bread. If you find your dough in the slightest degree sour, correct by adding a teaspoonful of soda dissolved in warm water. It is safest to add this always in warm weather. Milk Bread.
Stir into the milk, which should be made blood-warm, a pint of flour, the sugar, lastly the yeast. Beat all together well, and let them rise five or six hours. Then melt the butter, and add with a little salt. Work in flour enough to make a stiff dough; let this rise four hours, and make into small loaves. Set near the fire for half an hour, and bake. In warm weather, add a teaspoonful of soda, dissolved in warm water, to the risen sponge, as all bread mixed with milk is apt to sour. Buttermilk Bread.
Stir in, while it is hot, enough flour to make a tolerably thick batter. Add half a gill of yeast, and let it rise five This makes very white and wholesome bread. Rice Bread.Make a sponge of—
Beat well together, and when it has risen, which will be in about five hours, add three pints of warm milk and three teacupfuls rice-flour wet to a thin paste with cold milk, and boiled four minutes as you would starch. This should be a little more than blood-warm when it is stirred into the batter. If not thick enough to make out into dough, add a little wheat-flour. Knead thoroughly, and treat as you would wheat bread in the matter of the two risings and baking. This is nice and delicate for invalids, and keeps well. If you cannot procure the rice-flour, boil one cup of whole rice to a thin paste, mashing and beating it smooth. 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 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.)
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. ?
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.) ?
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.) ?
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.
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.) ?
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. ?
Mix and bake as you do the white soda-biscuit (Mrs. E——‘s). They are good cold as well as hot. Minute Biscuit.
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.
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. ?
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. Dried Rusk. ?
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 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.
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 Wafers. ?
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.)
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.) ?
Set these ingredients—leaving out the butter and soda—as This is an excellent, easy, and economical receipt. Graham Muffins. ?
Set to rise over night, and bake in muffin-rings twenty minutes in a quick oven. Eat hot. Queen Muffins. ?
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. ?
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.
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. ?
Set to rise over night. Charlotte Muffins. ?
The excellence of these depends upon thorough beating and quick baking. Rice Muffins. ?
Beat hard and bake quickly. Hominy Muffins. ?
Beat the hominy smooth; stir in the milk, then the butter, salt, and sugar; next the eggs, which should first be well beaten; then the soda, dissolved in hot water; lastly the flour. There are no more delicious or wholesome muffins than these, if rightly mixed and quickly baked. Belle’s Muffins.
Sift the cream tartar with the flour. Beat the eggs very light. Dissolve the soda in hot water. Bake in rings in a quick oven. Corn Bread.There is a marked difference between the corn-meal ground at the South, and that which is sent out from Northern mills. If any one doubts this, it is not she who has perseveringly tried both kinds, and demonstrated to her own conviction that the same treatment will not do for them. An intelligent lady once told me that the shape of the particles composing the meal was different—the one being round and smooth, the other angular. I am inclined to believe this. The Southern meal is certainly coarser, and the bread made from it less compact. Moreover, there is a partiality at the North for yellow meal, which the Southerners regard as only fit for chicken and cattle-feed. The yellow may be the sweeter, but I acknowledge that I have never succeeded in making really nice bread from it. Indian meal should be purchased in small quantities, except for a very large family. It is apt to heat, mould, and grow musty, if kept long in bulk or in a warm place. If not sweet and dry, it is useless to expect good bread or cakes. As an article of diet, especially in the early warm days of spring, it is healthful and agreeable, often acting as a gentle corrective to bile and other disorders. In winter, also, it is always acceptable upon the breakfast or supper table, being warming and nutritious. In summer the free use of it is less judicious, on account “My husband is wild about corn bread,” a wife remarked to me not a hundred years ago, “but I won’t make it for him; it is such a bother! And if I once indulge him, he will give me no peace.” Beloved sister, I am persuaded better things of you. Good husbands cannot be spoiled by petting. Bad ones cannot be made worse—they may be made better. It seems a little thing, so trifling in its consequences, you need not tire further your aching back and feet to accomplish it—the preparation of John’s favorite dish when he does not expect the treat—to surprise him when he comes in cold and hungry, by setting before him a dish of hot milk-toast, or a loaf of corn bread, brown and crisp without, yellow and spongy within, instead of the stereotyped pile of cold slices, brown or white. If he were consulted, he would say, like the generous soul he is—“Don’t take one needless step for me, dear.” And he would mean it. But for all that, he will enjoy your little surprise—ay! and love you the better for it. It is the “little by little” that makes up the weal and woe of life. May I make this digression longer yet, by telling you what I overheard a husband say to a wife the other day when he thought no one else was near enough to hear him. He is no gourmand, but he is very partial to a certain kind of cruller which nobody else can make, he thinks, so well as his little wife. It so chanced that in “I can understand now,” said he, “how David felt when his men-of-war brought him the water from the well of Bethlehem.” Then he stooped and kissed the injured fingers. Yet he has been married twenty years. I was not ashamed that my eyes were moist. I honored him the more that his were dim. This is my lesson by the wayside apropos to corn-bread. And now again to business. Receipts for Bread made of Northern Indian Meal.Nonpareil Corn Bread. ?
Beat the eggs very thoroughly—whites and yolks separately—melt the lard, sift the cream-tartar and soda into the meal and flour while yet dry, and stir this in at the last. Then, to borrow the direction scribbled by a rattle-tongued girl upon the above receipt, when she sent it to me—“beat like mad!” Bake quickly and steadily in a buttered mould. Half an hour will usually suffice. In Corn Meal Muffins.Mix according to the foregoing receipt, only a little thinner, and bake in rings or small pattypans. All kinds of corn bread should be baked quickly and eaten while hot. Risen Corn Bread.
Mix well, put to rise in a buttered mould until very light. Bake one hour. It is well to scald the meal and stir in while blood-warm. Steamed Corn Bread. ?
Beat very hard and long, put in buttered mould, tie a coarse cloth tightly over it, and if you have no steamer, fit the mould in the top of a pot of boiling water, taking care it does not touch the surface of the liquid. Lay a close cover over the cloth tied about the mould, to keep in all This will do for a plain dessert, eaten with pudding-sauce. Corn-Meal Crumpets.
Scald the meal with the boiling milk, and let it stand until lukewarm. Then stir in the sugar, yeast, and salt, and leave it to rise five hours. Add the melted shortening, beat well, put in greased muffin-rings, set these near the fire for fifteen minutes, and bake. Half an hour in a quick oven ought to cook them. Never cut open a muffin or crumpet of any kind, least of all one made of Indian meal. Pass the knife lightly around it to pierce the crust, then break open with the fingers. Receipts for Corn Bread made of Southern Indian Meal.Johnny Cake.
Enough meal to enable you to roll it into a sheet half an inch thick. Spread upon a buttered tin, or in a shallow pan, and bake forty minutes. As soon as it begins to Aunt Jenny’s Johnny Cake.Mix as above; knead well, and bake upon a perfectly clean and sweet board, before a hot fire, with something at the back to keep it up. Incline at such an angle as will prevent the cake from slipping off, until it is hardened slightly by baking, then place upright. Baste frequently with butter until nicely crisped. Batter Bread, or “Egg Bread.” ?
Beat the eggs light, and the rice to a smooth batter in the milk. Melt the shortening. Stir all together very hard, and bake in shallow tins very quickly. Risen Corn Bread.Mix a tolerably stiff dough of corn-meal and boiling water, a little salt, and a tablespoonful butter. Let it stand four or five hours until light; make into small loaves and bake rather quickly. Corn-meal Pone.
Mould with the hands into thin oblong cakes, lay in a well-greased pan, and bake very quickly. The common way is to mould into oval mounds, higher in the middle than at the ends, shaping these rapidly and lightly with the hands, by tossing the dough over and over. This is done with great dexterity by the Virginia cooks, and this corn-meal pone forms a part of every dinner. It is broken, not cut, and eaten very hot. Ash Cakeis mixed as above. A clean spot is swept upon the hot hearth, the bread put down and covered with hot wood ashes. It must be washed and wiped dry before it is eaten. A neater way is to lay a cabbage-leaf above and below the pone. The bread is thus steamed before it is baked, and is made ready for eating by stripping off the leaves. Fried Pone.Instead of moulding the dough with the hands, cut into slices with a knife. Try out some fat pork in a frying-pan, and fry the slices in the gravy thus obtained to a light-brown. Griddle-Cakes, Waffles, etc.If you have not used your griddle or waffle-iron for some time, wash it off hard with hot soap and water; wipe and rub well with dry salt. Heat it and grease with a bit of fat salt pork on a fork. It is a mistake, besides being slovenly and wasteful, to put on more grease than is absolutely necessary to prevent the cake from sticking. A piece of pork an inch square should last for several days. Put on a great spoonful of butter for each cake, and before filling the griddle test it with a single cake, to be sure that all is right with it as well as the batter. The same rules apply to waffles. Always lay hot cakes and waffles upon a hot plate as soon as baked. Buckwheat Cakes. ?
Warm water enough to make a thin batter. Beat very well and set to rise in a warm place. If the batter is in the least sour in the morning, stir in a very little soda dissolved in hot water. Mix in an earthen crock, and leave some in the bottom each morning—a cupful or so—to serve as sponge for the next night, instead of getting fresh yeast. In cold weather this plan can be successfully pursued for a week or ten days without setting a new supply. Of course you add the usual quantity of flour, &c., every night, and beat up well. Do not make your cakes too small. Buckwheats should be of generous size. Some put two-thirds buckwheat, one-third oat-meal, omitting the Indian. Flannel Cakes. ?
Flour to make a good batter. Set the rest of the ingredients as a sponge over night, and in the morning add the melted butter and eggs. Corn-meal Flapjacks.
Meal to make a batter a trifle thicker than flannel cakes. Graham Cakes. ?
If you use sweet milk, add two teaspoonfuls cream-tartar. Bake as soon as they are mixed. Auntie’s Cakes (without eggs). ?
Stir until smooth—no longer—and bake immediately. Eggless Flannel Cakes.
Set over night, adding the lard in the morning. Grandpa’s Favorites. ?
Work the bread and milk smooth, stir in the butter and eggs, then the salt, lastly just enough flour to bind the mixture. If too thick, add milk. These are wholesome and good. Take care they do not stick to the griddle. Risen Batter-Cakes.
Mix over night. Rice Cakes. ?
Beat all together well. Hominy Cakes. ?
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. ?
Velvet Cakes.
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.
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. ?
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.) ?
Rice Waffles (No. 2.)
Quick Waffles.
Rice and Corn-Meal Waffles.
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.) ?
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. 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 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.
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.
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.”) ?
Set this as a sponge over night. In the morning add—
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 BunsAre 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. Cake.Use none but the best materials for making cake. If you cannot afford to get good flour, dry white sugar, and the best family butter, make up your mind to go without your cake, and eat plain bread with a clear conscience. There are no intermediate degrees of quality in eggs. I believe I have said that somewhere else, but it ought to be repeated just here. They should be, like CÆsar’s wife, above suspicion. A tin whisk or whip is best for beating them. The “Dover Egg-beater” is the best in the market. All kinds of cake are better for having the whites and yolks beaten separately. Beat the former in a large shallow dish until you can cut through the froth with a knife, leaving as clear and distinct an incision as you would in a solid substance. Beat the yolks in an earthenware bowl until they cease to froth, and thicken as if mixed with flour. Have the dishes cool—not too cold. It is hard to whip whites stiff in a warm room. Stir the butter and sugar to a cream. Cakes often fail because this rule is not followed. Beat these as faithfully as you do the eggs, warming the butter very slightly if hard. Use only a silver or wooden spoon in doing this. Do not use fresh and stale milk in the same cake. It acts as disastrously as a piece of new cloth in an old garment. Sour milk makes a spongy cake; sweet, one closer in grain. Study the moods and tenses of your oven carefully before essaying a loaf of cake. Confine your early efforts to tea-cakes and the like. Jelly-cake, baked in shallow flat tins, is good practice during the novitiate. Keep the heat steady, and as good at bottom as top. Streaks in cake are caused by unskilful mixing, too rapid or unequal baking, or a sudden decrease in heat before the cake is quite done. Don’t delude yourself, and maltreat those who are to eat your cake, by trying to make soda do the whole or most of the duty of eggs. Others have tried it before, with unfortunate results. If curiosity tempt you to the experiment, you had better allay it by buying some sponge-cake at the corner bakery. Test whether a cake is done by running a clean straw into the thickest part. It should come up clean. Do not leave the oven-door open, or change the cake from one oven to the other, except in extreme cases. If it harden too fast on the top, cover with paper. It should rise to full height before the crust forms. Except for gingerbread, use none but white sugar. Always sift the flour. Be accurate in your weights and measures. There is no royal road to good fortune in cake-making. What is worth doing at all is worth doing well. There is no disgrace in not having time to mix and bake a cake. You may well be ashamed of yourself if you are too lazy, or careless, or hurried to beat your eggs, cream your butter and sugar, or measure your ingredients. Yet, sometimes, when you believe you have left no means untried to deserve success, failure is your portion. What then? If the cake be uneatable, throw it away upon the first beggar-boy who comes for broken meat, and say nothing about it. If streaky or burned, cut out the best parts, make them presentable as possible, and give them to John and the children as a “second-best” treat. Then keep up a brave heart and try again. You may not satisfy yourself in a dozen trials. You certainly will not, if you never make another attempt. Cake should be wrapped in a thick cloth as soon as cool, and kept in tight tin boxes. Do not cut more at a Cream your sugar and butter, measure milk, spices, etc., before beginning work. For fruit-cake it is best to prepare the materials the day before. Let your icing dry thoroughly before wrapping up the cake. Sift your flour before measuring, as all the following receipts are for sifted flour. Icing. ?
Break the whites into a broad, clean, cool dish. Throw a small handful of sugar upon them, and begin whipping it in with slow, steady strokes of the beater. A few minutes later, throw in more sugar, and keep adding it at intervals until it is all used up. Beat perseveringly until the icing is of a smooth, fine, and firm texture. Half an hour’s beating should be sufficient, if done well. If not stiff enough, put in more sugar. A little practice will teach you when your end is gained. If you season with lemon-juice, allow, in measuring your sugar, for the additional liquid. Lemon-juice or a very little tartaric acid whitens the icing. Use at least a quarter of a pound of sugar for each egg. This method of making icing was taught me by a confectioner, as easier and surer than the old plan of beating the eggs first and alone. I have used no other since my first trial of it. The frosting hardens in one-fourth the time required under the former plan, and not more than half the time is consumed in the manufacture. I have Pour the icing by the spoonful on the top of the cake and near the centre of the surface to be covered. If the loaf is of such a shape that the liquid will settle of itself to its place, it is best to let it do so. If you spread it, use a broad-bladed knife, dipped in cold water. If it is as thick with sugar as it should be, you need not lay on more than one coat. You may set it in a moderate oven for three minutes, if you are in great haste. The better plan is to dry in a sunny window, where the air can get at it, and where there is no dust. Color icing yellow by putting the grated peel of a lemon or orange in a thin muslin bag, straining a little juice through it, and squeezing it hard into the egg and sugar. Strawberry-juice colors a pretty pink, as does also cranberry-syrup. Almond Icing.
Blanch the almonds by pouring boiling water over them and stripping off the skins. When dry, pound them to a paste, a few at a time, in a Wedgewood mortar, moistening it with rose-water as you go on. When beaten fine and smooth, beat gradually into icing, prepared according to foregoing receipt. Put on very thick, and, when nearly dry, cover with plain icing. This is very fine. Or,Mingle a few bitter almonds with the sweet. The blended flavor of these and the rose-water is very pleasant. Martha’s Cake (For Jelly.) ?
Bake in jelly-cake tins, and spread, when cold, with fruit-jelly. This is, although so simple and inexpensive, an admirable foundation for the various kinds of jelly, cream, and mÉringue cake, which are always popular. It seldom fails, and when well mixed and baked, is very nice. If prepared flour be used leave out soda and cream-tartar. Mrs. M.’s Cup Cake. ?
Bake in a loaf, or as jelly-cake. Cream-Cake. ?
Bake in thin layers as for jelly-cake, and spread between them, when cold, the following mixture:—
Heat the milk to boiling, and stir in the corn-starch, wet with a little cold milk; take out a little and mix gradually with the beaten egg and sugar; return to the rest of the custard, and boil, stirring constantly until quite thick. Let it cool before you season, and spread on cake. Season the icing also with vanilla. Jelly-Cake.
Bake in shallow tins, and when cold put jelly between. Cocoanut-Cake. ?
Bake as for jelly-cake. Filling.
Rosie’s Cocoanut-Cake.
Sift cream-tartar and soda into the dry flour; cream the butter and sugar; add the beaten eggs, then the milk; lastly the flour. Bake in jelly-cake tins. Grate one cocoanut; mix with it a cup and a half of white sugar, also the milk of the cocoanut. Set the mixture in the oven until the sugar melts; then spread between the cakes. Loaf Cocoanut-Cake.
Bake immediately. “One, Two, Three, Four” Cocoanut-Cake.
Cocoanut-Cakes (Small.)
Dissolve one pound of sugar in the milk and water. Stew until it becomes a “ropy” syrup, and turn out into a buttered dish. Have ready the beaten white of egg, with the remaining half-pound of sugar whipped into it; mix with this the grated cocoanut, and little by little—beating all the while—the boiled syrup, so soon as it cools sufficiently not to scald the eggs. Drop in tablespoonfuls upon buttered papers. Try one first, and if it runs, beat in more sugar. Bake in a very moderate oven, watching to prevent scorching. They should not be suffered to brown at all. These will keep some time, but are best quite fresh. Cocoanut Cones.
Whip the eggs as for icing, adding the sugar as you go on, until it will stand alone, then beat in the cocoanut and arrowroot. Mould the mixture with your hands into small cones, and set these far enough apart not to touch one another upon buttered paper in a baking-pan. Bake in a very moderate oven. Lee Cake. ?
Beat whites and yolks separately; add to all the yolks and the whites of seven eggs the sugar, the rind of two lemons, and juice of one. Bake as for jelly-cake. To the whites of three eggs allow a pound and a quarter of powdered sugar; beat stiff as for icing, take out enough to cover the top of the cake and set aside. Add to the rest the juice and half the grated rind of a large orange. When the cake is nearly cold, spread this between the layers. Beat into the icing reserved for the top a little lemon-juice, and, if needed, more sugar. It should be thicker than that spread between the cakes. You can make a very delightful variation of this elegant cake, by spreading the orange icing between layers made according to the receipt given for “Martha’s Jelly-Cake” several pages back, and frosting with lemon mÉringue, as above. White-Mountain Cake.
Icing, whites of three eggs, 1 lb. powdered sugar. Flavor with lemon-juice. Bake in jelly-cake tins, and fill with grated cocoanut, sweetened with a quarter of its weight of powdered sugar, or with icing such as is made for Lee cake, only flavored with lemon entirely. French Cake.
Lemon Cake (No. 1.)
Baked in small square tins, and iced on sides and top, these are sometimes called biscuits glacÉs. Lemon-Cake (No. 2.)
Flour to make tolerably thin batter (a little over three cups). Of some qualities of flour four cups will be needed. Bake in a quick oven. Lady-Cake (No. 1.)
Lady-Cake (No. 2.) ?
Flavor with bitter almond, and bake in square, not very deep tins. Flavor the frosting with vanilla. The combination is very pleasant. Sister Mag’s Cake. ?
Bake in a square or oblong tin, and frost with whites of two eggs beaten stiff with powdered sugar. Dover Cake. ?
Flavor the frosting with lemon-juice. Chocolate Cake. ?
Bake in jelly-cake tins. Mixture for filling.
Beat well together, spread between the layers and on top of cake. Caramel Cake. ?
Caramel for Filling.
Boil this mixture five minutes, add half a cake Baker’s chocolate (grated), boil until it is the consistency of rich custard. Add a pinch of soda, stir well, and remove from fire. When cold, flavor with a large teaspoonful vanilla, and spread between the layers of cake, which should be baked as for jelly-cake. Cover the top with the same, and set in an open, sunny window to dry. The above quantity will make two large cakes. Marble Cake.Light.
Dark.
Butter your mould, and put in the dark and light batter in alternate tablespoonfuls. Marbled Cake. ?
When the cake is mixed take out about a teacupful of the batter, and stir into this a great spoonful of grated chocolate, wet with a scant tablespoonful of milk. Fill your mould about an inch deep with the yellow batter, and drop upon this, in two or three places, a spoonful of the dark mixture. Give to the brown spots a slight stir with the tip of your spoon, spreading it in broken circles upon the lighter surface. Pour in more yellow batter, then drop in the brown in the same manner as before, proceeding in this order until all is used up. When cut, the cake will be found to be handsomely variegated. Or,You may color the reserved cupful of batter with enough prepared cochineal to give it a fine pink tint, and mix as you do the brown. Chocolate Icing (Simple.)
Mix together these ingredients, with the exception of the vanilla; boil it two minutes (after it has fairly come to a boil), flavor, and then sweeten to taste with powdered sugar, taking care to make it sweet enough. Caramels (Chocolate.)
Boil twenty-five minutes; then stir in half a pound of grated chocolate wet in half a cup of sweet milk, and boil until it hardens on the spoon, with which you must stir it frequently. Flavor with a teaspoonful of vanilla. Chocolate Éclairs.
If you bake these often, it will be worth your while to have made at the tinner’s a set of small tins, about five inches long and two wide, round at the bottom, and kept firm by strips of tin connecting them. If you cannot get these, tack stiff writing-paper into the same shape, stitching each of the little canoes to its neighbor after the These little cakes are popular favorites, and with a little practice can be easily and quickly made. Ellie’s Cake. ?
Bake in jelly-cake tins, and fill with jelly or chocolate. A simple and excellent cake. Sponge Cake.
Flavor with lemon—half the juice and half the rind of one. Bake twenty minutes in shallow tins. Mrs. M.’s Sponge-Cake. ?
Beat yolks and whites very light, the sugar into the former when they are smooth and stiff; next, the juice The lady from whom I had this admirable receipt was celebrated among her acquaintances for her beautiful and delicious sponge-cake. “Which should always be baked in tins like these,” she said to me once, sportively, “or it does not taste just right.” The moulds were like a large brick in shape, with almost perpendicular sides. I instantly gave an order for a couple precisely like them, and really fancied that cake baked in them was a little better than in any other form. But you can hardly fail of success if you prepare yours precisely as I have directed, bake in whatever shape you will. Be careful that your oven is steady, and cover the cake with paper to prevent burning. It is a good plan to line the pans in which sponge-cake is baked with buttered paper, fitted neatly to the sides and bottom. Pound Cake (No. 1.)
Cream the butter and sugar with great care; beat the yolks and whites separately; sift the cream-tartar well through the flour. Add the flour last. Pound Cake (No. 2.)
Cream half the flour with the butter, and add brandy and spice. Beat the yolks until light, add the sugar, then the beaten whites and the rest of the flour alternately. When this is thoroughly mixed, put all together and beat steadily for half an hour. If properly made and baked this is a splendid cake. Washington Cake.
Mix as usual and stir in, at the last—
Fruit-cake takes longer to bake than plain, and the heat must be kept steady. Lincoln Cake.
Cream the butter and sugar, put with them the yolks whipped light, then the cream and spice, next the flour, then the rose-water, and a double-handful of citron cut in slips and dredged; finally, the beaten whites of the eggs. Stir all well, and bake in a loaf or in a “card,” using a square shallow baking-pan. This is a good cake, and keeps well. Black or Wedding Cake.
Cream the butter and sugar, add the beaten yolks of the eggs, and stir all well together before putting in half of the flour. The spice should come next, then the whipped whites stirred in alternately with the rest of the flour, lastly the brandy. The above quantity is for two large cakes. Bake at least two hours in deep tins lined with well-buttered paper. The icing should be laid on stiff and thickly. This cake, if kept in a cool, dry place, will not spoil in two months. I have eaten wedding-cake a year old. Test the cakes well, and be sure they are quite done before taking them from the oven. Fruit-Cake (plainer.)
Cream butter and sugar; add the beaten yolks, then the spice and the whipped whites alternately with the flour; the fruit and brandy last. Almond Cake.
Beat whites and yolks separately; stir butter and sugar to a cream; add to this the yolks; beat very hard before putting in the flour; stir in the almond-paste alternately with the whites. Put in the brandy last. Season the icing with rose-water. Nut-Cake. ?
Gold Cake. ?
Cream the butter and sugar, and stir in the yolks. Beat very hard for five minutes before putting in the flour. The soda next, and lastly the lemon-juice, in which the grated orange-peel should have been steeped and strained out in a piece of thin muslin, leaving the flavoring and coloring matter in the juice. Flavor the icing also with lemon. Silver Cake. ?
Cream butter and sugar; put next the whites of the eggs; then the flour, lastly the flavoring. Make gold and silver cake on the same day; bake them in tins of corresponding size, and lay them in alternate slices in the cake-basket. Flavor the icing of silver cake with rose-water. Almond Macaroons.Prepare the almonds the day before you make the cakes, by blanching them in boiling water, stripping off the skins, and pounding them when perfectly cold—a few at a time—in a Wedgewood mortar, adding from time to time a little rose-water. When beaten to a smooth paste, stir in, to a pound of the sweet almonds, a generous tablespoonful of essence of bitter almonds; cover closely, and set away in a cold place until the morrow. Then to a pound of the nuts allow:—
Stir the sugar and white of egg lightly together; then whip in gradually the almond-paste. Line a broad baking-pan with buttered white paper; drop upon this spoonfuls of the mixture at such distances apart as shall prevent their running together. Sift Try the mixture first, to make sure it is of the right consistency, and if the macaroons run into irregular shapes, beat in more sugar. This will hardly happen, however, if the mixture is already well beaten. Huckleberry Cake. ?
Stir the butter and sugar to a cream, add the beaten yolks; then the milk, the flour, and spice, the whites whipped stiff, and the soda. At the last stir in the huckleberries with a wooden spoon or paddle, not to bruise them. Bake in a loaf or card, in a moderate but steady oven, until a straw comes out clean from the thickest part. This is a delicious cake, and deserves to be better known. It is best on the second day after baking. Corn-Starch Cake. ?
Sift the corn-starch with the flour, and add the last thing. Bake in small tins and eat while fresh. They dry in two or three days and become insipid, but are very nice for twenty-four hours after they are baked. White Cake. ?
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