The Queen Cook Book: A Careful Compilation of Recipes and Practical ...

Sift baking powder and salt through flour twice; then chop the butter in flour, then rub it in. Mix the whole together as quickly and with as little handling as possible. Roll into three sheets, long as your tin, each about half an inch thick. Bake, laying one sheet on top of the other, butter the under sheets lightly. Slice the oranges while it is baking, pour off the juice, sprinkle well with granulated sugar. As quick as baked, separate the sheet, spread with butter and put a thick layer of oranges between the two layers. Set it in oven four minutes. The oranges should be cut from around the core in small pieces, taking out all the seeds. This is delicious. This is the best kind of crust for strawberry shortcake. Maryland Biscuit. ' I quart flour 2 tablespoons butter J4 pint milk and water each i teaspoon salt Jlub the salt and butter well in the flour, add the The Queen Cook Book 2$ wetting gradually to the flour, stirring and kneading all the while — add just enough to moisten the flour, the dough must be very stiff; knead five minutes; and beat with the back of an ax thirty minutes. Then form into small round biscuits, stick with a fork three times, each one, bake in a moderately quick oven about twenty-five minutes. Brown on top and bottom. Egg Biscuit. I quart flour 5 tablespoons butter 5 tablespoons sugar 2 teaspoons baking-powder 5 eggs well beaten i teaspoon salt Sift the flour, salt, sugar and baking-powder together twice, then rub the butter m, and add the eggs; knead until light and elastic, cover with a damp cloth, let stand fifteen minutes. Roll out into a sheet a quarter of an inch thick, cut with round cutter. Drop a few at a time into boiling water, till edges curl, then into cold water for a minute, place in buttered pans, bake in moderate oven to a light brown. Corn Meal Mush. To three pints of boiling water add one pint of corn meal, a heaping teaspoon salt; wet the meal with one pint of this water before heating; then when the two pints boil, stir in the wet meal; keep it where it will just boil good and not burn for a full hour or more, stirring often; use a hard wood paddle, two feet long, with a blade two inches wide and seven inches long to stir with. The secret of good mush is its thorough cooking, which gives it the relish. It needs to be stiff enough to slice when cold. You can double or treble this quantity according to size of family. 26 The Queen Cook Book Fried Mush. An acceptable breakfast dish is made by slicing cold mush thin and frying in half butter and half lard. Can dip in beaten egg and cracker crumbs if you like it. Oat Meal, Cracked Wheat, Hominy, Rice. For one even tea cup full of oat meal washed in three waters, pour on one good pint and a half of good sweet milk, one teaspoon of salt. Put it in double boiler; let it swell for one hour at the boiling point, stirring four times; then let it just boil for another hour. If you have no milk use water, but it is not so good. Cook cracked wheat, hominy and rice the same way. Wash each till there are no black specks in the water. I have washed one cup of hominy in ten waters, before I stopped looking for black specks. Keep the water in motion as you pour it of!, so the specks will rise. Hominy is the white southern corn. If you wish either of these for breakfast put a little water on it the night before; it will swell over night. Plain Fritters. I cup milk 2 eggs I y^ cups flour I teaspoon salt I teaspoon baking-powder Sift flour and baking powder together twice, beat the eggs to a froth, then beat all thoroughly together, stiff enough to cut soft with a spoon to drop into boiling lard; when brown on one side turn and brown on the other; a wire skimmer is best to take them out with; then sprinkle fine sugar over them while hot, and cinnamon if you like. If fat gets too hot drop in two or J