Dutch Apple Tea Cake or Pudding

Sift together one pint of flour, one-half teaspoon of salt, and three level teaspoons of baking powder. Rub in quickly and lightly one-fourth cup of butter, add one scant cup of milk and one well-beaten egg. Make it into a dough soft enough to spread easily on a baking pan. It should be about one-half inch thick.

Cut tart apples in eighths, remove skin and core, and press the apples into the dough in parallel rows. Serve with butter or cream or lemon sauce.

Use the same recipe for steamed berry puddings.

Cottage Pudding.

This has the same foundation as the Dutch apple cake with the addition of one-half cup of sugar. It is usually baked. One cup of dates cut fine may be added, and the pudding served with lemon or vanilla sauce. Or drain any canned fruit, stir one cup into the pudding, and use the sirup heated and thickened for a sauce.

Fruit Puffs.

Cut open pop-overs when baked and put in one-half teaspoon of butter, one teaspoon of powdered sugar, and as many strawberries, or other fruits, as the puff will contain. Sliced peaches are especially fine served in this way. Or after the pop-over mixture is in the cups, put in each a section of peach or banana and bake. The puff mixture will enclose the fruit.

Plain Pastry.

Into one pint of pastry flour sift one-half teaspoon of salt; for meat pies add one teaspoon of baking powder, and rub in one-fourth cup or two ounces of shortening (lard or butter, etc.), then mix with about one-half cup of ice water into a stiff dough. Roll out and spread with one ounce of butter, fold and do the same again. In all one-half cup of shortening will be used. For upper crusts more may be rolled in if desired. Keep as cool as possible throughout.

Puff Pastry.

Use equal weights of flour and butter, or by measure, one pint of flour and one cup of butter. Scald the bowl and dip the hands in hot water to keep the butter from sticking. Wash the butter in cold water, divide into four parts, pat until thin, wrap it in a napkin and place in a pan between two pans of ice. Mix one-half teaspoon of salt with the flour, rub in one part of the butter, add about one-half cup of ice water slowly, mix with a knife, and cut till it can be taken up clean from the bowl. Toss out on a well-floured board, pat into a flat cake, then roll out until half an inch thick. Roll one part of the butter thin and lay it on the middle of the paste. Fold the sides toward the middle, then the ends over, and double again. Pat and roll out again. Repeat this process with the remaining pieces of butter. When the butter is all rolled in, the paste should be rolled and folded till no streaks of butter can be seen. Chill whenever the butter softens. After the last rolling, place it on the ice to harden, that it may then be cut and shaped more easily.