COOKERY

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 80, Issue 300, 18 December 1937, Page 3

COOKERY

MEASURE SPOONSFUL WITH CARE. More than any other branch oi cooking, cake-making depends on absolute accuracy (writes the Cookery Expert of The Australian Journal). There's no “near enough” with cakes. We certainly hear, with awe and envy, of really good cooks who “never measure anything, my dear,” but “simply trust to luck.” Their luck—and pretty dependable it is—lies in the fact that they have keener than average judgment ,and eyes that can measure as accurately as other folk’s spoons or scales. Unless nature and long experience have so endowed us, it's safer to stick to careful measuring. The first step in cake-making is to read your recipe, and understand it, visualising as you read, especially with a recipe a friend scribbles out for you. Because you are quite likely to find, tacked on at the end, an indispensable ingredient that you just haven’t got in the house. The second step is to measure accurately, of which more later. The third is to have your oven exactly right. There's a trap in measuring spoonsful. Many books, especially older ones, state somewhere that “a spoonful means a rounded spoon, as much above or below, unless otherwise stated.” But many modern authorities including The Colonial Gas Association’s cookery book and the Electric Cookery Recipes, take a spoonful to be exactly what a spoon will contain, as of a liquid. Unless you are sure which is meant, it is safest to keep to recipes that use weights. Spoons vary very much in size, but a set of four—salt, tea, dessert and table, absolutely accurate, can be bought for a few pence . Paste It Up. Here is a useful table to cut out. stick on cardboard, and keep on the kitchen wall:— All Measurements, Unless Qualified, Are Level. FLOUR— Ioz.—-2 tablespoons. 4oz. Gib) =1 cup. SUGAR— Ioz. (ordinary)—! tablespoon. Boz Gib.) = 1 cup. 11b. (brown) =2 2-3rd. cups, loz (cas.or)=l heaped tablespoon, loz (icing) =2 heaped tablespoons, loz. (loaf)= 8 lumps. BREADCRUMBS— Ioz=2 good tablespoons. BUTTER— Ioz=I tablespoon. Bozs. Gib.) -1 cup. EGGS 2ozs.-l good-sized egg. 11b.=9 average eggs. RICE—--11b.=2 bare cups. OATMEAL—IIb.=3 cup.s FAT—loz.=l heaped tablespoon. COFFEE— Ioz.=2 tablespoons. COCOA—

loz=2 tablespoons. CURRANTS, LEXIAS, or SULTANAS loz.=l generous tablespoon. CHOPPED NUTS—-loz.=l-3 cup. POWDERED GELATINE— Ioz=4 dessertspoons. Sugar measurements often cause disaster. If the recipe calls for castor, and you mean to substitute granulated, use equal weight, not equal measure by cup or spoon. Usually this substitution makes little difference, but biscuits and shortbread really need castor sugar to secure their finegrained texture. SPRING CLEANING WITHOUT DUST Cane and wicker chairs, baskets, and so on, if unvarnished should first be well brushed with a clean dry brush and then scrubbed, and afterwards rinsed with warm salt water. Varnished wickerwork, after it has been brushed, should be wiped with a cloth dipped in paraffin or liquid furniture polish. It should then be brushed again with a clean stiff brush. If a vacuum is not available, upholstered furniture should be beaten and brushed out of doors. If it cannot be taken outside it may be treated indoors in the following way. Cover the upholstery with a soft dustsheet that has been slightly damped, and then beat it. The damp sheet will collect much of the dust as it is loosened, and will prevent it from flying about. To keep down the smell of dust, spray the sheet with disinfectant or insecticide, in addition to damping it. Take Care Of The Packing. When you are sending off your Christmas presents, remember that it is much more delightful to receive a gift that is attractively packed up than one sent away hurriedly packed. Even the most trifling gifts should be daintily wrapped with a greeting card attached. There is an indefinable something about the cleverly wrapped gift which gives pleasure to giver and recipient alike.

HINTS AND RECIPES SOMETHING TO INTEREST THE HOUSEWIFE If mustard is mixed with milk instead of water the spoon will not be blackened. Acid stains can be removed from materials by sponging them with ammonia. Apply with a clean soft rag, and begin at the edge of each stain, working with a circular movement towards the centre. To whiten linen which has gone yellow, put a tablespoonful of borax in the copper when the articles are boiling. To remove stains and discolourations from tinware, try rubbing with a damp cloth dipped in soda. Dried fruit, figs and mushrooms require careful inspection, and all green vebetables should be washed in running water, even when they are to be peeled. Boiled starch is much improved by the addition of a little salt or a little dissolved gum arabic. To prevent the iron sticking to starched articles, mix the starch with soapy water. As potatoes get old add a little sugar to the water in which they are boiled. Boiling water will remove tea stains apd many fruit stains from table linen. Pour the water through the stain and thus prevent it from spreading over the fabric. Two tablespoonsful of soda, a teaspoonful of ammonia, and a gallon of boiling water make a good disinfectant for the kitchen sink. Pour this down while very hot, and then brush the sides or the sink. When silk is being washed, a little salt added to the water helps to fix the colour, and also keeps the material soft. The hands will never be coarse and red if a mixture of equal parts of lemon and milk is rubbed in and left to dry. Your nails will remain beautifully white if you push your lingers into a cut lemon each time after washing.

If your child should pinch a finger in a door or drawer the best thing to do is to hold the arm up above the head so that the blood is drained away from the hand. Then plunge the injured hand into hot water—as hot as it can be borne. This will ease the pain as quickly as anything. Butter pots cannot be used indefinitely. Any material seems in time to get saturated with butter, especially the more porous earthenware. When a receptacle smells rancid ,put it by and use it for anything but butter and give it a chance to clean itself. The Juice of Seedless Raisins Here is a simple and excellent remedy for children suffering from constipation. Give a child of four years two teaspoonsful of seedles raisins. Wash them and put them in a teacup and pour boiling water on them just to cover. Let them stand overnight, and in the morning first thing give the child the juice, w'hich you can strain off from the raisins after breaking them up. Cleaning Blinds Yellow window blinds, however dirty, can be cleaned with bath btick. Stretch the soiled blind across a table and brush with powdered bath orick until quite clean. This will make the blind look new, owing to the bath brick being the shade required and also a powerful cleaner. It cannot cause any shrinking. When hanging out a jumper to dry, do not use a coat-hanger, but pass a walking-stick in at the cuff of one sleeve right through to the cuff of the other sleeve. The ugly pouches in the shoulders which remain after using a coat hanger will thus be avoided. The Airer in the Kitchen Airers made of wood and worked by pulleys should be taken down for occasional overhauling. If the Clothes airers are used a .great deal they may get a roughened surface; rub with sandpaper in this case. Examine the ropes regularly for any signs of fraying. To Remove Splinters from the Hand Make a plaster of carbolic soap and brown sugar by spreading tne soap on a piece of lint and sprinkling it with sugar, and then mixing with the end of a spoon. Apply to wound and the splinter will be drawn to the surface, even if it is deeply in the flesh. Summerlime I.fealc It is a mistake to imagine that meals must be substantial if they are to be nourishing. In hot weather only the lightest and most easily digested food is necessary, if it is full of nutriment. Serve salads for lunch with eggs, cheese, or a little cold, cooked fish, then finish, perhaps, with a custard, or cream or junket, and brown bread and butter. Summer Jams and Jellies Strawberry and Red Currant Jam.--Ingredients: Six pounds of strawberries, one pint of red currant juice, six pounds of preserving sugar. Stalk very ripe red currants, put them in jars and stand the jars in a pan of boiling water. Keep the water boiling round them and strain off the

juice as it flows until you have one pint. Warm the sugar, put in a preserving pan with the currant juice and stir over gentle heat until the sugar has dissolved. Then bring to the boil and boil quickly for three or four minutes. Stalk the fruit; small, nearly-ripe strawberries are best. Put them into the syrup and boil gently until it sets, when a little is tested on a cold saucer. Remove all scum before pouring it into the jars. Gooseberry Jelly.—Top and tail some green gooseberries, wash and dry them and put them into a preserving pan and just cover them with cold water. Cook them slowiy till they are a soft pulp, stirring them often lest they catch. Strain all night through a jelly-bag, and allow a pound of sugar to each pint of juice. Let the sugar dissolve in the juice over a

low heat without boiling, and then bring to the boil and cook until stt. Black Currant Jam.—To every lib black currants ad*d 1 pint of raid water. Bring to boil and boil for half an hour, then add 21b sugar for every lib of fruit. Bring to the boil again and boil quickly for 20 minutes, or when the jam will set when tested in a saucer in the ordinary way. Raspberry Jam Without Boiling.— Allow 51b sugar to 41b fresh raspberries. Heat the sugar and raspbarries on two large dishes in the jven. When the fruit is quite hot, heat it up and gradually add to it the sugar. Keep beating until the sugar is thoroughly dissolved. Pot in the usual way. This jam keeps well and is of excellent flavour. Red Currant Marmalade.—Remove the stalks from some red currants, wash the fruit, bruise it, then rub through a hair sieve. Measure the pulp, and allow lib of sugar to each

pint of pulp. Put the pulp into a pan, and simmer for 15 minutes, sirring often. Warm the sugar, add it to the pulp, stir until it has melted, then boil fast until the jam sets when tested. Keep it well skimmed. Pot and cover. STRING DISH-CLOTHS Housewives continually th’ w away pieces of string which are very serviceable. The following is one use to which they may be put: Save pieces of all lengths, knot them together, and wind into a ball. When you have quite a large ball, get a pair of No. 9 steel knitting needles and cast on 40 stitches. Knit plain until you have a square about 12 inches. These knitted string squares make splendid dishcloths, and the knots are a great help when scouring out dirty saucepans.