Principles of food preparation

Fritter Batter. This is a pancake batter made with sweet milk, eggs — one or two to a cup of flour — only one teaspoonful of baking powder to a cup of flour, and only a trace of butter, one teaspoonful or less, to a cup of flour, to give smoothness. An excess of fat will cause the fritter to fly to pieces if fried in deep fat. This thin fritter batter may be used for corn fritters, or any fritter which is cooked in a shallow pan by the method known as sauteing, or for oyster fritters, sliced apple fritters, or others which are merely coated with batter and where the shape of the food so coated is meant to be preserved. Waffles. This is the sweet milk batter, enriched by eggs, and with a tablespoonful of butter, or more, allowed to each cup of flour. French Pancakes. These are just common pancakes, PLOUR MIXTURES AND LEAVENS: BATTERS with or without eggs or butter, as you prefer, but made very thin, and glorified by being spread with jelly, rolled like a jelly-roll, and served with a sifting of powdered sugar. Popovers. This is a thin batter made of one cup of flour, one-quarter of a teaspoonful of salt, one cup of milk, and one egg. The first three ingredients are mixed to a smooth batter, then the unbeaten egg is dropped into the bowl and the whole is beaten vigorously with a Dover beater for 5 m. The batter is then poured into wellgreased popover cups, and baked until big, inflated bubbles swell up over the cups. POPOVERS Popovers may be served hot and fresh from the oven, with butter, for breakfast; or they can be filled with apple sauce, through a hole punched in the top, and served for a luncheon dessert. Chopped raisins or currants may be added to the popover batter for variety. Note. A skillful cook can make popovers or "puffs" without the use of egg, which is added merely to give more tenacity to the batter. Popovers can be baked with gradually increasing heat, when they will puff up better and retain their shape better. Or they can be put at once into a very hot oven, when a crust will immediately form, and later will probably be ruptured, the mixture "popping" out at the sides. When baked by this method they will very likely be soft in the inside. (Why?) From one-half to three-quarters of an hour will be needed for the baking, and the oven door must not be opened for the first fifteen minutes — and then only enough to take a little peek, to see that everything is going right. THE THICK BATTER A thick batter is one that will not immediately find its level when poured into the baking pan, but will require perhaps a minute, or even more, to settle. This mixture usually calls for twice as much flour as wetting, though, as in the case of the thin batter, much will depend on the kind of flour used. The given proportions in any of these rules will have to be modified by judgment and experience. The thick batter is also called the drop batter, or the muffin batter. EXAMPLES OF THE THICK BATTER Muffins (Standard Recipe for) Ingredients. Two cups of flour, one-half teaspoonful of salt, four teaspoonfuls of baking powder, two to four tablespoonfuls of butter or other shortening, one cup of liquid, which may be three-quarters of a cup of milk or water, and one egg.