The home cook book

on the stove to heat. Melt the butter and lard in it. When the pan is hot and the grease melted, pour in the mixture and lightly whip the grease through with a fork. Bake in a moderate oven three-quarters of an hour. If the oven is too hot the bread will crack on top. After the bread is browned and done, set a pie-pan upside down under it in the oven. Over it in the upper oven put a pan of hot water. Cold water would cool the oven at once. Leave the bread in the oven about ten minutes longer. The overbaking to corn bread is what gives the sweet corn flavor. This will not be found if the bread is taken from the oven as soon as it is done. SOFT CORN BREAD Heat two cups of milk in a double-boiler, and when hot stir in slowly two-thirds of a cup of cornmeal. The heat of the milk will expand the meal and you will have a mush. Take from the stove and add half a teaspoon of salt and the yolks of three eggs. Stir together thoroughly and, lastly, add the whites of the eggs beaten to a stiff froth. Have ready a hot baking-pan well greased, tip in the mixture and bake twenty to twenty-five minutes. Serve at once, not in square cut pieces, for the pressure of the knife might make the bread fall, but in irregular pieces as it breaks in lifting. Eat with butter, and if you like it sweet add maple syrup. JOHNNY BREAD Mix three cups of Indian meal with one cup of white flour. Also mix one-third of a cup of molasses, a teaspoon of salt, a pint of sour milk or buttermilk, and two well-beaten eggs, and beat into the meal and the flour. Dissolve in a couple of tablespoons of the milk a teaspoon of soda, add to the batter, mix in thoroughly, spread on a baking-pan and bake in a hot oven. Eat with butter and syrup or molasses. SOUR MILK CORN CAKES Sift together three-fourths of a cup of flour, three-fourths of a cup of cornmeal, a tablespoon of sugar, three-fourths of a teaspoon of soda dissolved in a tablespoon of cold water, and half a teaspoon of salt. Pour over the mixture a cup of sour milk and a tablespoon of melted lard or drippings. Beat well together, stir in a well-beaten egg, and bake in wellgreased hot popover cups or gem pans. CORN DODGERS Measure one pint of cornmeal. Mix into it one teaspoon of salt and one teaspoon of sugar. Scald the meal, pouring over it about three-quarters of a pint of boiling water. Add one beaten egg and one heaping teaspoon and a half of baking powder. Stir well together. Add very carefully a very little more hot water, so that the batter will be just stiff enough to drop from a spoon and keep its shape. The Vv/^ater will have to be added slowly, as the batter can easily be made too thin. Have ready a frying-pan with just enough hot lard to keep the dodgers from sticking. Drop in tablespoons full. Do not put too many dodgers in at one time. Cook slowly in order to have them well done. Turn them from side to side, and brown a light brown. Keep some melted lard ready in a cup to add more as you need it. When the dodgers are done, set where they will keep hot. This quantity will make about fourteen dodgers. CORN GEMS