The "A1" cookery book

Yorkshire Pudding. — 4 tablespoons flour, 1 pint milk, 2 eggs. Put the flour into a basin with a little salt, and make it into a smooth paste with a very little of the cold milk. Add the rest of the milk stirring briskly all the time, and then add the eggs well beaten. Allow the batter to stand a few hours before it is wanted. Pour the batter into the tin under the meat, after the tin has got hot and greasy from being under the joint. General Directions for Cake making. —All the ingredients must be of the finest quality. The flour must be dried and put through a sieve. The least damp in any of the ingredients makes the cakes heavy. Currants should be washed and picked and dried when they are bought, so that they are ready for use at any time. Never allow yourself to be interrupted when making cakes ; get all the materials ready to hand on the kitchen table, and go straight on when you have begun to make your cake, without stopping to do other things. See that your oven be the proper heat when you are ready to use it. For ordinary plum cakes good cooking eggs will do if fresh ones are not obtainable, but for sponge cakes it is absolutely necessary to have new-laid eggs, or they cannot be made well. The whites of pickled eggs or stale eggs will not whip properly. Always remember to remove the specks from every egg you use. The best thing to use both for beating and stirring cakes is a large silver fork. For light cakes a brisk oven is required to raise and set them ; very large rich ones require a well-sustained heat to bake them through ; small sugar cakes a slow oven to prevent their taking a deep colour before they are half done ; gingerbread requires a slow oven. Never bang the oven door ; any draught or shaking of the cakes when they are half risen will make them heavy. Sheets of buttered paper should be put over the tins to prevent the cakes burning. Hints on Baking Cakes and Pastry. — The oven should be hot at first and allowed to get cooler when the cakes have risen. When you begin making cakes or pastry see that the kitchen fire is made up, and then test the oven at intervals by putting in a piece of white paper. If the paper turns dark brown directly it is put in, the oven will be ready for small pastry ; if light brown, for fruit tarts, etc. ; if dark yellow, for large meat or game pies and pound cakes, and when only just tinged yellow it is right for sponge cakes, meringues, etc. If the oven burns at the bottom stand your cake on a small trivet. It is generally well to put a piece of buttered paper over the top of the paper that the tin is lined with. Shut the oven door slowly and gently. Almond Biscuits. — 1 lb. sugar, 1 lb. flour, 6 oz. butter, 2 teaspoons of baking powder, 3 eggs, 30 drops essence of almonds, a few almonds. Melt the butter and beat in the eggs. Mix the baking powder and sugar with the flour, then add the butter and eggs and essence of almonds. A little of the sugar must be reserved to roll the biscuits in. The biscuits should be about the size of marbles. They must be put on a tin far apart, and a small piece of almond stuck in each one. Bake in a quick oven about ten minutes. Almond Icing. — The whites of 3 eggs, 1 lb. sweet almonds,