Short Cake

As this requires no rising, it may be mixed and prepared at half an hour's notice. Take a quart and a pint of wheat flour, sift it into a pan, and divide into three parts three quarters of a pound of nice fresh butter. Cut up one piece into the pan of flour, and mix it into a dough with a broad knife, adding, as you proceed, as little water as will be barely sufficient. The water must be very cold. Roll out this lump of paste, dredge it slightly with flour, fold it up, and roll it out again. Then cover it with a second division of the butter, put on the sheet of paste with the knife, and dispersed at equal distances. Sprinkle it with flour, fold it, and roll out the sheet again. Put on the remainder of the butter as before, in bits equally dispersed. Fold, dredge, and roll out the dough into a rather thin sheet. Cut it into small round cakes with the edge of a tumbler, or something like it, using up the clippings of paste left at the last to make one more cake. Have ready a hot griddle or oven. Put on the cakes so as not to touch each other, and bake them light brown on both sides. Send them to table hot, to be split and buttered. Mix and roll out these cakes as fast as possible, and avoid handling them more than you need. Paste made slowly is never light or flakey. Mix quick and roll quick. This is a good plain paste for fruit pot-pies or dumplings.

You may make common short cake for very healthy people, with two quarts of flour, a quarter of a pound of fresh butter, and a quarter of a pound of lard, mixed into the pan of meal with a very little cold water, and a second quarter of lard spread all over the sheet of paste, after rolling it out. Fold, sprinkle, and roll it out again into one round griddle cake, or two if you have enough of dough. Take care, in baking, not to have it smoked or blackened at the edge. When done, cut it into "pie pieces," and send it to table to be split and buttered.

Half Moons

Of this paste you may make half-moon pies. Cut the paste into round cakes. On half the circle, lay plenty of stewed fruit well sweetened, (for instance, stewed dried peach,) fold over it the other half, pinch the two edges together, and crimp them. Bake them in an oven, and eat them fresh. If you have fruit in the house ready stewed, half-moon pies can be got up for a plain dessert on an emergency. Either mince meat, or sausage meat, may be baked in half-moons. They will bake very nicely, laid side by side, in large square tin pans, first dredged slightly with flour.

Soft Muffins

Warm a quart of milk, and melt in it a quarter of a pound of the best fresh butter, cut into bits. When melted, stir it about, and set it away to cool. Beat four eggs till very thick and light, and stir them gradually into a pan of milk, and butter when it is quite cold. Then, by degrees, stir in enough of sifted flour to make a batter as thick as you can well beat it. Then, at the last, stir in three table-spoonfuls of baker's or brewer's yeast. Cover the pan of batter with a double cloth, and set it on the hearth (or some other warm place) to rise, but it must not be allowed to get hot. It should have risen nearly to the top of the pan, and be covered with bubbles in about three hours. The griddle being heated, grease it with nice butter tied in a rag; take a ladleful of batter out of the pan, pour it into the ring, and bake the muffins. Send them hot to table, and split and butter them. These are superior to all muffins. Those who have eaten them will never desire any others, if this receipt has been faithfully followed. Try it.