Page:Mrs Beeton's Book of Household Management.djvu/1574

RECIPES FOR MAKING BREAD, BISCUITS, AND CAKES

 

CHAPTER XLVII

 

Bread, Biscuits, Buns, Cakes, Muffins, Crumpets, Rolls, Toast, Gingerbread, Rusks, Icing and Yeast

Bread

3306.—AMERICAN BREAD. (To be eaten hot.)

Ingredients.—1 breakfast-cupful of white Indian meal, 2 breakfast-cupfuls of flour, 3 eggs, 2½ cups of milk, 2 ozs. of butter, 1 oz. of white sugar, ½ an oz. of cream of tartar, ¼ of an oz. of carbonate of soda, ¼ of an oz. of salt.

Method.—Sift the cream of tartar and soda well with the flour, meal and sugar on the board, make a "bay," put in the butter, and rub with the hand until smooth, then add the salt, in fine powder, and break in the eggs; give them a good rub round with the tips of the fingers, then add the milk, and wet up into a soft smooth paste. Divide it out into convenient-sized pieces, put into tins, and bake in a moderate oven. When done, turn out on to a clean cloth laid on a plate, and send to table.

This bread should be eaten hot from the oven. It makes a very acceptable breakfast dish. When cutting the bread, care must be taken not to press it heavily; a sharp knife must therefore be used with a sawing kind of motion, for this is the only possible way to cut hot bread or cakes without dragging the crumb and rendering it heavy and sticky. If preferred, the bread can be baked in small patty-pans, and when cooked, broken open, a small piece of butter put in, and sent to table.

Italian Millet, or Great Indian Millet, is cultivated in Egypt and Nubia, where it is called dhourra, and is used as human food and also for the fermentation of beer. It will grow on poor soils, and is extremely productive. Millet has been introduced into Italy, where a coarse bread is made from it; and it is also employed in pastry and puddings, and used for feeding horses and domestic fowls. It is the largest variety of millet, and grows to the height of 6 feet, but it requires a warm climate, and will not ripen in this country. A yellow variety, called "Golden Millet," is sold in the grocers' shops for making puddings. It is very delicate and wholesome.

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