Corn-Meal Fritters.
3 cups milk.
2 cups best Indian meal.
½ cup flour.
4 eggs.
½ teaspoonful soda, dissolved in hot water.
1 teaspoonful cream of tartar, sifted in flour.
1 table-spoonful sugar.
1 table-spoonful melted butter.
1 teaspoonful salt.
Beat and strain the yolks; add sugar, butter, milk and salt, the soda-water, and then stir in the Indian meal. Beat five minutes hard before adding the whites. The flour, containing the cream of tartar, should go in last. Again, beat up vigorously. The batter should be just thick enough to drop readily from the spoon. Put into boiling lard by the spoonful. One or two experiments as to the quantity to be dropped for one fritter will teach you to regulate size and shape.
Drain very well and serve at once. Eat with a sauce made of butter and sugar, seasoned with cinnamon.
Some persons like a suspicion of ginger mixed in the fritters, or in the sauce. You can add or withhold it as you please.
Peach Fritters. (With Yeast.)
1 quart of flour.
1 cup of milk.
½ cup of yeast.
2 table-spoonfuls sugar.
4 eggs.
2 table-spoonfuls of butter.
A little salt.
Some fine, ripe freestone peaches, pared and stoned.
Sift the flour into a bowl; work in milk and yeast, and set it in a tolerably warm place to rise. This will take five or six hours. Then beat the eggs very light with sugar, butter and salt. Mix this with the risen dough, and beat with a stout wooden spoon until all the ingredients are thoroughly incorporated. Knead vigorously with your hands; pull off bits about the size of an egg; flatten each and put in the centre a peach, from which the stone has been taken through a slit in the side. Close the dough upon it, make into a round roll and set in order upon a floured pan for the second rising. The balls must not touch one another. They should be light in an hour. Have ready a large round-bottomed Scotch kettle or saucepan, with plenty of lard—boiling hot. Drop in your peach-pellets and fry more slowly than you would fritters made in the usual way. Drain on hot white paper; sift powdered sugar over them and eat hot with brandy sauce.
You can make these of canned peaches or apricots wiped dry from the syrup.