Miss Parloa's kitchen companion

Put the butter and molasses in a tin pan, and place pan on the fire. When the molasses boils up, add the ginger and soda. Take from the fire, and add the milk and beaten egg; then sift the flour into the pan. Beat well, and pour into three well-buttered pans. Bake in a rather quick oven for twenty minutes. * Buffalo Soft Molasses Gingerbread. Use two cupfuls of molasses, one of sugar, one of sour milk, four of flour, two eggs, one teaspoonful of soda, two teaspoonfuls of ginger, a level teaspoonful of salt, one teaspoonful of cinnamon, and two table-spoonfuls of water. Beat the sugar and molasses together. Add the ginger, salt, cinnamon, and sour milk. Dissolve the soda in the water, and add it to the mixture. Now add the eggs, well beaten, and lastly the flour. Bake in shallow pans, in a moderately quick oven, for twenty minutes. This quantity will fill four small cake-pans. * Ginger Snaps. Beat a cupful of butter in a warm bowl until it becomes soft and creamy; then gradually beat into it a cupful of sugar, a cupful of molasses, and a table-spoonful of ginger. Dissolve a teaspoonful of soda in half a gill of cold water, and stir into the mixture already prepared. Gradually add three pints of flour, beating well all the while; then roll the batter very thin, cut out the cakes, and bake in a quick oven. * Cream Cookies. If one be careful to use no more flour than the rule states, and to have a quick oven for the baking, these cookies will be very delicate. They are made of a cupful of sour cream, two cupfuls of sugar, six of sifted flour, an egg, a teaspoonful of soda, one-third of a teaspoonful of salt, and half a nutmeg, or one table-spoonful of caraway seeds. Dissolve the soda in a table-spoonful of cold water. Beat the egg till very light. Add the dissolved soda to the sour cream ; then stir the sugar, salt, and egg into the cream. Reserve a small part of the flour, and add the rest of the liquid mixture ; finally add the nutmeg, grated, or the caraway seeds. Sprinkle a board with about two table-spoonfuls of flour, and after rolling a small piece of the dough down to the thickness of one-third of an inch, cut it into cakes with a round, plain, or fluted cutter. Continue rolling and cutting the dough until all has been used. Place the cookies on tin sheets or in pans that have been buttered lightly with washed butter, and bake in a quick oven for six or seven minutes. When the cakes get brown they will be cooked sufficiently. Cool on a sieve, and put away in a tin box. With the quantities of ingredients mentioned between forty and fifty cookies may be made, the number depending, of course, upon the size of the cutter and the thickness of the dough. Scotch Cakes. These are peculiar cakes, very rich and nutty in flavor. One is apt to like them very much or not at all. By following this receipt only a small quantity will be made ; so, in experimenting, one need not waste a large amount of materials. The measurements should be exact, and great care should be taken in the mixing and baking.