1 cake compressed yeast 2 c. lukewarm liquid 1/4 c. molasses 2 Tb. fat 1 Tb. salt 2 c. white flour 4 c. graham flour 1-1/2 c. chopped nuts 1 c. white flour additional for kneading
Dissolve the yeast in a little of the lukewarm liquid and mix it with the molasses, fat, and salt. Add the remaining liquid and the white flour. Let this sponge rise until it is light. Then stir in the graham flour, adding the nuts while kneading. Let the dough rise until it doubles in bulk. Shape into loaves, place it in the greased pans, and let it rise until it doubles in size. Bake for an hour or more, according to the size of the loaves.
Make a batter, at night, of a pint of water or milk, a teaspoonful of salt, and half a teacupful of yeast; in the morning, add to it one teacupful of thick, sour milk, two eggs well beaten, a level tablespoonful of melted butter, a level teaspoonful of soda and flour enough to make the consistency of pancake batter; let stand twenty minutes, then bake. This is a convenient way, when making sponge for bread over night, using some of the sponge.
1 yeast cake 2 c. lukewarm liquid 2 Tb. fat 1/4 c. brown sugar stoned, chopped dates 2 tsp. salt 6 c. whole-wheat flour 1-1/2 c. seeded raisins or stoned, chopped dates 1 c. white flour for kneading
Dissolve the yeast cake in a little of the lukewarm liquid and add it to the fat, sugar, and salt that have been put into the mixing bowl. Pour in the remainder of the liquid and add half or all of the flour, depending on the bread-making method that is followed. Stir in the fruit before all the flour is added and just before the dough is shaped into loaves. After it has risen sufficiently in the greased pans, proceed with the baking.
One pint of warm milk, two cupfuls of warm boiled rice, one quart of bread flour, one teaspoonful of salt, two table-spoonfuls of butter, one-third of a cake of compressed yeast. Mix the butter, rice and milk together. Pour the mixture on the flour, and beat till a light batter is formed. Mix the yeast with four table-spoonfuls of cold water, and add it and the salt to the batter, which let rise over night in a cool place. In the morning fill buttered muffin pans two-thirds to the top, and set them in a warm place till the batter has so risen as to fill the tins. Bake thirty-five minutes. One-third of a cupful of liquid yeast may be substituted for the compressed yeast.
Twelve tomatoes, two cupfuls of bread crumbs, one of stock, four table-spoonfuls of butter, one of flour, salt, pepper, one teaspoonful of onion juice. Cut slices from the stem end of the tomatoes. Remove the juice and pulp with a spoon, and dredge the inside with salt and pepper. Put two table-spoonfuls of the butter in a frying-pan, and when hot, stir in the bread crumbs. Stir constantly until they are brown and crisp, and fill the tomatoes with them. Cover the openings with fresh crumbs and bits of butter. Bake slowly half an hour. Fifteen minutes before the tomatoes are done, make the sauce in this manner: Put one table-spoonful of butter in the frying-pan, and when hot, add the flour. Stir until brown and smooth; then add the stock, tomato juice and pulp. Stir until it boils up, and add the onion juice, salt and pepper. Simmer ten minutes, and strain. Lift the tomatoes on to a flat dish, with the cake turner. Pour the sauce around, garnish with parsley, and serve. Any kind of meat, chopped fine and seasoned highly, can be used in place of the crumbs.
1/2 cup milk and water or water 2 tablespoons corn syrup 4 tablespoons fat 1-1/2 teaspoons salt 4 cups boiled potatoes 8 cups flour 1/2 cake compressed yeast 1/4 cup warm water
Dissolve yeast in the warm water. Add other ingredients and make same as any bread.
Scald your milk pans every day after washing them; and let them set till the water gets cold. Then wipe them with a clean cloth. Fill them all with cold water half an hour before milking time, and do not pour it out till the moment before you are ready to use the pans. Unless all the utensils are kept perfectly sweet and nice, the cream and butter will never be good. Empty milk-pans should stand all day in the sun. When you have strained the milk into the pans, (which should be broad and shallow,) place them in the spring-house, setting them down in the water. After the milk has stood twenty-four hours, skim off the cream, and deposits it in a large deep earthen jar, commonly called a crock, which must be kept closely covered, and stirred up with a stick at least twice a day, and whenever you add fresh cream to it. This stirring is to prevent the butter from being injured by the skin that will gather over the top of the cream. You should churn at least twice a week, for if the cream is allowed to stand too long, the butter will inevitably have a odd taste. Add to the cream the strippings of the milk. Butter of only two or three days gathering is the best. With four or five good cows, you may easily manage to have a churning every three days. If your dairy is on a large scale, churn every two days. Have your churn very clean, and rinse and cool it with cold water. A barrel churn is best; though a small upright one, worked by a staff or dash, will do very well where there are but one or two cows. Strain the cream from the crock into the churn, and put on the lid. Move the handle slowly in warm weather, as churning too fast will make the butter soft. When you find that the handle moves heavily and with great difficulty, the butter has come; that is, it has separated from the thin fluid and gathered into a lump, and it then is not necessary to churn any longer. Take it out with a wooden ladle, and put it into a small tub or pail. Squeeze and press it hard with the ladle, to get out all that remains of the milk. Add a little salt, and then squeeze and work It for a long time. If any of the milk is allowed to remain in, it will speedily turn sour and spoil the butter. Set it away in a cool place for three hours, and then work it over again. [Footnote: A marble slab or table will be found of great advantage in working and making up butter.] Wash it in cold water; weigh it; make it up into separate pounds, smoothing, and shaping it; and clap each pound on your wooden butter print, dipping the print every time in cold water. Spread a clean linen cloth on a bench in the spring-house; place the butter on it, and let it set till it becomes perfectly hard. Then wrap each pound in a separate piece of linen that has been dipped in cold water. Pour the buttermilk into a clean crock, and place it in the spring-house, with a saucer to dip it out with. Keep the pot covered. The buttermilk will be excellent the first day; but afterwards it will become too thick and sour. Winter buttermilk is never very palatable. Before you put away the churn, wash and scald it well; and the day that you use it again, keep it for an hour or more filled with cold water. In cold weather, churning is a much more tedious process than in summer, as the butter will be longer coming. It is best then to have the churn in a warm room, or near the fire. If you wish to prepare the butter for keeping a long time, take it after it has been thoroughly well made, and pack it down tightly into a large jar. You need not in working it, add more salt than if the butter was to be eaten immediately. But preserve it by making a brine of fine salt, dissolved in water. The brine must be strong enough to bear up an egg on the surface without sinking. Strain the brine into the jar, so as to be about two inches above the butter. Keep the jar closely covered, and set it in a cool place. When you want any of the butter for use, take it off evenly from the top; so that the brine may continue to cover it at a regular depth. This receipt for making butter is according to the method in use at the best farm-houses in Pennsylvania, and if exactly followed will be found very good. The badness of butter is generally owing to carelessness or mismanagement; to keeping the cream too long without churning; to want of cleanliness in the utensils; to not taking the trouble to work it sufficiently; or to the practice of salting it so profusely as to render it unpleasant to the taste, and unfit for cakes or pastry. All these causes of bad butter are inexcusable, and can easily be avoided. Unless the cows have been allowed to feed where there are bitter weeds or garlic, the milk cannot naturally have any disagreeable taste, and therefore the fault of the butter must be the fault of the maker. Of course, the cream is much richer where the pasture is fine and luxuriant; and in winter, when the cows have only dry food, the butter must be consequently whiter and more insipid than in the grazing season. Still, if properly made, even winter butter cannot taste badly. Many economical housekeepers always buy for cooking, butter of inferior quality. This is a foolish practice; as when it is bad, the taste will predominate through all attempts to disguise it, and render every thing unpalatable with which it is combined. As the use of butter is designed to improve and not to spoil the flavour of cookery, it is better to omit it altogether, and to substitute something else, unless you can procure that which is good. Lard, suet, beef-drippings, and sweet oil, may be used in the preparation of various dishes; and to eat with bread or warm cakes, honey, molasses, or stewed fruit, &c, are far superior to bad butter.
Mince very finely three pounds of raw veal and one-fourth pound of pork. It is better to do this at home than to have it done at the butcher's. Put two slices of bread to soak in milk, add two yolks of eggs and the whites, pepper and salt. Mix it well, working it for ten minutes. Then let it rest for half-an-hour. Put it in a small stewpan, add a lump of butter the size of a pigeon's egg, and put it in the oven. It will be ready to serve when the juice has ceased to run out. [Paquerette]
Cook one quart of potatoes diced, in boiling water until tender. Strain, reserving potato water. Measure and add enough more water to make three cups. Let come to a boil, add one-quarter cup of salt, and very gradually one and one-quarter cups of cornmeal. Cook two minutes, stirring constantly until thick. Remove from fire, add two tablespoons of any kind of fat, the potatoes riced or mashed and when cooled two cups of flour; then one tablespoon of sugar and one cake of yeast dissolved in one cup of lukewarm water. Mix and knead to a stiff dough adding wheat flour to keep it from sticking. Cover, set aside in a warm place overnight, or until double its bulk. Shape into four loaves, let rise again; bake in a moderate oven one hour or more, until well done. Glaze with egg diluted with water before putting in the oven. These loaves will keep moist one week.
Take the bone out of a round of fresh beef, and beat the meat well all over to make it tender. Chop and mix together equal quantities of sweet marjoram and sweet basil, the leaves picked from the stalks and rubbed fine. Chop also some small onions or shalots, and some parsley; the marrow from the bone of the beef; and a quarter of a pound, or more of suet. Add two penny rolls of stale bread grated; and pepper, salt, and nutmeg to your taste. Mix all these ingredients well, and bind them together with the beaten yolks of four eggs. Fill with this seasoning the place from whence you took out the bone; and rub what is left of it all over the outside of the meat. You must, of course, proportion the quantity of stuffing to the size of the round of beef. Fasten it well with skewers, and tie it round firmly with a piece of tape, so as to keep it compact and in good shape. It is best to prepare the meat the day before it is to be cooked. Cover the bottom of a stew-pan with slices of bacon. Lay the beef upon them, and cover the top of the meat with more slices of bacon. Place round it four large onions, four carrots, and four turnips, all cut in thick slices. Pour in from half a pint to a pint of water, and if convenient, add two calves' feet cut in half. Cover the pan closely, set it in an oven and let it bake for at least six hours; or seven or eight, according to the size. When it is thoroughly done, take out the beef and lay it on a dish with the vegetables round it. Remove the bacon and calves' feet, and (having skimmed the fat from the gravy carefully) strain it into a small sauce-pan; set it on hot coals, and stir into it a tea-cupful of port wine, and the same quantity of pickled mushrooms. Let it just come to a boil, and then send it to table in a sauce-tureen. If the beef is to be eaten cold, you may ornament it as follows:-- Glaze it all over with beaten white of egg. Then cover it with a coat of boiled potato grated finely. Have ready some slices of cold boiled carrot, and also of beet-root. Cut them into the form of stars or flowers, and arrange them handsomely over the top of the meat by sticking them on the grated potato. In the centre place a large bunch of double parsley, interspersed with flowers cut out of raw turnips, beets, and carrots, somewhat in imitation of white and red roses, and marygolds. Fix the flowers on wooden skewers concealed with parsley. Cold à-la-mode beef prepared in this manner will at a little distance look like a large iced cake decorated with sugar flowers. You may dress a fillet of veal according to this receipt. Of course it will require less time to stew.
