Elements of the theory and practice of cookery

Flour, 2 cupfuls. Salt, yi teaspoonful. Baking-powder, 3 teaspoonfuls. Butter, 1 tablespoonful. Milk, about 3^ of a cupful. Mix and sift the flour, baking-powder, and salt. Stir in enough milk to make a drop-batter, beat well, and add the butter melted. Bake about twenty minutes. Egg Muffins Flour, lyi cupfuls. Milk, 1 cupful. Baking-powder, 2 teaspoonfuls. Eggs, 1. Salt, Yi teaspoonful. Melted butter, 1 tablespoonful. 112 THEORY AND PRACTICE OF COOKERY Mix and sift the dry ingredients. Separate the egg; beat the yolk slightly, the white to a stiff froth. Stir the milk, beaten yolk, and melted butter, in the order named, into the dry ingredients. Last, fold in the beaten whites. Bake in muffin-pans twenty-five min- utes. Whole-wheat Muffins Flour, 1}4 cupfuls. Salt, }4 teaspoonful. Baking-powder, 2 teaspoonfuls. Butter, 1 tablespoon ful. Sugar, 1 tablespoonful. Milk, ^ cupful. Mix and sift the dry ingredients. Stir in the melted butter and milk, and beat well. Bake in greased muffin- pans about twenty-five minutes. CoRNMEAL Muffins. Cornmeal, 1 cupful. Salt, i^ teaspoonful. Flour, 1 cupful. Milk, 1 cupful. Baking-powder, 2 teaspoonfuls. Butter, 1 tablespoonful. Eggs, 1. Scald half of the milk. Separate the egg, and beat the white to a stiff froth. Put the cornmeal in a bowl, make a well in the centre, into the well put the salt and butter. Stir in the scalded milk.^ Add the yolk unbeaten, the cold milk, and the flour and baking- powder sifted together. Beat well, and fold in the beaten whites. Bake in a hot oven thirty minutes. 203. Digestion of quick breads. — Quick breads are most delicious when fresh. No bread, however, should 1 Cornmeal is scalded to soften its starch, the time in the oven being too short to cook this. BREAD 113 be eaten steaming hot, because in this state the inside part, or crumb, forms in the mouth a pasty mass not easily digestible. The crust contains dextrin and caramel, and is therefore more wholesome than the crumb. Little children and persons with delicate digestive powers should never eat the crumb of warm bread ; those who do eat it should chew it slowly and thoroughly. Try at home the experiments with acids and alkalies; test as many different substances as you can with litmus or cabbage water, and write them down, acids in one column, alkalies in another. From the following books and articles you can learn how people make bread without baking-powder or yeast. Woman's Share in Primitive Culture, Chapter II ; " Bread in the East," Penny Magazine, Vol. Ill, p. 2; "Tortillas," American Kitchen Magazine, Vol. VII, p. 3. The Domestic Science Reader has articles about crackers, hot cross buns, Mexican bread, and Zufii Indian bread, pp. 78-83. Section 2. Flour A Study of Wheat. Part II (^continued from p. 82) 204. Analysis of wheat-flour. — A. Make half a cup of flour into a very stiff dough with a little water. Knead this several minutes on a very fine strainer set in a bowl of water. Examine what is left in the strainer. How does it look ? Feel ? Spread some of it on a saucer to dry and examine it again. Heat some in the oven, notice how it swells. (Plate VIII, facing p. 122.) B. Test the sediment in the water for starch in two ways. 205. Gluten. — Wheat-flour, when kneaded with water, yields a yellowish gray substance that when