Into one level cup of flour put a level teaspoonful of baking powder and sift it. Grate off the yellow rind of a lemon. Separate the whites from the yolks of four eggs. Measure a scant cup of white granulated sugar and beat it to a cream with the yolks, then add the grated rind and a tablespoonful of the juice of the lemon. Stir together until thick and creamy; now beat the whites to a stiff froth; then quickly and lightly mix without beating a third of the flour with the yolks; then a third of the whites; then more flour and whites until all are used. The mode of mixing must be very light, rather cutting down through the cake batter than to beating it; beating the eggs makes them light, but beating the batter makes the cake tough. Bake immediately until a straw run into it can be withdrawn clean. This recipe is especially nice for Charlotte Russe, being so light and porous.
Make a rich biscuit dough, same as above recipe. While baking, take a cup and a quarter of water, a cup and a half of sugar, and two lemons, peel, juice and pulp, throwing away the tough part of the rind; boil this for some little time; then stir in three crackers rolled fine; split the short-cakes while hot, spread with butter, then with the mixture. To be eaten warm.
Cream the butter, add the sugar and well beaten egg-yolks, then the oatmeal, salt, and baking-powder, then the vanilla, and last the whites of the eggs. Drop in small bits, no larger than the end of your finger, on a shallow pan, three inches apart. Bake in a very slow oven till brown, and take from the pan while hot.
Kisses, to be served for dessert at a large dinner, with other suitable confectionery, may be varied in this way: Having made the kisses, heap them in the shape of half an egg, placed upon stiff letter paper lining the bottom of a thick baking pan; put them in a moderate oven until the outside is a little hardened; then take one off carefully, take out the soft inside with the handle of a spoon, and put it back with the mixture, to make more; then lay the shell down. Take another and prepare it likewise; fill the shells with currant jelly or jam; join two together, cementing them with some of the mixture; so continue until you have enough. Make kisses, cocoanut drops, and such like, the day before they are wanted. This recipe will make a fair-sized cake basket full. It adds much to their beauty when served up to tint half of them pale pink, then unite white and pink. Serve on a high glass dish.
Home-made bread is not so much used now as it was years back. Most housekeepers have found by experience that it is a waste both of time and money. There are very few houses among the middle classes which possess an oven capable of competing with any chance of success with a baker's oven. There are, however, many vegetarians who believe in what is called whole-meal bread. A good deal of the whole-meal bread sold as such has been found to be adulterated with substances very unwholesome to ordinary stomachs. We may mention saw-dust as one of the ingredients used for the purpose. Again, if you attempt to make whole-meal bread into loaves, you will find great difficulty in baking the loaves. This whole-meal is a very slow conductor of heat, and the result will probably be that the outside of the loaf will be very hard while the inside will be too underdone to be eaten. Consequently, should you wish to have home-made whole-meal bread, it is far best to bake it in the form of a tea-cake or flat-cake. We cannot do better, in conclusion, than quote what Sir Henry Thompson says on this subject:--"The following recipe," he says, "will be found successful, probably, after a trial or two, in producing excellent, light, friable, and most palatable bread: To two pounds of coarsely ground or crushed whole-meal, add half a pound of fine flour and a sufficient quantity of baking powder and salt; when these are well mixed, rub in two ounces of butter, and make into dough with half milk and water, or with all milk if preferred. Make rapidly into flat cakes like 'tea-cakes,' and bake without delay in a quick oven, leaving them afterwards to finish thoroughly at a lower temperature. The butter and milk supply fatty matters, in which the wheat is somewhat deficient; all the saline and mineral matters of the husk are retained; and thus a more nutritive form of bread cannot be made. Moreover, it retains the natural flavour of the wheat, in place of the insipidity which is characteristic of fine flour, although it is indisputable that bread produced from the latter, especially in Paris and Vienna, is unrivalled for delicacy, texture, and colour. Whole meal may be bought; but mills are now cheaply made for home use, and wheat may be ground to any degree of coarseness desired."
Put into a shallow pan four tablespoonfuls of scraped chocolate, and place it where it will melt gradually, but not scorch; when melted, stir in three tablespoonfuls of milk or cream and one of water; mix all well together, and add one scant teacupful of sugar; boil about five minutes, and while hot, and when the cakes are nearly cold, spread some evenly over the surface of one of the cakes; put a second one on top, alternating the mixture and cakes; then cover top and sides, and set in a warm oven to harden. All who have tried recipe after recipe, vainly hoping to find one where the chocolate sticks to the cake and not to the fingers, will appreciate the above. In making those most palatable of cakes, "Chocolate Eclairs," the recipe just given will be found very satisfactory.
Mix ingredients and prepare 2 jam sandwich tins as for Sponge Cake (see recipe). Pour mixture in tins and bake for about 10 minutes in a hot oven. Take out, spread one round with warmed jam, place the other on top, and cut when cold.
In making batter-cakes, the ingredients should be put together over night to rise, and the eggs and butter added in the morning; the butter melted and eggs well beaten. If the batter appears sour in the least, dissolve a little soda and stir into it; this should be done early enough to rise some time before baking. Water can be used in place of milk in all raised dough, and the dough should be thoroughly light before making into loaves or biscuits; then when molding them use as little flour as possible; the kneading to be done when first made from the sponge, and should be done well and for some length of time, as this makes the pores fine, the bread cut smooth and tender. Care should be taken not to get the dough too stiff. Where any recipe calls for baking powder, and you do not have it, you can use cream of tartar and soda, in the proportion of one level teaspoonful of soda to two of cream of tartar. When the recipe calls for sweet milk or cream, and you do not have it, you may use in place of it sour milk or cream, and, in that case, baking powder or cream of tartar must not be used, but baking-soda, using a level teaspoonful to a quart of sour milk; the milk is always best when just turned, so that it is solid, and not sour enough to whey or to be watery. When making biscuits or bread with baking powder or soda and cream of tartar, the oven should be prepared first; the dough handled quickly and put into the oven immediately, as soon as it becomes the proper lightness, to ensure good success. If the oven is too slow, the article baked will be heavy and hard. As in beating cake, never stir ingredients into batter, but beat them in, by beating down from the bottom, and up, and over again. This laps the air into the batter which produces little air-cells and causes the dough to puff and swell as it comes in contact with the heat while cooking.
Two scant teacupfuls of butter, three cupfuls of dark brown sugar, six eggs, whites and yolks beaten separately, one pound of raisins, seeded, one of currants, washed and dried, and half a pound of citron cut in thin strips; also half a cupful of cooking molasses and half a cupful of sour milk. Stir the butter and sugar to a cream, add to that half a grated nutmeg, ope tablespoonful of ground cinnamon, one teaspoonful of cloves, one teaspoonful of mace, add the molasses and sour milk. Stir all well; then put in the beaten yolks of eggs, a wine-glass of brandy; stir again all thoroughly, and then add four cupfuls of sifted flour alternately with the beaten whites of eggs. Now dissolve a level teaspoonful of soda and stir in thoroughly. Mix the fruit together and stir into it two heaping tablespoonfuls of flour; then stir it in the cake. Butter two common-sized baking tins carefully, line them with letter paper well buttered, and bake in a moderate oven two hours. After it is baked, let it cool in the pan. Afterward put it into a tight can, or let it remain in the pans and cover tightly. Best recipe of all. Mrs. S. A. Camp, Grand Rapids, Mich.
3 Tb. fat 1/4 c. brown sugar 1 Tb. salt 1 cake compressed yeast 3 c. lukewarm liquid 8 c. whole-wheat flour 1 c. white flour for kneading
Place the fat, the sugar, and the salt in the mixing bowl and add the yeast cake dissolved in a little of the liquid. Add the remainder of the liquid, and then stir in half or all of the flour, according to whether the sponge or the straight-dough method is preferred. Then proceed according to the directions previously given for making bread by the quick process.
The long process may also be followed in making whole-wheat bread, and if it is, only one-half the quantity of yeast should be used.
75. Graham Bread.--To lend variety to the family diet, frequent use should be made of graham bread, which contains even more bulk and mineral salts than whole-wheat bread. In bread of this kind, both graham and white flour are used. Since graham flour is very heavy, it prevents the bread from rising quickly, so the bread is started with white flour. The accompanying recipe contains quantities for the short process, although it may be adapted to the long process by merely using one-half the amount of yeast.
