Pie-Crust

One cup shortening, three cups flour; little salt, rub the flour, shortening and salt all well together. Use enough cold water to hold all together, no more. Handle as little as possible. Crust for one pie: - One coffee cup flour, lard size of an egg, one fourth teaspoonful salt, water just to wet the other ingredients.

Puff Paste

Take a pound of flour and three-quarters of a pound of butter. Chop half the butter into the flour. Beat the yolk of an egg, stir it into half a cup of ice water, and with this work the flour into a stiff dough. Roll out thin, add in bits one-third the remaining butter; fold, and roll out again, and continue till all the butter is used. Roll very thin, fold, and set in an 416 ice-cold place for a quarter hour. Then make your crust. This paste will serve both for fruit pies and for oyster pates.

Short-Cake Paste

Sift together two cups flour, half teaspoonful cream of tartar, and quarter teaspoonful each soda and salt, and rub in half cup of butter, keeping it as cold as possible. Stir in one cup of sweet milk to make a dough soft enough to handle. Turn it on a floured board ; divide the dough into halves and roll each piece out to fit a round tin plate. Bake at once, in a hot oven. When done, turn out each cake and lay it on the under side of the baking-tin. With a thin, sharp knife, split the cake evenly, and lay the bottom crust on a china plate. Butter each half. Lay partly mashed, sweetened strawberries, peaches, apple-sauce, stewed rhubarb, or any hot cooked fruit suitable for pies, on the under crust, lay the upper crust over it, and serve as a pie. Powdered sugar may be. sifted over the top. Serve with cream.

Blackberry Shortcake

Sift together three cups of pastry flour, one teaspoonful of salt, and six level teaspoonfuls of baking-powder ; with the tips of the fingers, well floured, work in one-third a cup of butter and mix with about one cup and-a-half of milk and water to a soft dough ; spread in two buttered pans, smoothing the dough with a knife or spoon. When baked, butter the under crust, and put together with two baskets of blackberries that have been standing mixed with granulated sugar for some time. Sprinkle the berries on top of the cake with powdered sugar. The berries between the cakes and a part of those on top may be mashed if desired.

Apple Pie

Pare, core, and slice tart apples, put a layer of fruit in your crust, sprinkle thickly with light brown sugar, add more apples, and go on till thick enough. Cover with top crust and bake. Sift powdered sugar over the top.

Apple Custard Pie

Take three cups stewed apples, which make very sweet with sugar, and let cool. Beat the yolks and whites of three eggs separately, and mix the yolks well with the apples, seasoning with nutmeg. Then stir in one quart of milk, beating as you do it. Lastly, add the whites, fill the crusts, and bake without top crust.