Directions for Cookery, in its Various BranchesLeslie, Eliza
General
Directions for Cookery, in its Various Branches
Leslie, Eliza
Cooking, American
Take a half-pint or a tumbler full of cold water, and mix it with half
a pound of powdered white sugar. Sift three pounds of flour into a
large pan and cut up in it a pound of butter; rub the butter very fine
into the flour. Add a grated nutmeg, and a tea-spoonful of powdered
cinnamon, with a wine glass of rose water. Work in the sugar, and make
the whole into a stiff dough, adding, if necessary, a little cold
water. Dissolve a tea-spoonful of pearl-ash in just enough of warm
water to cover it, and mix it in at the last. Take the lump of dough
out of the pan, and knead it on the paste-board till it becomes quite
light. Then roll it out rather more than half an inch thick, and cut it
into square cakes with a jagging iron or with a sharp knife. Stamp the
surface of each with a cake print. Lay them in buttered pans, and bake
them of a light brown in a brisk oven.
They are similar to what are called New Year’s cakes, and will keep two
or three weeks.
In mixing the dough, you may add three table-spoonfuls of carraway
seeds.
SUGAR BISCUIT.
Wet a pound of sugar with two large tea-cups full of milk; and rub a
pound of butter into two pounds of flour; adding a table-spoonful of
cinnamon, and a handful of carraway seeds. Mix in the sugar, add a
tea-spoonful of pearl-ash dissolved, and make the whole into a stiff
dough. Knead it, and then roll it out into a sheet about half an inch
thick. Beat it on both sides with the rolling-pin, and then cut it out
with the edge of a tumbler into round cakes. Prick them with a fork,
lay them in buttered pans, and bake them light brown in a quick oven.
You may colour them yellow by mixing in with the other ingredients a
little of the infusion of saffron.
RUSKS.
Sift three pounds of flour into a large pan, and rub into it half a
pound of butter, and half a pound of sugar. Beat two eggs very light,
and stir them into a pint and a half of milk, adding two
table-spoonfuls of rose water, and three table-spoonfuls of the best
and strongest yeast. Make a hole in the middle of the flour, pour in
the liquid, and gradually mix the flour into it till you have a thick
batter. Cover it, and set it by the fire to rise. When it is quite
light, put it on your paste-board and knead it well. Then divide it
into small round cakes and knead each separately. Lay them very near
each other in shallow iron pans that have been sprinkled with flour.
Prick the top of each rusk with a fork, and set them by the fire to
rise again for half an hour or more. When they are perfectly light,
bake them in a moderate oven. They are best when fresh.
You can convert them into what are called Hard Rusks, or Tops and
Bottoms, by splitting them in half, and putting them again into the
oven to harden and crisp.
MILK BISCUIT.
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