Miss Parloa's kitchen companion

* Baked Oatmeal Muffins. Prepare the mixture in the same way as for fried muffins, but increase the quantity of the liquid used by half a gill, and also add one table-spoonful of melted butter. Pour the mixture into buttered muffin-pans, and bake for half an hour in a rather hot oven. * Scotch Oat Cakes. These are the thin hard cakes which one finds in Scotland and occasionally in this country. They are simple, and yet, lacking a good receipt, one might experiment frequently for years (as the writer had done) without succeeding in making them. The meal used should be that which is ground rather fine. Canadian oatmeal is especially good, and it is also good for mush if one does not care to have the grains distinct. In making these oat cakes for the first time it will be well not to use much material. Here is a rule for making two cakes : — Use one cupful of oatmeal, one of boiling water, one table-spoonful of butter, and one teaspoonful of salt. Put the meal and salt in a bowl. Put the butter in a cup, and let it stand on the back part of the range where it will melt. Now fill the cup with boiling water, and pour the liquid on the meal and salt. Beat well with a spoon ; then work the dough with the hands for ten or fifteen minutes. This will make it firm and rather tough. As the dough is hot it is rather hard to handle, but unless it be worked well with the hands while hot it will not make good cakes. Now divide the dough into two pieces, and make two thin cakes of it. This may be done in either of two ways. The first and better way is to press out the dough with the hands ; the other is to use the rolling-pin. Sprinkle the moulding-board with dry meal, and put the ball of dough on it. Now pat the dough until it becomes very thin ; pressing down with the palm of the right hand, and using the left hand for pressing in the edges, to keep the cake round and smooth. The dough must be lifted frequently. When it is almost as thin as the blade of a knife, lift it carefully, and place on the outside of a broiler. Put something on the back part of the stove to raise the broiler about two or three inches from the iron. A meat-rack is a good thing; or two bricks will do. Cook the cake slowly for about an hour, turning it when it has become slightly browned on one side. It must never be allowed to get very brown. Oat cakes may be baked on a griddle. It will take about as long to cook them as if a broiler were used. They will keep a long time, and are especially nice with cheese for luncheon. * Muffins Cooked on the Griddle. For six persons use one quart of flour, two cupf uls and one-half of warm milk, three table-spoonfuls of melted butter, one-fourth of a cake of compressed yeast, one teaspoonful of salt, one of sugar, and two eggs. Put the flour, sugar, and salt into a bowl. Dissolve the yeast in half a cupful of the milk ; then add it, with the rest of the milk, to the flour, and beat the mixture well. Now beat the eggs till light, and add them and the butter to the batter just made. Beat vigorously for ten minutes. Cover the bowl, and set it in a warm place.