The Rural cook book

Bread-crumb Biscuits. — ^Take one quart each, of bread crumbs and sour milk, add one-half cupful of lard, one-half teaspoonful of salt, and stiffen with flour in which is put before sifting one teaspoonful each of saleratus and baking powder. Mold, and bake in a quick oven. Be sure to allow the crumbs to soak for an hour in the milk before adding the other ingredients. Buttermilk Biscuits. — Two coffeecupfuls (even) of flour, half a coffeecupful of sour milk, half a coffeecupful of buttermilk, one teaspoonful of sugar, one teaspoonful of yeast powder, half a teaspoonful of salt, half a teaspoonful of soda. Mix sugar, yeast powder and salt with flour and sift; dissolve soda in two tablespoonfuls of cold water, beat into the sour milk until it stops "purring," mix quickly with dry ingredients, using a spoon, turn on a well-floured board, pat with the hand into a cake half an inch thick, roll, cut into biscuits; bake in a very hot oven 10 minutes. French Biscuits. — One cupful of butter, one cupful of sugar, the stiffly-beaten white of one egg, one-fourth cupful of thick sour milk, half a teaspoonful of soda dissolved in a very little hot water, flour enough to make a dough that may be rolled out. Sprinkle with sugar, cut into iarge circles, and bake for 20 minutes. Martha Washington Biscuits. — Sift one pint of flour with one tablespoonful of sugar, one teaspoonful each of baking powder and salt. Rub into it one tablespoonful of lard. Mix with one well-beaten egg and one cupful of water; roll one-fourth of an inch in thickness and cut with small round cutter. Fry in hot fat until cooked on one side, turn and brown. Molded Biscuits. — One quart of flour, into which two heaping teaspoonfuls of baking powder and one of salt have been sifted; rub into it a scant half cupful of lard and butter, half and half; stir to a dough with enough milk to make it just too thin to roll out. Grease muffin rings and put on a greased baking pan ; drop from a spoon dough enough nearly to fill each ring; bake in a quick oven. Delicious tea cake, to be eaten hot with butter, is made by adding a tablespoonful of sugar and one well-beaten egg to this recipe and baking in one loaf, or in a large flat cake to be split open and buttered, then cut in sections. Potato Biscuits. — Pare and boil six white potatoes. While hot put through a ricer, then add gradually one pint of scalded milk, one-half of a cupful of butter, one teaspoonful each of salt and sugar and one-half of a cupful of flour. Let stand until lukewarm, then add one yeast cake dissolved in a little warm water and sifted flour to make a soft dough. Knead lightly, using no more flour than is needed to keep from sticking to the board. Cover and let stand again until very light, then form into small rolls, handling most carefully and greasing the hands if the dough is inclined to stick. Place in greased pans, let stand until fully doubled in bulk, then bake about twenty minutes in a quick oven. Sour Cream Biscuits.— Use three good tablespoonfuls of thick sour cream ; put this into a quart measure and fill it two-thirds full with sweet milk; add half a teaspoonful of salt, two teaspoonfuls of cream of tartar and a teaspoonful of soda. Stir into this enough flour to make a dough that will roll very soft; cut into small biscuits, brush well with melted butter, and bake about 20 minutes in a good oven. Tea Biscuits, — For a six o'clock tea, set the batter about one o'clock. Add to one quart sifted flour a teaspoonful sugar, a heaping teaspoonful salt, and a tablespoonful each lard and butter; rub in well; dissolve onehalf yeast cake (compressed) in a little tepid water; add to a cupful Bweet milk; then mix well with the flour; cover and set out of 3 draught