Bread, cakes, and biscuits

baking powder into 2lb. of flour, and make this quickly into a paste with Jib. of butter, 2oz. or 3oz. of lard, and four eggs beaten up with a little milk. Mind not to have the dough too wet. Make this up quickly into cakes the size of a small muffin, and bake fifteen minutes in a quick oven, turning them now and again, as they bum very quickly ; then split, butter, and serve very hot. These are also called slim cakes. They are particularly good if the baking powder is omitted, and all Coomb’s Eureka flour, or 3oz. of Paisley flour to lib. of fine flour, is substituted. Cakes, Irish. — Cream 2£oz. of butter with 4oz. of sugar, then add the yolks of three eggs one by one, beating each thoroughly ; next add ^lb. of flour and one gill of milk alternately, beating all the time, then two tablespoonfuls of baking powder, and, last of all, the white of one egg beaten very stiffly. When all is mixed, butter carefully a square cake tin and dust it with plenty of flour, pour in the mixture, and bake about half an hour. Turn out, and when cool split in two, and prepare the following mixture : Put Alb. of grated chocolate and Rb. of icing sugar in a basin, beat up the two whites of eggs left from the cake very stiffly, and mix. Spread one-half of this mixture on the half of the cake, put the other half on the top, and spread the remainder of the icing all over the top. Kentish Flead. — Make a rather rich puff paste, using “ flead ” (the inner “ leaf " fat of a pig) instead of lard or butter ; this is rolled out half an inch thick, cut out in rounds with a tumbler, baked in a quick oven, split, buttered, and served hot or cold, with sugar dusted over them. Raisins or currants are often mixed with the dough. Lancashire Oat. — This is made exactly like Scotch oatcake, save that buttermilk is used instead of water ; or else the meal is mixed as usual with water, but is left for two or three days to sour before baking. Meringue. — Beat the whites of four fresh eggs till stiff with a tiny pinch of salt, then mix in lightly 9oz. to lOoz. of caster sugar. Have ready a clean baking tin, previously warmed, and rubbed over with white wax, and force the meringue out on this with a plain pipe and bag, pressing it out in a kind of snail- shell cone, and bake these cakes in an oven too slack to do more than crisp them. If preferred coloured, a drop of any colouring to taste may be added to the meringue ; or, again, when shaped they may be lightly dusted with icing sugar aud left in a moderate oven for two or three hours till crisp and of a delicate fawn colour. These can, of course, be flavoured to taste. Remember that, like all meringues, these cakes must be put into the oven the moment they are ready, as they will run if left standing.