Miss Beecher's Housekeeper and Healthkeeper. Catharine Esther Beecher

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СКАЧАТЬ add flour till you can roll, but let it be as soft as possible. Bake in a quick oven, and as soon as possible after mixing.

      Yeast Biscuit.—Take a pint of raised dough of fine flour: pick it in small pieces; add one well-beaten egg, two great-spoonfuls of butter or lard, and two great-spoonfuls of sugar. Work thoroughly for ten minutes; add flour to roll, and then cut in round cakes and bake on tins, or mold into biscuits. Let them stand till light, and then bake in a quick oven.

      If you have no dough raised, make biscuit as you would bread, except adding more shortening.

      Potato Biscuit.—Boil and press through a colander twelve mealy potatoes; any others are not good. While warm, add one cup of butter, one tea-spoonful of salt, four great-spoonfuls of sugar, and half a cup of yeast. Mix in white or coarse flour till it can be well kneaded. Mold into small cakes; let them stand till light, and bake in a quick oven. These are the best kind, especially if made of coarse flour.

      Buns.—These are best made by the rule for potato biscuit, adding twice as much sugar. When done, rub over a mixture of half milk and half molasses, and it improves looks and taste.

CHAPTER XIV.

       BREAKFAST AND SUPPER.

       Table of Contents

      What shall we have for breakfast to-morrow? is the constant question of trial to a housekeeper, and it is the aim of the present chapter to meet this want by presenting a good and successive variety of articles healthful, economical, and easily prepared.

      Some of the best housekeepers have taken this method: they provide a good supply of the following articles, to be used in succession—rice, corn-meal, rye flour, wheat grits, unbolted wheat, cracked wheat, pearl wheat, oat grits, Oat-meal, and hominy, with which they make a new article for every day in the week. Some one of these is selected for either a dinner vegetable or dessert, or for a dish at tea, and the remainder used for the next morning’s breakfast.

      The following will indicate the methods:

      Corn-Meal.—Take four large cups of corn-meal, and scald it. In all cases, scald corn-meal before using it. Add half a cup of fine flour, three table-spoonfuls of sugar or molasses, one tea-spoonful of soda, and one of salt. Make a batter, and boil an hour or more, stirring often; or, better, cook in a tin pail set in boiling water. Use it as mush, with butter, sugar, and milk for supper. Next morning, thin it with hot water: add two or three eggs, and bake either as muffins or griddle-cakes.

      Hominy.—Soak and then boil a quart of hominy with two heaping tea-spoonfuls of salt. Use it for dinner as a vegetable, or for supper with sugar and milk or cream. Next morning use the remainder, soaked in water or milk, with two eggs and a salt-spoonful of salt. Bake as muffins or griddle-cakes, or cut in slices, dipped in flour and fried. Farina may be used in the same way.

      Rice.—Pick over one pint of rice; add two tea-spoonfuls of salt and three quarts of boiling water. Then boil fifteen minutes; then uncover; let it steam fifteen minutes. This to be used for a vegetable at dinner, or for a tea-dish, with butter and sugar. At night, soak the remainder in as much milk or water, and next morning add as much fine or unbolted flour as there was rice, three eggs, a tea-spoonful of salt, and half a tea-spoonful of soda. Thin with water or milk, and bake as muffins or griddle-cakes.

      The most economical Breakfast Dish, (healthful also).—Keep a jar for remnants of bread, both coarse and fine, for potatoes, remnants of hominy, rice, grits, cracked wheat, Oat-meal, and all other articles used on table. Add all remnants of milk, whether sour or sweet, and water enough to soak all, so as to be soft, but not thin. When enough is collected, add enough water to make a batter for griddle-cakes, and put in enough soda to sweeten it. Add two spoonfuls of sugar, and half a tea-spoonful of salt, and two eggs for each quart, and you make an excellent dish of material, most of it usually wasted. Thicken it a little with fine flour, and it makes fine waffles.

      Biscuits of sour Milk and white or unbolted Flour.—One pint unbolted flour.

      One spoonful of sugar.

      One tea-spoonful of salt.

      Melt a spoonful of butter in a little of the sour milk; then mix all, and just before setting in the oven, add very quickly and very thoroughly a tea-spoonful of soda dissolved in half a tea-cup of water. This should be done last and quickly, so that the carbonic acid gas produced by the union of the soda and the acid of the milk (lactic) may not escape. Use half a tea-cup of fine flour when molding into biscuits.

      Pearl Wheat or Cracked Wheat.—Boil one pint in a pail set in boiling water till quite soft, but so as not to lose its form. Add a tea-spoonful of sugar, and as much salt; also water, when needed. It must boil a long time. Eat a part for supper, with sugar and cream, and next morning add two eggs, a great-spoonful of sugar, and fine flour enough to make it suitable for muffin-rings or drop-cakes.

      Rye and Corn-Meal.—Put into a pint and a half of boiling water one tea-spoonful of salt, two great-spoonfuls of sugar, two well-beaten eggs, three great-spoonfuls of corn-meal or unbolted wheat. Thicken with rye flour, and then add two well-beaten eggs. Bake in muffin-rings or as drop-cakes.

      Oat-meal.—Take one pint of boiling water, and pour it on to one pint of Oat-meal. Add a great-spoonful of butter, half a tea-spoonful of salt, and two great-spoonfuls of sugar. Stir fast and thoroughly; then add two well-beaten eggs, and boil twenty minutes. To be eaten as mush for supper; and next morning thin it, and bake in muffin-rings.

      Several of the above articles are good with only salt and water; and many persons would like them better with the butter, sugar, and eggs omitted.

      

      Wheat Muffins.—One pint of milk, and two eggs.

      One table-spoonful of yeast, and a salt-spoonful of salt. One table-spoonful of butter.

      Mix these ingredients with sufficient flour to make a thick batter. Let it rise four or five hours, and bake in muffin-rings. This can be made of unbolted flour or grits, adding two great-spoonfuls of molasses, and it is very fine. Make it so thick that a table-spoon will stand erect in it.

       Sally Lunn, improved.—Seven tea-cups of unbolted flour, or fine flour.

       One pint of water.

       Half a cup of melted butter, and half a cup of sugar.

       One pinch of salt.

       Three well-beaten eggs.

       Two table-spoonfuls of brewers’ yeast, or twice as much of home-brewed.

      Pour into square buttered pans, and let it rise two or three hours with brewers’ yeast; with home-brewed, five hours are required. It is still better baked in patties.

      Cream Griddle-Cakes.—One pint of thick cream.

       One tea-spoonful of salt.

       One table-spoonful of sugar.

       Three well-beaten eggs.

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