Royal Sally Lunns.—Sift together 1 pint flour, 1½ teaspoons Royal Baking Powder, ½ teaspoon salt. Stir in the beaten yolks of 2 eggs mixed with ½ cup milk and ½ cup melted butter. Beat hard, add the whites whipped to a stiff froth. Bake in well-greased muffin-pans in a hot oven.
Rusks.—1½ pints flour, ½ teaspoon salt, 2 tablespoons sugar, 2 teaspoons Royal Baking Powder, 2 tablespoons butter, 3 eggs, 1 teaspoon each extract nutmeg and cinnamon, ¾ pint milk. Sift together flour, salt, sugar, and powder; rub in butter; add milk, beaten eggs, and extracts. Mix into dough soft enough to handle; flour the board, turn out dough, give it quick turn or two to complete its smoothness. Roll under the hands into round balls size of a small egg; lay them on greased shallow cake-pan ([fig. XIII]), put very close together, sprinkle a little sugar over, bake in moderately heated oven about 30 minutes.
Yankee Puffs.—Mix together 1½ cups flour, ¼ teaspoon salt, scant teaspoon Royal Baking Powder, 1 tablespoon sugar. Cream 1 tablespoon butter, add the beaten yolks of 2 eggs, then alternately the dry mixture and 1½ cups milk, ½ teaspoon vanilla, whipped whites of 2 eggs. Bake in hot greased muffin-pans in a hot oven.
German Puffs.—1 pint flour, 2 tablespoons sugar, 1½ teaspoons Royal Baking Powder, 3 tablespoons butter, 4 eggs, 1 cup cream. Cream butter and sugar; add beaten eggs, then, alternately, the cream and dry ingredients sifted together. Bake in well-greased cups in hot oven.
Fritters and Waffles
Fritters are served as a vegetable or a sweet, for a lunch, dinner, or supper, according to the ingredients used in making them. Whether sweet or plain, the foundation batter is much the same, and, with some additions, the first receipt given in this chapter can be used for many kinds of fritters. By the use of Royal Baking Powder a fine fritter batter may be stirred up in a moment, and a meal which it may be thought necessary to extend, perhaps because of unexpected guests, can be embellished by the addition of a delicate and tasty dish.
A fritter batter which is to be used as a medium for whole or sliced fruit should be quite thin, as it is to serve as a cover for the fruit. When chopped fruits or vegetables are stirred in, or the batter is to be used plain, it should be thick enough to retain its shape when dropped by spoonfuls into the frying-kettle. The fat should be deep enough to cover the fritters, and it should be smoking hot when used. Each fritter will at first sink to the bottom of the kettle; then, as the heat starts the baking powder into action and the dough begins to swell, it will rise to the surface, and should be gently turned, the turning to be repeated until the fritter is finely colored. Most fritters are done within five minutes, the time needed to cook them being determined by one which should be cooked as a tester.
The very word “waffles” brings to our minds a host of pleasant recollections. The only drawback, in the old days, was that they must be started so long before they were ready for the irons, for home-made yeast took time to raise the batter to the requisite degree of lightness. Now, by the use of Royal Baking Powder, they can be prepared in five minutes. They are better than of old, too, for there is no yeasty taste to them; they are light, tender, and toothsome, and, what is most important, entirely digestible and wholesome.
Plain Fritter Batter.—1 cup flour, ½ teaspoon Royal Baking Powder, ¼ teaspoon salt, 2 eggs, 1 cup milk. Sift dry ingredients together; add beaten eggs and milk; beat till smooth.
Apple Fritters.—4 large sound apples, peeled, cored, and cut each into 4 slices, ½ gill wine, 2 tablespoons sugar, 1 teaspoon extract nutmeg. Place slices of apples in bowl with sugar, wine, and extract; cover with plate; set aside to steep two hours, then dip each slice in plain fritter batter, fry to light brown in plenty of lard made hot for the purpose; serve with sugar.