Harper's cook book encyclopædia

Another way : — Rub 6 ozs. of butter into lb. of flour, add a pinch of salt, 5 ozs. of sugar, and a dessertspoonful of caraway-seed. Dissolve half a small teaspoonful of soda in a teaspoonful of hot milk. Beat this up with two eggs already well whisked, and stir the whole into the cake. Put the mixture into a buttered tin, and bake in a moderately heated oven. Time to bake, from thirty to forty minutes. Short Bread. — Take 4 ozs. of butter and 4 ozs. of home-cured lard. Put these into 1 lb. of flour. Make a little hole or well in the centre of the mixture, and sift in 4 ozs. of fine castor sugar dissolved with a dessertspoonful of water. Work the whole into a smooth paste on the bakingboard, roll out, and cut it into round cakes half an inch thick. Pinch up the edges, ornament with strips of orange peel, and, if liked, with a few caraway-seeds. Bake the cakes a delicate brown color in a slow oven. The special features of Scotch short bread are that it should be worked into a paste without moisture and baked very slowly. Short Cake, Currant. — Mash two quarts of currants, add to them 1 lb. of granulated sugar, and let them stand for an hour before your cake is prepared. Make a rich biscuit dough, and roll it into a large, round cake about the size of a pie-plate. Bake quickly, and when done tear open, butter thickly, lay one-half on 6 2 Short-cake, Orange Spice Cake top of the other, and pour between and over the two layers the sugared currants and all the juice. There will be so much of this juice that it will be well to place the cake on a large platter. Serve at once. If the currants are very tart, sprinkle each slice of the short cake liberally with sugar as you serve it. Do not eat with cream. Short Cake, Orange, is a pleasant variation in the monotony of winter desserts, and is easy to prepare by the cook who understands the mystery of light biscuit dough. The fruit should be cut in small pieces and well sugared, and spread between and on top of the hot cake. Whipped cream is a great addition to this dish, or it may be served with a plain liquid sauce. Short Cake, Strawberry. — Mix two cupfuls of flour, one egg well beaten, butter the size of an egg, lard the size of an egg, two table-spoonfuls of sugar, two level teaspoonfuls of baking-powder sifted in with the flour, as if for biscuit dough. Roll, divide into equal layers, put one above the other, and bake. Crush together a quart of strawberries and a cupful of pulverized sugar. When the short cake is done, separate the layers, spread the berries thickly between and above them, and place the whole again in the oven for five minutes. Serve hot. Short Cakes, Raspberry and Blackberry.— Have the fruit cooked in them. Line a baking-pan with the usual short biscuit dough, cover to the depth of an inch with berries, strew thickly with granulated sugar, lay over the berries an upper crust, and bake in a steady oven. Cut into squares while very hot, split, and eat with butter and sugar. Huckleberry, peach, and apple short-cake may be made in the same way. Silver Cake. — One-half cupful of butter, one and a half cupfuls of sugar.