The household (of the Detroit free press)

If you wish to do away with the use of grease on the griddle for baking cakes, have the ordinary iron griddle ground smooth on a grindstone and rubbed off with a piece of fine sandpaper wrapped round a block of wood. This is much better than a soapstone griddle. The Lemon Syrup bought at stores can be made at home much cheaper. Take a pound of Havana sugar, boil it in water down to a quart, drop in the white of an egg to clarify it, strain it, add one-quarter of an ounce of tartaric or citric acid. If you do not find it sour enough after it has stood two or three days, add more of the acid. A few drops of oil of lemon improve it. If you wish to clarify sugar and water that you are about to boil, it is well to stir in the white of an egg, while cold ; if put in after it boils, the egg is apt to get hardened before it can do any good. Tea should not be infused for more than seven minutes. Have the water boiling, and use a teaspoonful of tea for each person and one over. Put the tea in the pot, pour the boiling water over it and let it stand for seven minutes. If it is allowed to stand, the tannin in the tea is drawn out, and dyspepsia is the result. A French chemist asserts that if tea be ground like coffee immediately before hot water is poured upon it, it will yield nearly double the amount of its exhilarating qualities. A few egg-shells put in the coffee-pot, with half a cup of cold water, shaken well, the coffee added, and then the hot water, will settle it as clear as a whole egg. The white of one egg, beaten to a froth with a little butter, is a good substitute for cream in coffee. Mustard should be mixed with water that has been boiled and allowed to cool. Hot water destroys its essential qualities, and raw, cold water might cause it to ferment. Put the mustard in a cup with a small pinch of salt and mix with it very gradually sufficient boiling water to make it drop from the spoon without becoming watery. To make Macaroni tender, put it in cold water and bring it to a boil. It will then be much more tender than if put into hot water or stewed in milk. Lemons may be kept fresh a long time by putting them into a jar of water and changing the water every morning. A small spoonful of molasses added to buckwheat batter each morning will make the cakes temptingly brown. A spoonful of sugar, added to dried corn when seasoning, improves it. When molasses is used in cooking it is an improvement to boil and skim it before you use it. It takes out the unpleasant, raw taste, and makes it almost as good as sugar. Cheese is very nice for the table grated. Salt provisions of whatever kind are said to lose more of their saltness by being soaked in sea water than in fresh. Cut hot bread or cake with a hot knife, and it will not be clammy. To make Welsh rarebit, fresh cheese is cut into slices, put upon buttered toast and laid in a cheese toaster until melted. If half a tablespoonful of vinegar is added to the dark portion of marble cake it improves it. When anything is accidentally made too salt, it can be counteracted by adding a teaspoonful of vinegar and a teaspoonful of sugar. A few dried or preserved cherries, with stones out, are the very best thing possible to garnish sweet dishes.