Miss Parloa's kitchen companion

For six people use one quart of flour, one pint of milk, one teaspoonful of sugar, one of salt, three of bakingpowder, and two table-spoonfuls of butter. Mix all the dry ingredients together, and rub them through a sieve. Put the butter and a gill of the milk in a basin, and heat enough to melt the butter ; then add the remainder of the milk, and turn all the liquid on the dry ingredients. Beat quickly with a spoon. Drop table-spoonfuls of the dough in buttered pans, and bake in a very hot oven. They should cook in eight or ten minutes. Serve hot. If cream be plentiful, omit the butter and use a gill of cream instead. In that case use only three gills of milk instead of a pint. * Quick Swedish Bread. The best Swedish bread is made with raised dough, but this quick bread is nice for luncheon. Mix in a sieve, and then run through it, a quart of unsifted flour, three heaping teaspoonfuls of baking-powder, three table-spoonfuls of sugar, and half a teaspoonful of salt ; then rub two table-spoonfuls of butter into the mixture, doing it thoroughly, and wet with a scant pint of cold milk. Stir quickly into the shape of a ball. Sprinkle the bread-board with flour, and roll this ball upon it down to the thickness of one-third of an inch. Sprinkle upon the dough three table-spoonfuls of sugar and a light grating of nutmeg, and finally spread a cupful of dried currants over all. Koll up the dough and cut into slices about an inch thick. Place in a bakingpan that has been well buttered, and bake for twenty minutes in a very hot oven. The currants may be omitted, if you prefer. * English Brown Bread. Allow for three loaves of this bread a quart of graham, a quart of rye flour, a pint of warm water, two tablespoonfuls of molasses, one of salt, one of butter, and half a cake of compressed yeast dissolved in one-third of a cupful of water. Make this bread in the same way entire-wheat bread is made, only bake it for an hour and a quarter instead of for an hour. This is a coarse bread, and very healthful. * Brown Bread. This is the kind of bread which, outside of New England, is always called "Boston" brown bread. For making it you will need a pint and a half of Indian meal, the same quantity of rye meal, half a cupful of molasses, two pints and a half of sweet milk, a teaspoonful of salt, and a teaspoonful of soda. Mix the two kinds of meal together. Dissolve the soda in half a cupful of milk, and stir into the rest of the milk ; then add the salt and molasses. Give these ingredients a thorough mixing, and pour them upon the mixed meal. Beat vigorously the batter thus formed, and turn it into two well-buttered brown-bread tins. Steam for five hours. On Sunday morning heat for breakfast by steaming for a little while. Delicious toast may be made from this bread. * Maiden Brown Bread. For one large loaf or two small ones use two cupfuls of Indian meal, one of graham, one of flour, one of molasses, three of warm water, one table-spoonful of soda, and one teaspoonful of salt. Mix the meals, flour, and salt together. Dissolve the soda in the water, and add the molasses. Pour this mixture on the dry ingredients. Beat well, and after pouring into a buttered brown-bread tin, steam for four hours.