Elements of the theory and practice of cookery

Put the flour iu a bowl ; make a well in the centre of it ; drop in the salt, then the unbeaten eggs. Add the milk gradually, stirring in widening circles from the centre. Bake in buttered muffin-pans, or in earthen cups, in a hot oven for thirty minutes. 189. To grease baking-pans. — Melt the butter or other fat, and with a bit of soft paper, or a brush kept for this purpose, apply it evenly to the pan, being careful to grease the corners carefully. 190. The uncooked popover mixture is called batter. Popovers are made light by the expansion of the water in them as it is changed to steam by the heat of the oven, the heat at the same time forming a crust, which keeps the steam from escaping. When done the pop- overs should be crisp, hollow shells, several times the height of the batter, and well "popped-over." (Plate VII.) Recipe for Griddle Cakes Flour, 2 cupfuls. Salt, Yz teaspoonful. Baking-soda, 1 teaspoonful. Sour milk, 2 cupfuls. Eggs, 1. (Put the griddle where it will he hot hy the time the cakes are mixed.} Sift the flour, salt, and baking-soda together. Beat the eggs well. Stir the milk into the flour. Add the beaten egg, and beat all together until well mixed. Bake by spoonfuls on a hot greased griddle.^ When 1 Beat the batter well before pouring a fresh batch of cakes on to the griddle. 104 THEORY AND PRACTICE OF COOKERY the cakes are full of bubbles on top, and brown on one side, turn them over with a broad knife or a cake-turner, and brown them on the other side. If large bubbles rise at once to the top of the cakes, the griddle is too hot. If the top of the cake stiffens before the under side is brown, the griddle is not hot enough. Never turn a cake twice ; a twice turned cake will be heavy. Serve the cakes as soon as they are baked, piled (not more than six or eight together) on a hot plate. Eat them with butter, butter and syrup, or butter and sugar. In making griddle cakes with sweet milk, omit soda, and add two teaspoonfuls of baking-powder and one table- spoonful of melted butter. 191. To grease the griddle. — Use a piece of beef-suet on a fork, or drippings applied with a swab made by tying a strip of clean cloth around the end of a fork or skewer. Leave no spot ungreased, but do not have more than just enough grease to keep the cakes from sticking. If they should stick, scrape the griddle clean before greasing it again. A soapstone griddle must never he greased, A Study of the Leavening Power of Baking- soda 192. What makes griddle-cake batter light ? Experiments with soda and acids. — A. Put a pinch of soda into a little sour milk. Put another pinch into vinegar. Observe the results in both cases. B. Arrange an apparatus like that shown in Fig. 10. What change takes place in the lime-water? What gas is being formed? BREAD 105 193. Baking-soda is one of a class of substances called carbonates. When an acid is added to a carbonate in the presence of water carbon di- oxide is formed, producing effer- vescence. Is this a physical or a chemical change ? How do you know ? Fig. 10. — Apparatus for testing for carbon di- oxide. Test-tube (J) containing' soda- solution with a little vinegar. Glass tube connected with t dips into lime-water con- tained in glass {g).