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

 CHAPTER XLVII

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

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.

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