Domestic

New Zealand Tablet, 28 October 1915, Page 57

Domestic

(By Maukeek.)

- Orange Cake One-half cupful butter, one cupful sugar, three eggs, one-half cupful milk, : one and one-half cupfuls flour, three-fourths teaspoonful baking powder. Stir butter and sugar to a cream, beat the whites of three eggs to a stiff froth and add them to the sifted flour and baking powder, with the milk, alternately, to the creamed butter and sugar. . Bake in two equal-sized tins. '■— Irish Potato Cake. Take one pound of flour, a teaspoonful of baking powder, and three ounces of dripping, with a pinch of salt. Work these together, then add one pound of cooked mealy potatoes and mix to a stiff paste with a little lukewarm milk or water. Flour a board and roll out, cutting into neat squares one inch thick. Place on a greased tin and bake for ten or fifteen minutes. Split open, butter, and serve hot. Apricot Parfait. One cupful of apricot pulp, one tablespooriful of lemon juice, one-half cupful of blanched and chopped almonds, one-half cupful of hot water, two cupfuls of whipped cream, one cupful of sugar, three tablespoonfuls of powdered gelatine, and some powdered macaroons. Dissolve the gelatine with the water, add the apricot pulp, almonds, sugar, and the lemon juice : beat for a few minutes, then fold in the whipped cream. Serve very cold in paper cases. Dust the powdered macaroons over the top. The apricot pulp is made by rubbing peeled or canned apricots through a sieve. Queen's Gingerbread. Take two pounds of honey, one pound and threequarters of the best moist sugar, three pounds of flour, half a pound of sweet almonds, blanched and cut thin,

half a pound of candied rorange peel, the ritids of two lemons, grated, one ounce of powdered cinnamon, half an ounce of nutmeg, cloves,;;mace, and cardamoms, mixed and powdered, and ; ;afwineglassful:' of water; v put; your honey and- water into a pan over a fire, and make it quite hot; mix the other ingredients into the flour, and pour in your honey, sugar, and water, and mix all well together let it stand till next day; make it into cakes and bake it. Boil a little clarified sugar until it will blow in bubbles through a skimmer, and with a paste-brush rub over your gingerbread when baked. . . - To Stain a Floor Cheaply. v . ' .'' Use permanganate of potash :as a substitute for expensive wood stains. This drug is a disinfectant and very wholesome to use, besides being very cheap. An ounce to a pint of boiling water is about the right strength for the purpose. Do not put your hands into the stain for it will dye them badly and the color is difficult to remove. It eats away the bristles of a brush too. The best way of applying it is to make a ball of soft cotton rags and attach them firmly to a long stick. In this way a whole floor may be "successfully stained without stooping or kneeling, and at very little expense. Household Hints. Soot, when freshly spilled on a carpet, can be removed by sprinkling it with salt, and sweeping up salt and the soot together. A good cement can be made by mixing four ounces of shellac and two ounces of borax with a quart of boiling water. To clean oil cloth, first thoroughly sweep it so as to remove all dust, rub it over with a damp flannel, and finally wet it with a little milk, which must be rubbed off with a dry cloth until a polish is produced. Cheese ought always to be kept covered, otherwise it will become dry and tasteless. A good plan is to moisten a cloth with vinegar, and keep the cheese wrapped in it until it is put on the table. " By so doing it will be kept moist, and retain its flavor better.