Scald two gills of Indian meal in one quart of boiling water. Add a little salt. When cool, add one gill of yeast, and stir in enough buckwheat flour to make a thin batter. Let it rise overnight. If by chance it is a little sour, just before cooking add one-fourth of a tea-spoonful of soda, dissolved in half a cupful of boiling water. Or,
They may be made in the same manner without the Indian meal, merely adding the yeast to a quart of lukewarm water, and making the batter with buckwheat flour alone.
Pancakes, with Flour or Corn-meal.
Stir one or two cupfuls of cream or milk into two beaten eggs; add flour or corn-meal enough to make a thin batter. If the milk is sweet, add one tea-spoonful of yeast-powder; if it is sour, add, instead of the yeast-powder, half a tea-spoonful of soda, dissolved in a little warm water.
Pancakes, with Bread-crumbs.
Soak the bread-crumbs, then drain them. To two cupfuls of bread-crumbs add one cupful of flour or corn-meal, one egg, and milk enough to make a thin batter. If the milk is sweet, add a tea-spoonful of yeast-powder; if sour, half a tea-spoonful of soda, dissolved in a table-spoonful of warm water.
Strawberry Short-cake (Mrs. Pope).
Ingredients: One quart of flour, two heaping tea-spoonfuls of yeast-powder, half a tea-spoonful of salt, butter size of an egg, milk, two quarts of strawberries. Mix the baking-powder into the flour, then rub in the butter (in the same manner as described for biscuits, page 72). Add enough milk to make a soft dough—rather softer than for biscuits. Spread this on two pie-tins. Bake in a quick oven.
When the cakes are done, let them partly cool. Cut around the edges, and split them. Spread them with butter, then with one quart of mashed strawberries, with plenty of sugar; then put between them the other quart of whole strawberries, sprinkled with sugar. Serve a pitcher of cream with a strawberry short-cake. The cake in this form can be cut like a pie. It is a good summer breakfast as well as tea dish. Or,
It can be made with sour milk, viz.: to two tea-cupfuls of sour milk add a tea-spoonful of soda, then three-fourths of a tea-cupful of butter or lard, partly melted, and enough flour to make a soft dough. Roll it into thin cakes large enough to fill the pan in which they are to be baked. When baked, split, and butter them while hot. Lay on a plate half of the cake, put on a layer of well-sugared strawberries, then the other half, then more strawberries, and so on, until there are several layers. Or,