The home cook book

BREAKFAST BISCUIT Beat two eggs, half a teaspoon of salt, a heaping tablespoon of butter, and a pint of milk with two pounds of flour. Stir in three-fourths of a cup of yeast or a cake of compressed yeast dissolved in a little water. Set to rise overnight. In the morning form into small biscuits and bake. SOUR-CREAM BISCUIT Take two cups of flour, half a teaspoon of salt, and a tea- spoon each of sugar and of baking-powder and sift together. Dissolve half a teaspoon of soda in a tablespoon of cold water and beat it into half a cup of sour milk and half a cup of cream. Put the cream mixture to the flour when the soda is thoroughly worked in it. Stir fast with a spoon and put the dough on a molding board which you have spread with flour. Pat into a cake. Do not use much flour except to keep the dough from sticking to the hand. Cut in small biscuit, lay in a hot greased pan, and bake in a hot oven. If you wish to use all sour milk instead of cream and milk, mix a kitchen spoon of lard or drippings with the flour before putting in the sour milk. BUTTERMILK BISCUIT Follow the foregoing directions, using a tablespoon of but- ter, lard, or drippings, and mixing this in the flour before adding the buttermilk. MARYLAND BISCUIT Sift one teaspoon of salt with one quart of flour. Work into half of this two tablespoons of the best leaf lard, cutting 284 THE HOME COOK BOOK the lard into little bits and rubbing- into the flour. Mix in also one cup of warmed milk. Add by degrees, a spoonful at a time, the other half of your flour. By this time the dough is thoroughly worked up. Lay the dough upon the board and beat it hard with the end of the rolling-pin for about five minutes. Roll out very thin, cut in shape, stick with a fork, and bake in a hot oven. QUICK HOT RAISED BISCUIT If you wish to get hot biscuit for a meal for three or four persons and only five hours ofif, take quarter of a cake of compressed yeast and rub it into a tablespoon of sweet milk until perfectly smooth. Add this to a pint of flour, a teaspoon of salt and a tablespoon of butter, all of which you have first rubbed thoroughly together. Then a^ milk enough to soften and combine all the ingredients into a biscuit dough. Shape into biscuit, set in a warm place for three or four hours to rise, and when they are light and pufTy, bake from half to three-quarters of an hour. VELVET BISCUIT Into a pint of warm milk put two well-beaten eggs, half a cake of compressed yeast, a teaspoon of melted butter, and flour enough to make a soft dough. Set to rise. When light, work down, adding flour and salt. When Hght again, make into small biscuit, and set them close together in pans. When light, bake twenty minutes in a hot oven. If the rising is kept warm, it will take about six hours to make the biscuit. CORN BREAD Mix into one pint and a half of cornmeal one teaspoon of salt, one teaspoon of sugar, and two eggs not beaten. Beat the batter hard to lighten the eggs. Add not quite two pints of buttermilk, one small teaspoon of butter, one small teaspoon of lard, melted ; and, last, one even teaspoon of soda. Stir all together. Have ready an oblong granite pan, into which put one tablespoon of butter and one tablespoon of lard. Set this CAKES 235