Eliza Leslie

“ Yeast-powders of themselves have not sufficient power to raise bread or cakes so as to make them light enough to be wholesome. They should only be employed when real yeast, or eggs, are also used. Then they add greatly to the lightness of the cake. They are also an improvement to batter puddings. They must always be added at the last.
To use them, dissolve first the soda in a wine-glass and a half of milk or lukewarm water, and when thoroughly melted, stir it into the batter. Then melt in another cup the acid, with a similar quantity of milk or water, and stir it in at the last. ”

“ When the griddle is quite hot, lay on it as many cakes as it will hold, and bake them brown. When the upper side is done, slip a bread knife beneath, and turn them over. They must be baked brown on both sides. Eat them warm, with buttermilk, sweet milk, butter, molasses, or whatever is most convenient. If you intend these cakes for dinner or supper, mix them as early in the day as you can, and (covering the pan) let them stand in a cool place till wanted for baking. In cold weather you may save trouble by mixing over night enough to last the next day for breakfast, dinner, and supper ”

“ THE SUMMER HEARTH.—Summer blowers, of handsomely ornamented iron, are now much used to conceal the empty coal-grates, during the season of warm weather. Like chimney-boards, they render the room very close, by entirely excluding the fresh air that may enter from the chimney. ”

“ Put the rice into a sauce-pan, with a quart of rich milk. Having dredged the currants with flour, stir them a few at a time into the rice and milk. Then add four ounces of broken up loaf-sugar, on which you have rubbed off the yellow rind of a large ripe lemon or orange, and squeezed the juice. Stir in two ounces of fresh butter divided into bits. When the rice is well swollen and quite soft, take it from the fire, and mix with it gradually eight well-beaten yolks of eggs. Transfer it to a deep china dish, and put it into an oven for half an hour. ”

“ MUSHROOM OMELET.—Take some fresh-gathered mushrooms; remove the stalks, and rub the flaps or heads very slightly with a little salt, mixed with cayenne. Then stew the mushrooms in a small sauce-pan, with barely sufficient cream or rich milk to cover them. Put in with them a small onion; and if the onion is found to turn blackish, throw away the whole; it being proof that there is among them a false or poisonous mushroom. Stir them with a silver spoon, and keep on the lid of the pan closely; unless when you are stirring. If the spoon turns black, the mushrooms should not be eaten. ”

“ CHOCOLATE PUDDING.—Have the best and strongest American chocolate or cocoa. Baker’s prepared cocoa will be found excellent for all chocolate purposes; better indeed than any thing else, as it is pure, and without any adulteration of animal fat, being also very strong, and communicating a high flavour. Of this, scrape down, very fine, two ounces or more. Add to it a tea-spoonful of mixed spice, namely, powdered nutmeg and cinnamon. Put it into a very clean sauce-pan, and pour on a quart of rich milk, stirring it well. ”

“ Take ripe tomatas in the height of the season. In autumn they become watery, and insipid. Weigh them; and to every pound of tomatas allow a pound [434] of sugar. Put the tomatas into a large pan, or a small tub, and scald them with boiling water, so as to make the skin peel off easily. When you have entirely removed the skins, put the tomatas (without any water) into a preserving-kettle, mash them, and add the sugar, with spoonfuls of ground ginger to your taste; also fresh lemon-peel finely grated, and sufficient lemon-juice to give it a fine flavour. ”

“ An excellent pot-pie may be made with venison and potatoes previously stewed together. Boiled paste is always best when shortened with minced suet. Beef-suet is superior to any other.
A VENISON PUDDING.—Take nice steaks of fresh venison; season them slightly with salt and pepper; put them into a pot, with a piece of fresh butter, and stew them in barely sufficient water to keep them from scorching. When they are quite tender, take them, up; cut all the meat from the bones, and set it to cool. Save the gravy, and when cold carefully remove all the fat from the surface. ”

“ As soon as the loaf or pie is in, put on the lid of the oven, and cover it all over with hot coals, replenishing it with more live coals as the baking proceeds. If you find it too hot on the top, deaden it with ashes. If the oven stands on the hearth, keep up the heat at the bottom, by additional live coals placed beneath it. Whether the oven is hung over the fire, or stood on the hearth, there must always be hot coals all over the lid, the hottest near the edge.
To bake on a griddle, you may either hang it over the fire, or set it over hot coals on the hearth. Most griddles have feet. ”

“ Transfer it directly to a butter tin pan; set it immediately into a brisk oven; and bake it an hour and a half or more, according to its thickness. Ice it when cool; flavouring the icing-with lemon or rose. This cake will be best the day it is baked.
In every sort of sponge-cake, Naples-biscuit, lady-fingers, and in all cakes made without butter, it is important to know that though the egg and sugar is to be beaten very hard, the flour, which must always go in at the last, must be stirred in very slowly and lightly, holding the whisk or stirring-rods perpendicularly or upright in your hand ”

“ Have ready some nice gravy of roast beef, veal, or fresh pork, that has been left from the preceding day, and well skimmed. Care should every day be taken to save whatever gravy is left of roast meat, skimming off all the fat from the surface, and putting away the gravy in a covered vessel set in a cool place. The gravy of cold mutton or lamb is so like tallow that it is unfit to use in any sort of cookery, and should always be consigned to the crock of soap-fat. ”