A Little Cook Book for a Little Girl | Page 9

the
bottom.
Fried Sweet Potatoes
Take six cold boiled sweet-potatoes, slice them and lay in hot dripping
in the frying-pan till brown. These are especially nice with veal cutlets.
Toast
Toast is very difficult for grown people to make, because they have
made it wrong all their lives, but it is easy for little girls to learn to
make, because they can make it right from the first.
Cut bread that is at least two days old into slices a quarter of an inch
thick. If you are going to make only a slice or two, take the
toasting-fork, but if you want a plateful, take the wire broiler. Be sure
the fire is red, without any flames. Move the slices of bread back and
forth across the coals, but do not let them brown; do both sides this way,
and then brown first one and then the other afterward. Trim off the
edges, butter a little quickly, and send to the table hot. Baker's bread
makes the best toast.
Milk Toast
Put one pint of milk on in a double boiler and let it heat. Melt one
tablespoonful of butter, and when it bubbles stir in one small
tablespoonful of corn-starch, and when these are
rubbed smooth, put
in one-third of the milk. Cook and stir till even, without lumps, and
then put in the rest of the milk and stir well; add half a teaspoonful of
salt, and put on the back of the stove. Make six slices of toast; put one
slice in the dish and put a spoonful of the white sauce over it, then put
in another and another spoonful, and so on till all are in, and pour the
sauce that is left over all. If you want this extra nice, do not take quite
so much butter, and use a pint of cream instead of the milk.

Baking-powder Biscuit
Margaret's Other Aunt said little girls could never, never
make biscuit,
but this little girl really did, by this rule:
1 pint sifted flour.
1/2 teaspoonful of salt.
4 teaspoonfuls of
baking-powder.
3/4 cup of milk.
1 tablespoonful of butter.
Put the salt and baking-powder in the flour and sift well, and then rub
the butter in with a spoon. Little by little put in the milk, mixing all the
time, and then lift out the dough on a floured board and roll it out
lightly, just once, till it is one inch thick. Flour your hands and mould
the little balls as quickly as you can, and put them close together in a
shallow pan that has had a little flour shaken over the bottom, and bake
in a hot oven about twenty minutes, or till the biscuits are brown. If you
handle the dough much, the biscuits will be tough, so you must work
fast.
Grandmother's Corn Bread
1 1/2 cups of milk.
1 cup sifted yellow corn-meal.
1 tablespoonful
melted butter.
1 teaspoonful sugar.
1 teaspoonful baking-powder.

2 eggs.
1/2 teaspoonful of salt.
Scald the milk--that is, let it boil up just once--and pour it over the
corn-meal. Let this cool while you are separating and beating the eggs;
let these wait while you mix the corn-meal, the butter, salt,
baking-powder, and sugar, and then the yolks; add the whites last, very
lightly. Bake in a buttered biscuit-tin in a hot oven for about half an
hour.
Because grandmother's corn bread was a little old-fashioned,
Margaret's Other Aunt put in another recipe, which made a corn bread
quite like cake, and most delicious.
Perfect Corn Bread

1 large cup of yellow corn-meal.
1 small cup of flour.
1/2 cup of
sugar.
2 eggs.
2 teaspoonfuls of baking-powder.
3 tablespoonfuls
of butter.
1 teaspoonful of salt.
Flour to a thin batter.
Mix the sugar and butter and rub to a cream; add the yolks of the eggs,
well beaten, and then half a cup of milk; then put in the baking-powder
mixed in the flour and the salt, and then part of the corn-meal, and a
little more milk; next fold in the beaten whites of the eggs, and if it still
is not like ``a thin batter,'' put in a little more milk. Then bake in a
buttered biscuit-tin till brown, cut in squares and serve hot. This is
particularly good eaten with hot maple syrup.
Popovers
Put the muffin-tins or iron gem-pans in the oven to get very hot, while
you mix these popovers.
2 eggs.
2 cups of milk.
2 cups of flour.
1 small teaspoonful of salt.
Beat the eggs very lightly without separating them. Pour the milk in
and beat again. Sift the salt and flour together, pour over the eggs and
milk into it, and beat quickly with a spoon till it is foamy. Strain
through a wire sieve, and take the hot pans out of the oven and fill each
one-half full; bake just twenty-five minutes.
Cooking-school Muffins
2