DOMESTIC

New Zealand Tablet, 10 May 1917, Page 57

DOMESTIC

(By Maubeen.)

For the Hands. Put crude borax in a bottle and fill with hot water. Keep adding hot water until it can absorb no more of the borax. Keep this on your toilet table, and whenever washing the hands pour enough of this mixture from the bottle to make the water very soft. It keeps the hands in excellent condition. Added to the water with which woodwork is washed, it will not only save the hands much roughness but will clean the paint more rapidly and thoroughly. Cream Puffs. Take ]lb of butter, and put in a saucepan with a cupful of water. Let it boil, then add slowly a cupful of flour, stirring quickly and well. Let this boil for a few minutes. Take from the fire, put into a cooking bowl, and add four eggs ; beat well for over five minutes. Drop dessertspoonful on buttered tray and cook in a very quick oven. Do not open the door under ten minutes. To Clean Laces. Delicate laces that have become soiled may be cleaned by squeezing them through skimmed milk, lo which a little blueing has been added. They come out of their bath looking like new, and are just of the right stiffness when stretched and dried, or dried and ironed between cloths. Before washing fine lace or muslin collars and cuffs, baste them to a piece of heavier muslin, and they will not be apt to stretch or tear in the process of laundering. Prune Cake. One pint of flour, two tablespoonfuls of sugar, one and a-half teaspoonfuls of baking powder, two rounding tablespoon of butter, two-thirds of a cupful of milk

into which one egg has been beaten. -,o Sift the flour, sugar, and baking powder together; into this rub the butter. Moisten the whole with the milk and egg well beaten. Mix thoroughly and pat out with the hands into a square, buttered tin until it is about an inch thick. Press into the dough a layer of stewed prunes that have been pitted and halved, with the skin side down. Pour over all three tablespoonfuls of melted butter, and dust generously with cinnamon and sugar. Bake twenty minutes. Banana Pie. Bake the pie crust alone. Slice four or five bananas, according to size of dish, and strew over them about a-quarter of a cupful of castor sugar. Let this stand for an hour, then place them in the pastry and pour over them some whipped cream. Slice the bananas with a silver knife. If you have not got one, a bone paper-knife will do. They darken so after being cut with a steel knife. A little lemon juice squeezed over the fruit before adding the sugar is a great improvement. Household Hints. When cleaning a stove if a little common soda is mixed with the blacklead a bright and lasting polish will be the result. Suet puddings are lighter and more digestible if made of half flour and half breadcrumbs. It is a good way of using up stale bread, and reduces the flour bill. It when making soup or beef-tea for an invalid it is necessary to cool it at once, pass it through a clean cloth saturated with cold water. Not a particle of fat will be left in the beef-tea. If the boiler immediately after use, and while still warm, is rubbed all over with any good household soap, it will prevent rust, and will help to make the suds when the boiler is filled for the next washing day.