Receipt for one currant shortcake which is enough to serve to six persons:
Make a biscuit dough as follows: Sift together twice two cupfuls of flour, one and a half teaspoonfuls of baking-powder, and a half teaspoonful of salt (they must be thoroughly mixed). When this is done, rub in one rounded teaspoonful of butter or lard or cottolene, then add enough milk to make a soft dough. Use a fork to stir in the milk. Mix it lightly and quickly together, making the paste a little too soft to roll. Turn it into a well-greased pie-tin, smooth the top with a wet knife, and put it at once into a hot oven to bake for thirty minutes. When it is taken from the oven trim the edges and split the biscuit in two, using two forks so as to tear, not cut, it apart. Spread each half with butter while it is still hot.
Stem a box of currants. Reserve a few of the finest ones to decorate the top of the shortcake. Put the rest of the currants into a bowl and mash them, add enough sugar to sweeten to taste, and let them stand an hour or more before using them.
Spread the mashed currants over one half of the buttered biscuit, lay the other half on it. Cover the top with meringue made of the whipped whites of two eggs sweetened with two tablespoonfuls of powdered sugar. Decorate with whole currants as shown in illustration.
It can be more elaborately decorated by pressing the meringue through a pastry-bag and tube into ornamental shapes, and placing currants on it as the fancy dictates.
Serve very fresh.
Chapter XI
TENTH COURSE
ICES