The complete cook book

One cup sugar, butter size of an egg, and cream them together. Beat three eggs without separating, and add flour until it will drop from the spoon, or a little thicker than cake batter; flavor with vanilla. Grease irons well. WAFERS. Four spoonfuls flour, four spoonfuls sugar, four spoonfuls cream, one spoonful butter, orange peel, mace, and nutmeg. Prepare as for pound cake. Bake in wafer irons, rolling them while hot. PUFF PASTE— REMARKS. Puff paste requires a quick oven and even heat. Remember, as much depends upon the ^baking as the making. A marble slab, rolling pin and a cool room is the secret of success in making pastry. Always use freshly sifted pastry flour, and the best butter, which must be washed well- before using. All good pastry should stand twenty-four hours. Before you begin to make your paste have two bowls on the table by you — ■ one with hot soapsuds and the other with cold water. Wash your hands in the hot suds and rinse them in cold water, but do not dry them ; this prevents the butter from sticking to your hands and the bowl. The dough should be ice-cold when put in the oven. PUFF PASTE. One pound of sifted pastry flour, one pound of fresh, sweet butter, one teaspoonful of salt, one teaspoonful of sugar, white of one egg and one cup or more of ice water; scald a large bowl, then fill it with ice water, and let it stand until the bowl is. thoroughly chilled; then put the butter into it, and wash by working it with the hands until the water and ice becomes soft and elastic. Press the water into the butter until it assumes a waxy appearance, and is tough like putty. Take off a piece of butter the size of an egg ; make the rest into a flat cake and pack under ice water. Heap the flour 228 The Complete Cook Book. in the center of a marble slab; make a hollow space in the center of it, and put into this your lump of butter size of an egg, sugar, salt and white of egg. Work this lightly together with your thumb and finger tu a paste, adding the ice water and the flour, a little at a time. Mix the whole well together, incorporating it very gradually. Save out about two tablespoonfuls of flour to knead it with, and when all is worked in knead it as you would bread until perfectly smooth. Then roll it out under your hand into a long roll and cut in half. Sprinkle the space of a square foot of the slab with a little flour, and roll out each half with a floured rolling pin into a sheet one-half inch thick. Wipe your cake of butter dry, and lay it in the center of one sheet; dredge quickly with flour and cover with the other sheet. Flatten it lightly with a roller. Roll it lengthwise in a long, thin sheet. Keep the edges even while rolling and always roll from you. Fold in evenly at first the sides, then the ends ; turn the paste around so that the folds will run to and from you. Roll from you again, fold as before, wrap in a floured towel and stand away in the ice box fifteen minutes; then roll and fold twice again, and again stand in ice box fifteen minutes. Do this four times. Allow to remain in ice box over night and it is ready for use. FRITTER BATTER. Add one egg and one tablespoonful of olive oil or cream to puff paste. QUEEN FRITTERS. Put a half -pint of water and two ounces of butter in a saucepan to boil. When boiling throw in four ounces of flour, stir rapidly and continually until it sticks together and forms a ball ; take from the fire, give a thorough beating and stand aside to cool. When cold, add one egg without beating, and beat until the mixture is thoroughly amalgamated, then add another egg, beat again, and so on until you have added four eggs. Now give the whole a beating for about a minute. Have ready a kettle of hot lard and drop the The Complete Cook Book. 229