Hot Water Paste
1 cupful flour 4 tablespoonfuls Crisco 1/3 teaspoonful salt 1/4 teaspoonful baking powder 3 tablespoonfuls boiling water
Sift flour, salt and baking powder into basin, rub Crisco lightly into them, then stir in boiling water. Cool paste before using, or it will be too sticky to handle.
Sufficient for one pie.
Butterscotch Pie
1 egg 1 cupful dark brown sugar 1 cupful milk 3 tablespoonfuls flour 2 tablespoonfuls Crisco 3 tablespoonfuls water 1/4 teaspoonful salt 1 tablespoonful powdered sugar 1 baked crust 1 teaspoonful vanilla extract
Put yolk of egg into saucepan, add brown sugar, flour, milk, water, Crisco, salt, and vanilla. Stir over fire until it thickens and comes to boiling point. Pour into baked pie shell. Beat up white of egg, then beat powdered sugar into it. Spread on top of pie and brown lightly in oven.
Sufficient for one pie.
Rhubarb Custard Pie
1 cupful cut rhubarb 1 cupful sugar 1 tablespoonful flour 1 tablespoonful melted Crisco 2 eggs 1/2 teaspoonful ginger extract 1 cupful milk Crisco pastry
Cut rhubarb in small pieces and mix with sugar and flour. Beat egg yolks, add milk, ginger extract, and melted Crisco. Line pie plate with pastry, and fill with rhubarb mixture. Pour custard over and bake in moderate oven until firm. Cover with meringue made with stiffly beaten whites of eggs to which two tablespoonfuls powdered sugar have been added.
Sufficient for one small pie.
Sugar Paste for Tartlets
1 cupful sugar 4 cupfuls flour 1/2 cupful Crisco, generous measure 1/2 teaspoonful salt 3 eggs 1 lemon
Sift flour on to baking board, make hole in center, and put in grated lemon rind, salt, sugar, eggs, and Crisco. Mix the whole to a stiff pastry. This paste is used for the bottom layer of pies and to line tartlet tins of various kinds. It is excellent for turnovers.
Sufficient for thirty tartlets.
Currant Tartlets
1/3 cupful currants 3 tablespoonfuls ground rice 2 whites of eggs 4 tablespoonfuls Crisco 3/4 cupful sponge cake crumbs 4 tablespoonfuls sugar 2 tablespoonfuls chopped candied orange peel 1/2 teaspoonful lemon extract Pinch of salt Crisco pastry 1 tablespoonful cream
Cream Crisco and sugar together, add ground rice, crumbs, peel, currants, cream, salt, lemon extract, and whites of eggs well beaten.
Roll out paste, cut into rounds, line some Criscoed tartlet tins with rounds, put in each a tablespoonful of the mixture. Bake tartlets in moderate oven from twelve to fifteen minutes. Or, these tartlets may be covered with frosting, and a little chopped cocoanut sprinkled over tops.
Sufficient for nine tartlets.
Bartemian Tarts
1 cupful sugar 1 lemon 1/4 lb. chopped candied citron peel Crisco flake pastry 1 egg 1 cupful raisins 1 tablespoonful melted Crisco 1/4 teaspoonful salt
Roll pastry thin and cut out large cakes of it. Beat egg, add sugar, Crisco, rind and strained juice of lemon, salt, citron, and raisins.
Mix and put tablespoonful of mixture on each of pastry cakes, wet edges of paste and fold like old fashioned turn over. Do not stick with fork or juice will run out. Lay turn overs on Criscoed tins and bake in hot oven from twelve to fifteen minutes.
Sufficient for twelve tarts.
Apricot Tarts
2 cupfuls flour 1/2 cupful Crisco 4 tablespoonfuls sugar 1/2 teaspoonful salt 1 egg 2 teaspoonfuls vanilla extract 1 teaspoonful baking powder Apricot jam or jelly Whipped cream Angelica Preserved cherries
Rub Crisco into flour, add salt, sugar, baking powder, break egg in and mix well with fork, then add vanilla. Roll out, cut with cutter and line Criscoed tartlet tins with the rounds. Line with paper and put in some rice or peas to keep paste from rising; bake in hot oven twenty minutes. Remove rice and papers. When pastries are cold put in each one a spoonful of the jam or jelly. Fill with whipped cream and decorate with cherries and angelica.
Sufficient for thirty tarts.
Bakewell Tartlets
4 tablespoonfuls sugar 2 eggs 4 tablespoonfuls Crisco 1 cupful flour 1/2 teaspoonful baking powder 1/4 teaspoonful salt 1/2 teaspoonful lemon extract Preserves Pastry
Cream Crisco and sugar, then add eggs well beaten, flour, salt, baking powder, and extract. Line twelve tartlet tins with pastry, put teaspoonful of preserves in each, then divide mixture into them, and bake in moderately hot oven twenty minutes.
Sufficient for twelve tartlets.
[Illustration]
BREADS &c.
[Illustration]
The usual method of making bread is to ferment dough with yeast; the latter acts upon certain constituents in the flour ultimately producing a gas which permeates the dough. The dough is placed in a very hot oven, the heat kills the yeast plant, the gas expands with the heat, still raising the dough. The loaf is set in shape, and, when finally cooked and the gas all escaped, will be found to be light and full of tiny holes. Certain factors hasten or delay these changes. A moist, warm medium being most favorable to the growth of the yeast, the water should just be lukewarm; then a good flour, containing about 8 per cent of gluten is necessary. This gluten is the proteid in flour; when well mixed with water it forms a viscid elastic substance, hence it is necessary to well knead dough to make it more springy, so that when the gas is generated in it, it will expand and take the form of a sponge, and thus prevent the gas from escaping. The bread must be put into a very hot oven at first, 340 F., so that the yeast plant is killed quickly. If this be not accomplished soon, the loaf may go on spreading in the oven, and, if not sour in taste, will not be of such a good flavor.
Plenty of salt in dough is said to strengthen the gluten, give a good flavor to the bread, and keep it moist for a longer time, but it rather retards the working of the yeast. Flour also may be made into a light loaf by using baking powder to produce the gas. This is a much quicker process, but the bread is not liked so universally as when made with yeast. For, when yeast is used, other changes take place in the dough besides the production of the gas, that seem to give bread the characteristic flavor constantly welcome by the palate. Good flour has a slight pure smell, free from any moldy odor.
[Illustration]
Yeast is a fungoid growth, a microscopic plant capable of starting a fermentation in various substances. It grows rapidly in a favorable medium, as when mixed with flour and water, and kept in a warm place, resulting in setting up fermentation. Baking powders are composed of an acid and an alkali. Some kind of flour usually is added to keep them dry and free from lumps. When the mixture containing the baking powder is moistened the acid and the alkali chemically combine and alter, a gas being generated. If the articles be placed soon in great heat, the gas is warmed, expands, and in its endeavor to escape raises the mass. The heat sets the mixture in this raised condition, thus the cake or pudding is rendered light, easier to masticate and digest.
Baking powders are used for two reasons. First. To supply a gas to take the place of ingredients, as when used in making bread, buns, etc. If flour, salt and water were mixed and baked in a large loaf, it would be a hard, indigestible mass. If baking powder be mixed in with similar ingredients and baked, the result would be a light loaf, easy to masticate and digest.