1 pint flour.
½ cup butter.
1 egg.
1 teaspoonful baking-powder.
½ cup milk.
1 saltspoonful salt.
Mix the baking-powder and salt with the flour and sift all together. The butter should stand on the kitchen table till it is warm and ready to melt, when it may be mixed in with a spoon, and then the egg, well beaten, and the milk.
Divide the dough into halves; put one in a round biscuit-tin, butter it, and lay the other half on top, evenly. Bake a light brown. When you take it out of the oven, let it cool, and then lift the layer apart. Mash the strawberries, keeping out some of the biggest ones for the top of the cake, and put on the bottom layer; put a small half-cup of powdered sugar on them, and put the top layer on. Dust this over with sugar till it is white, and set the large berries about on it, or cover the top with whipped cream and put the strawberries on this.
SHORTCAKE
1 small cup sugar.
½ cup butter.
1 cup cold water.
1 egg.
2 cups flour.
3 teaspoonfuls baking-powder.
Rub the butter and sugar to a cream; sift the flour and baking-powder together; beat the egg stiff without separating; put the egg with the sugar and butter, add the water and flour in turn, a little at a time, stirring steadily; bake in two layer-tins. Put jam between them and on top.
Tiny field strawberries make the most delicious shortcake of all.
LEMON CHEESE CAKES
¾ lb. of loaf sugar.
4 oz. of fresh butter.
Yolks of 6 eggs.
Whites of 4 eggs.
Peel of 3 lemons grated.
Juice of 3 lemons.
Put the lemon juice and grated rind, together with the sugar and butter, into a brass pan; add the eggs gradually lest they curdle. Then simmer over the fire until as thick as honey, stirring gently all the time.