  IN making these, let quickness be the first, second and third rules. Beat briskly and thoroughly; mix just as you are ready to send the cakes to the table (except when yeast is used), bake, turn, and serve promptly. Have all your materials on the table, measured and ready to your hand. The griddle must be perfectly clean and wiped off with a dry cloth just before you lay it on the stove. Heat it gradually at one side of the stove or range, and when it is warm grease with a bit of fat salt pork stuck firmly on a fork. The fat should be hissing hot, but not M. H. Phillips and Co., of Troy, N. Y., manufacture a griddle with three shallow cups sunken in an iron plate which moves on a hinge. When the cakes are done on the lower side the turn of a handle reverses the plate upon a heated surface. This makes the cakes of equal size and thickness and saves the trouble of watching, spatula in hand, to turn each one. It greatly simplifies the process of baking cakes, and, lessens the heating labor of attending to them. Be sure that each cake is done before you turn it. A twice-turned “griddle” is spoiled. Sour-milk Cakes.One quart of “loppered,” or of buttermilk. Three cups of sifted flour. One cup of Indian meal. One “rounded” teaspoonful of soda free from lumps. One teaspoonful of salt. Two tablespoonfuls of molasses. Sift flour, salt and meal into a bowl. In another mix the milk, molasses and soda. Stir these last to a foam, and pour into the hollow in the middle of the flour. Work down the flour into the liquid with a wooden spoon until you have a batter, and beat hard with upward strokes, two minutes. Bake at once. These are cheap, easy and good cakes. Hominy Cakes.Two cups of fine hominy boiled and cold. (Take the tough skin from the top before mixing in the batter.) One heaping cup of sifted flour. One quart of milk. Three eggs beaten very light. One tablespoonful of molasses. One teaspoonful of salt. Rub the hominy with the back of a wooden spoon until all the lumps are broken up. Wet it little by little with the milk and molasses, working it smooth as you go on. Sift flour and salt together, and put in next. Beat for a whole minute before adding the whipped eggs, and another minute very hard, before baking. Stir up well from the bottom before putting each fresh batch of cakes on the griddle. These cakes if properly made, are tender, wholesome and delightful. Graham Cakes.Two cups of Graham flour. One of sifted white. One heaping tablespoonful of Indian meal. Three cups of buttermilk, or loppered milk. One rounded teaspoonful of soda. Two tablespoonfuls of molasses. One teaspoonful of salt sifted with the flour. Two eggs whipped very light. One tablespoonful melted butter. Put Graham and salted white flour into a bowl with the Indian meal. Stir up in another milk, molasses, soda and melted butter, and while foaming pour into the hollowed flour. Work to a good batter and beat in the eggs already whipped to a froth. Beat one minute and bake at once. This is a good standard breakfast hot bread. |
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