Part 32

1 cup yellow granular corn meal large ½ cup white flour ½ tablespn. sugar salt 2¾-3 cups boiling milk or water, or half of each 1 large or 2 small eggs

Mix and bake as with common meal. If the liquid is not rich milk, use 1 tablespn. oil or melted butter.

Use ¾-1 cup of nut meal or butter and all water for Nut Corn Dodgers.

=Corn Meal Porridge Dodgers=

1 cup corn meal ½ teaspn. salt 1 cup boiling water 1 tablespn. oil or melted butter

Pour boiling water over corn meal and salt in inner cup of double boiler; stir smooth, cook 1 hr., add oil, drop by spoonfuls on oiled griddle, dip fingers in cold water and pat down flat; when browned put a dot of butter or a little oil on top of each and turn. Serve with poached eggs if desired.

=Griddle Cakes=

Batter for griddle cakes should stand 2 hrs. or longer in the ice box, or in winter in some cold place, to lighten it by allowing the starch grains and glutenous portion of the flour to swell.

An iron or steel griddle is best for baking cakes. Soapstone, so highly recommended, is objectionable because little particles of the stone adhere to the cakes.

The griddle should stand on a not too hot part of the stove and heat slowly for a long time before the cakes are to be baked. Professional pancake bakers have their griddle over a slow fire all night.

When oil is used in the batter, less or none is required on the griddle.

Have the griddle hot before putting the cakes on, brown them delicately, then turn once only. A second turning makes them heavy. Cakes ought to be eaten as soon as baked, but should not be covered when required to stand for a short time.

=Plain Griddle Cakes=

1 cup milk 2 tablespns. oil 2 eggs 1¼-1½ cup bread flour ¼-⅓ teaspn. salt

Rest 2 hrs. or longer. May spread with jelly, or with butter and sugar and roll.

=Rice Griddle Cakes=

Add 1-2 cups cold boiled rice to plain cakes.

=Crumb Griddle Cakes=

Use only 1 cup of flour in plain cakes and add stale or dry bread crumbs to make quite a thick batter.

=Buckwheat Cakes=

Use ⅔ buckwheat in place of all white flour in plain cakes.

=Savory Meat Griddle Cakes=

Add crumbled trumese, fine chopped onion and powdered sage to rice or crumb cakes.

=Mushroom Griddle Cakes=

Lay a spoonful or two of chopped mushroom stems, simmered in oil with or without a little tomato, browned flour and onion, on each small thin cake, roll lightly and serve with or without Italian or Boundary Castle sauce.

=Plain Griddle Cakes--Roux. Delicate and Creamy=

1 full tablespn. oil 2 tablespns. bread flour ½ cup milk ½ cup water ½ cup flour ½ teaspn. salt 2 eggs

Heat oil, add the 2 tablespns. flour, hot water and milk, boil well; when cool, add salt, yolks of eggs and ½ cup of flour, beating; then the stiffly-beaten whites of eggs; rest.

=Variations=

(_a_) 2 cups dry bread crumbs in place of the half cup of flour and less or no salt.

(_b_) Add 2-4 cups of cold boiled hominy to plain batter and another ¼ cup of flour if necessary.

(_c_) Add 1½-2 cups cold boiled rice to plain cakes and a little more flour if necessary.

(_d_) Add 1-1½ cup drained canned corn to plain cakes, more flour if necessary.

(_e_) Add 4 tablespns. granular corn meal scalded with about ⅔ cup of boiling water, to plain cakes.

=Crumb Griddle Cakes--no flour=

1 cup milk 1 cup dry crumbs ⅓ teaspn. salt 1 egg

=Corn and Crumb Griddle Cakes--no eggs=

½ cup granular meal ½ cup boiling water 1 teaspn. oil ½ teaspn. salt ¾ cup dry bread crumbs ¾ cup whole milk

Cool. If necessary, add ¼ cup more of milk.

=Rice Griddle Cakes--no flour=

½ cup rice 3 eggs 1 cup milk ½ teaspn. salt 1 tablespn. oil

Boil rice in 2 cups water, partly cool, beat smooth with milk, add salt and beaten eggs. Another yolk of egg may be used. If rice is thin, use less milk.

=Hominy Griddle Cakes=

½ cup hominy 3 eggs ⅓ cup milk 1½ tablespn. oil salt

Cook hominy in 2 cups water and proceed as in Rice Cakes.

=Corn Meal Griddle Cakes--no flour=

1 pt. granular meal 1 teaspn. each butter, salt and sugar 1 pt. boiling water ½-¾ cup cold milk 2 eggs

Scald meal with boiling water, add butter, salt, sugar and cold milk, then yolks of eggs; beat batter and fold in stiffly-beaten whites. Or, beat eggs all together.

For Rhode Island meal, 1½ pt. boiling water will be required.

=Green Corn Batter Cakes=

2 tablespns. oil or melted butter 3 tablespns. flour ⅞ cup boiling water ½-¾ cup of grated or ground green corn 1 teaspn. sugar if corn is not sweet 3 tablespns. fine dry or toasted bread crumbs 1 egg salt

Heat oil, add flour, then boiling water; remove from fire, add salt and crumbs, cool, add corn and beaten egg. Bake on well oiled griddle.

=Nut Butter Griddle Cakes=

2 tablespns. almond, Brazil or other nut butter, 1 cup water, salt, 2 eggs, whites beaten separate, 1 cup bread flour.

=Nut and Egg Cakes=

For those who cannot take starchy foods.

Rub 2 tablespns. nut butter smooth with 2 full tablespns. of water; add a beaten egg with salt. Bake on moderate griddle to delicate brown.

=Dough Breads=

Grind dough breads 5-8 times through a food cutter with the finest plate instead of kneading; it saves time and strength and the breads are better.

A good spring wheat graham flour makes better rolls than whole wheat flour, but poor graham flour does not make good “anything.” The simplest rolls are made with flour and water, with or without salt, and require more thorough working than those made with shortening. Rolls may be reheated whole, or be split and toasted.

Sticks and rolls may be mixed with milk instead of water.

All crackers and wafers (except fruit) should be crisped thoroughly in the oven before serving.

=Plain Graham Rolls=

Put a cupful of ice water into a cold bowl. Add ¼ teaspn. of salt if desired, but the rolls will have more of the sweet, nutty flavor of the flour without it. Agitate the water until full of bubbles and sprinkle in the cold flour as for gems. When the batter is too stiff to beat, take it out on to a cold floured board and knead, using as little flour as possible, until smooth and elastic. About 3 cupfuls of flour will be taken up. Divide the dough, roll it quickly and evenly to about ¾ in. in diameter, cut into 3 in. lengths and set in ice box to rest. Bake in a moderate oven with steady heat until the rolls will not yield to pressure between the thumb and finger and are of a delicate brown.

If preferred, the water may be poured over the flour and the dough kneaded the same. The dough may rest before being rolled out.

The yolk of a hard boiled egg rubbed into each pint of flour makes more tender rolls; or one beaten raw yolk may be added to each ¾ cup of water.

=Nut Rolls=

Add ¾-1 cup of nut meal to water in plain rolls recipe.

=Cream Rolls=

Mix rich cold cream and graham flour together quickly. Press together without kneading, rest for 2 hrs. or more, shape into rolls and bake, or put on ice again until ready to bake.

Rolls may be kneaded, and if kneaded at all should be kneaded thoroughly. Cocoanut cream may be substituted for dairy.

=★ Shortened Rolls=

The quantity of oil required will depend entirely upon the quality of the flour, but for ordinary graham flour take ⅓ cup of oil to each pint of flour; to a good spring wheat flour not more than ¼ cup. Rub the oil into the salted flour, add ice water for moderately stiff dough, press into a mass and set to rest, unless preferring to knead. Finish the same as cream rolls. ⅓ white flour may be used with the graham.

=Fruit Rolls=

Roll shortened dough ¼ in. thick. Cut into strips 2½-3 in. wide, put a strip of halves of stoned dates, pieces of nice fresh figs or a roll of seeded and ground raisins along the length of the dough a little one side of the center; slightly moisten the edge of the dough farthest away from the fruit, lap the edge nearest, over the fruit and roll it up in the dough, leaving a long roll with the fruit in the center; roll over and over until the edge of the dough is well fastened down; cut roll into 2 or 3 inch lengths (1 inch for some occasions); bake.

This way of putting the fruit in the roll has the advantage of leaving no pieces of fruit sticking through the dough to be burned in baking, and also of not having any “sad” portion of dough in the center of the roll.

=Fruit and Nut Rolls=--may be made by adding pieces of nuts to the fruit in the roll.

=Sticks=

Roll any of the roll doughs or the graham cracker dough to about the size of a lead pencil or not over ⅓ of an inch in diameter; cut in 5-7 in. lengths, rest and bake the same as rolls. Sticks are more crisp and delightful than rolls. They should be on the table for every meal.

=White Sticks=

Take 1-1½ tablespn. of oil to each cup of white bread flour, with a trifle of salt, and water for stiff dough.

Dainty white sticks are nice to serve with soups, salads and some desserts.

=Porridge Sticks.=

1 cup cold, thick oatmeal porridge 1 tablespn. oil salt ½ cup graham flour 1¼ cup white flour

Mix and knead thoroughly. Dough must be very stiff.

=Beaten Biscuit--Whole Wheat=

1 qt. true whole wheat flour ½ teaspn. salt ⅓ cup oil 1 scant cup ice water, about

Rub salt and oil with flour, add water, knead until smooth (the dough should be very stiff), then separate dough into several pieces and put it through the food cutter 6 or 8 times. This takes the place of the laborious beating. Shape into small thick biscuit; make a hole through the center of each one from the top with the thumb or finger, rest; bake thoroughly in moderate oven.

If you have time to form the biscuit you will be well repaid for your trouble as they are so beautiful; but if your time is limited, roll the dough ½-1 in. thick, cut with small round cutter and prick with fork. You may even cut the dough into small squares. Rolled very thin, cut with a large cutter and pricked well, the dough makes nice wafers. If a food cutter is not at hand, beat with a mallet or the rolling pin, or pick apart with the thumb and fingers, over and over again, until the dough snaps when pulled apart.

A cup of medium thick cream may be used instead of oil and water.

=Maryland Beaten Biscuit=

1 qt. white flour 1 teaspn. salt 2-4 tablespns. oil or 1-2 tablespns. butter, (use only ½ teaspn. salt with butter) ¾-⅞ cup of ice cold milk or water, or half of each

Proceed as with whole wheat biscuit.

=Maryland Biscuit--Unbeaten=

1 qt. whole wheat or white flour salt 4 tablespns. oil or melted butter cold water or milk for stiffest possible dough

Knead 20 m., or until dough blisters; set aside 1-2 hrs., or over night; knead 5-10 m., roll and cut, or shape by hand. Bake.

=★ White Crackers=

1 qt. bread flour 4 tablespns. oil, or 2 of oil and 1 of butter (2 of melted butter) salt cold milk for very stiff dough

Knead until smooth, run through food cutter 6-8 times, or beat or pick as beaten biscuit; rest, roll thin, prick dough all over, cut into any desired shape, bake in moderate oven. ¼ or ½ of pastry flour may be used; also water and a little more shortening.

=Swedish Milk Biscuit=

Make white crackers of milk, roll as thin as paper, prick, cut into biscuit the size of a saucer. Turn the wafers on the tins often while baking. Serve with some desserts, fruit or other salads, and with cottage cheese. Cut a hole in the center of some of the biscuit before baking and serve salads or suitable meat dishes on them in individual servings.

=Cocoanut Wafers=

2½ cups pastry flour 1 cup dessicated cocoanut 2 tablespns. butter or 3 of oil salt water

Rub butter into flour, add salt and mix with cocoanut which has been ground through a food cutter. Add ice water for stiff dough, roll out at once or rest before rolling as preferred. Bake carefully so as not to scorch the cocoanut. Dried grated cocoanut of your own preparing is preferable. 2 cups of cocoanut may be used.

If a sweet wafer is desired, add sugar to the dough or sprinkle with sugar before baking.

=Fruit Bars=

Roll any desired dough thin, cut into 3-3½ in. strips, spread one half of the width with stoned dates, halved raisins, steamed figs, sweet prunes or any suitable fruit, which has been cut into strips with the shears; moisten the edge next to the fruit, fold the other half of the dough over, pressing the edges well together, and roll lightly to flatten the bar; cut with a sharp knife into 2½-3 in. lengths.

Add nuts to make fruit and nut bars, or make nut bars sometimes. The dough may be slightly sweetened.

=Crackers with Nuts=

Brush baked crackers with beaten white of egg and spread thick with chopped or coarse ground nuts (English walnuts or pecans or both). Put into warm oven to dry.

These crackers are nice to serve with fruit or vegetable salads, or with cereal coffee or tea-hygiene.

=Graham Crackers--Sweet=

2 cups each graham and white flour ½ cup butter or oil ¼ cup sugar ½ teaspn. salt cold water for stiff dough

Mix well together, run through food cutter (with finest knife) 5 or 6 times, roll about ⅛ in. thick, prick with fork, cut into any desired shape, set in cold place for 2 hrs. or longer, bake in moderate oven.

Omit sugar for unsweetened crackers. Dough may be kneaded, picking it apart into small pieces, if food cutter is not at hand. Or, crackers are very good made up without any kneading, when rested in cold place.

=★ Sour Cream Crackers=

⅔ cup thick sour cream 2 tablespns. oil ½ teaspn. salt pastry flour for rather stiff dough

Rest and finish as other crackers. If the cream is not rich, use more oil.

=Nut Wafers=

½-1 cup fine chopped or ground nuts 1 pt. flour, graham or white, or half of each ¼ teaspn. salt water for stiff dough

Finish the same as graham crackers. Nice with fruit soups.

=Fruit Wafers=

Roll any of the cracker doughs thin, place figs, dates, raisins or prunes cut in thin pieces with the shears, on the dough, cover with another thin layer of dough, roll with rolling pin to press all together, prick with fork, cut in squares, rest, bake.

=★ Oat Cakes=

1 part oil, 2 parts water, salt, coarse oat flour to knead. Roll ¼ in. thick of size to fit pie pan, crease in quarters, rest; bake in moderate oven. The dough may be cut into crackers if preferred. Grind rolled oats or oatmeal in food cutter, to make the flour.

=★ Graham Crisps or Flakes=

Prepare dough as for plain graham rolls, kneading very stiff. After resting, separate into small pieces and roll each piece as thin as paper. When all are rolled, put as many as convenient into a hot oven on perforated pans or on the grate of the oven. Turn them over on the pans often while baking and bake to a delicate brown. Serve whole or in broken pieces.

This is one of the most delicate and digestible of unleavened breads and has a crispness and nutty flavor peculiarly its own. It should be one of the staple articles of food in our homes and is especially adapted to school, picnic and travelling lunches.

=Cream Crisps=

Mix with thin cream instead of water and bake in slower oven than water crisps. With cream, whole wheat or white flour may be used, as well as graham.

=Nut Crisps=

Use nut roll dough, kneading it very stiff. Beaten biscuit dough may also be used for shortened crisps.

=Cocoanut Crisps=

Use equal quantities of desiccated cocoanut and pastry flour, with water or milk for liquid.

=Nut Straws=

Take equal quantities of any nut meal and pastry flour, with a little salt. Add just enough ice water to make the particles hold together, roll out without kneading to ¼ in. thick, then cut into strips ¼ in. wide and 5-8 in. long. Bake in quick oven to delicate cream color. Serve tied with narrow ribbon in bunches of 3-5 with individual plates of salad or on celery dish. ⅔ nut meal and ⅓ flour may be used for richer straws.

=Unleavened Bread for Communion=

2 cups pastry flour 2½-3 tablespns. olive oil ½ teaspn. salt ⅓ to scant ½ cup of ice water

Mix salt, flour, and oil together, add enough ice water for stiff dough, press together as for pie crust and set in refrigerator an hour or longer. Roll dough three-sixteenths of an inch thick, prick all over with a fork, mark off in nine-sixteenth-inch squares by a rule, cut into convenient sized pieces for baking. Lay on a pan or perforated sheet, then crease marked squares half through the dough with a spatula or the back of a knife. Bake very carefully in a moderate oven.

1½-2 tablespns. of butter may be used instead of the oil, but olive oil seems more suitable for the purpose.

SANDWICHES

Bread for sandwiches should be of fine even grain and twenty-four hours old, except for rolled sandwiches, then it must be moist enough to be pliable.

Sometimes it is well to wrap the loaves to be used for sandwiches in damp cloths for three or four hours before preparing.

Dip the knife into hot water for slicing moist bread.

Thin, fresh crisped crackers or wafers are nice for sandwiches when they are to be served right away, so they will not lose their crispness. Wafers of pastry are suitable for some sandwiches.

Small round tins, like baking powder cans, are nice to bake bread in for sandwiches. Be careful not to bake it too hard.

Do not cut the crust from the bread as a rule; it is the sweetest and most wholesome part of the bread and the slices look so “naked” without it.

Unless the loaf is of the regular sandwich style, cut it in two in the middle, spread each cut surface, if butter is to be used, and cut off a thin slice from each half loaf. Cover one slice with the sandwich filling and lay the other on top of that, pressing well together. Cut into triangles, squares or strips. Continue cutting slices from each half loaf, then they will fit.

Cream (not melt) the butter before spreading; it may have chopped parsley, onion or lemon juice or other flavorings worked into it.

For rolled sandwiches, the crust will have to be cut off unless it is very pliable. Cut slices thin, spread with the desired filling and roll as close as possible. If they should not stay together well, fasten with sharp pointed Japanese toothpicks. They may be tied with baby ribbon.

Steam figs, seeded raisins and dates and grind in food cutter for sweet sandwiches.

Scrambled eggs are better in sandwiches than hard boiled. Hard boiled eggs may be rubbed to a paste in a mortar, with butter and salt.

When mayonnaise dressing is used, put sandwiches together just before serving.

Onion sandwiches, when carried, must be packed in a close covered box by themselves.

To keep moist, cover plate with lettuce leaves, lay sandwiches on and cover with dampened lettuce leaves. Or, cover plate of sandwiches with a towel wrung out of cold water and set in cool place. Or, wrap sandwiches in a damp napkin or waxed paper and place in close covered tin box or stone jar and set in cool place. It is better to have everything ready and put the sandwiches together just before serving.

_Garnishing_--Sandwiches are much more attractive if a few sprays of parsley are placed around the edges before the second slice of bread is laid on. Sprigs of celery or small spinach leaves may be used, or a narrow strip of lettuce may be laid around the edges, so that it will look like a dainty ruffle of green.

Sweet sandwiches may be served with cereal coffee, tea-hygiene, egg drinks or egg creams.

Plates of sandwiches may be garnished with chervil, parsley, lettuce, celery or carrot tops, ferns, leaves or flowers.

FILLINGS FOR SANDWICHES

Salt understood

=Eggs=--Scrambled without liquid, rather soft, served hot or cold.

Hard boiled, while warm minced with fork and mixed with butter and salt.

Hard boiled, sliced, between slices of bread spread with thick, rich cream sauce; chopped parsley, with or without celery or onion.

Scrambled or hard boiled (if hard boiled, rubbed through wire strainer), mixed with improved mayonnaise dressing.

=Nuts=--Chopped black walnut meats mixed with peanut butter which has been blended with a little water or tomato.

Almond butter on bread, minced tarragon, drained red raspberry and ripe red currant pulp sweetened, between.

Chopped almonds, basil, sliced or chopped peaches, sugar.

Butternuts or pine nuts, rolled; bread, crackers or Boston brown bread.

★ Nut butter, roasted or steamed, blended with water and mixed with chopped ripe olives, no salt.

Nut butter blended with strained tomato and mixed with sliced ripe olives.

★ Nut butter, roasted or steamed, water, chopped soaked dried olives, on crackers.

Nut butter, and tomato pulp.

★ Pine nuts, butter or rolled; tomato pulp, with or without chopped soaked dried olives, on crackers.

=Trumese=--Trumese ⅔, nutmese ⅓, mince together with fork, add a little pdrd. leaf sage or fine sliced celery sometimes.

Minced, between slices of bread spread with tart jelly. Sage sometimes.

And celery salad, trumese minced and celery cut very fine.

Minced and mixed with thick, rich cream sauce.

Olive oil and lemon juice.

=Nutmese=--or steamed nut butter, and cream (sweet or sour); mix to paste, add onion juice, and if desired, lemon juice; celery sometimes without lemon juice. Bread or crackers.

Or unroasted nut butter, chopped or sliced onions and improved mayonnaise dressing.

Minced, on bread, stewed green peas between.

Sliced, on one slice of bread and tart jelly on the other, press together.

=Ripe Olives=--Sliced, between slices of bread spread with improved mayonnaise dressing. Also ripe olives and tomato, chopped, mixed with cracker dust.

=Legumes=--Lima beans, mashed with butter.

Peas, green, mashed very dry with celery or celery salt and cream.

Beans, crushed or mashed, sliced cucumbers, oil; lemon juice sometimes.

Chick peas or lentils, mashed, dry; mushrooms dried or fresh, cooked in a little water with butter, chopped, added with liquid to peas.

=Cottage Cheese=--Soft, creamy, with or without chopped or sliced ripe olives; white, whole wheat or Boston brown bread or crackers.

Spread on slices of rye bread (made with or without caraway), with pecan meats between, with or without celery.

=Boston Brown Bread=--Whipped cream, butter or oil (not forgetting salt); sliced cucumbers. Brazil nut, almond or pine nut butter may be used.

Roasted peanut butter and sliced figs or dates.

=Spinach=--Tender fresh leaves, cut fine, a few delicate whole ones around edge, with any preferred dressing.

=Celery=--Brazil nut butter on bread or crackers; sliced, crisp celery between.

=Tomato=--Thin slices of tomato between slices of bread spread with improved mayonnaise dressing. A little chopped onion sometimes.

=Cucumber=--Substitute cucumber for tomato in above.

=Mayonnaise=--Improved--Flavor with onion, chives, parsley, fresh thyme or tarragon, or combinations of same and spread on bread or crackers.

=Onion=--Slice fine, let stand in ice water ½ hour or more, changing water 2 or 3 times. Drain and dry in clean towel and place with parsley leaves between slices of bread spread with mayonnaise dressing, or nut or dairy butter or salted oil.

=Carrot and Celery, or Onion=--Grated raw carrot and fine sliced celery or onion, French or mayonnaise dressing.

=Scented--Clover=--Place blossoms in bottom of tureen, lay on loaf of bread from which the crusts have been trimmed and cover with blossoms. Cover and set in cool place for 12 hours or longer. Wrap butter in cheese cloth and put into another dish the same way. These sandwiches are simply bread and butter. Mignonnette, violets, nasturtiums, rose leaves or any highly scented flowers or leaves may be used.

=Brown and White=--Lay together three slices of buttered white bread and two of graham or rye, alternating. Set in cold place with gentle pressure for an hour or more. Slice to serve.