Domestic

New Zealand Tablet, Volume LII, Issue 14, 22 April 1925, Page 59

Domestic

By Maureen

Sponge Cake. Take half a pound of castor sugar, and break 5 eggs upon it, and beat together for half an hour. Previously take the weight of 2 eggs and a £ in their shell of flour; after having beaten the eggs and sugar the time v specified, grate in the rind of a lemon, the juice of which may be added at pleasure; - y then sprinkle in the flour, heating awhile, and immediately pour the mixture into a tin lined with buttered paper, and as quickly as possible put into rather a cool oven. Coconut Cakes, Take 1 cupful coconut (desiccated), 1 cupful sugar, 2 eggs, 3 cupful milk, 2 cupsful flour, 2 teaspoonsful cream of tartar, 1 teaspoonful carbonate soda, § cupful butter, -J- teaspoonful vanilla. Mix the butter and sugar, stir in eggs, the milk, and, lastly, the flour; soda to be dissolved in a little boiling water, and cream of tartar to be mixed with the flour. Divide the mixture into small cakes, and bake in a quick oven for twenty minutes. Make an icing as follows;—The whites of 2 eggs, 1 cup icing -sugar, vanilla to taste. Lay the cakes on a flat dish; put on layer ot •y icing, over which sprinkle a little grated coconut, T ‘ Pancakes. ’ A- One pint of milk, 2 eggs, 1 tablespoonful sugar, 1 cupful of flour, 1 teaspoonful of baking powder, 1 cupful of cream, a pinch of salt. Sieve flour, salt, and baking powder together, add to it /the eggs beaten with sugar, and dilute with milk and cream. Mix into thin batter. Have small round frying pan, a little lard in it, and pour in about £ cupful of batter. Turn pan round, and keep the pancake moving so that it will not burn. , When done sprinkle with sugar. Roll, and serve with a lemon cut in half. Shortbread. Flour, 4oz; rice flour, 2oz; butter, 4oz; castor sugar, 2oz; a few drops of flavoring. .yy Sieve all the dry ingredients into a basin, and rub in the butter. Add the flavoring, ■and then knead all into one lump without . using any liquid. Turn out on a board sprinkled with rice flour and form into a , smooth round. If a shortbread mould is obtainable, shape the cake in that if not, pinch it round the edges with the fingers, or mark , " it with a knife. Then place the shortbread on a greased baking tin, and prick it all over with a fork. A strip of candied peel may be ; put on the top, if wished. Bake in a moderate oven until the shortbread is ol a uniform light brown color. Allow it to cool before removing from the tin. )/ ~ /• Pastry Recipes. ,'r .i Short Paste-y-One pound flour, Alb lard, -, . water as required. Rub the lard lightly into - w the flour, and mix it to a smooth past© with r ; the water; roll it out two or three times, and it will be ready for use. This paste, is an excellent short crust for sweet tarts'; 2 table-

spoonsful of fine-sifted sugar may be added if liked. . Puff Paste (a French recipe).—Take 11b of • dry, sifted flour, and the same quantity of butter; divide the flour into two;’ and put one-half on the paste-board. Make a hollow in the centre of it, and pour in 3 eggs, well beaten. Make it up into a lump, and lay it aside; take the butter, and r6ll it out in the other half of the flour; then take, the lump, roll it out thin, and lay in the butter in five, portions; always roll the paste one way, and from you; let the paste lie all night in a cool place, and it will be fit to use in the morning. Care of the Teeth. * Sir Harry Baldwin, Surgeon Dentist to the King, in a lecture delivered at London on “Teeth” in connection with the People’s League of Health, stated that a large proportion of disease was due directly to bad teeth, and the bad teeth were caused in a great number.of cases by the eating of food made with white flour. It was generally thought, he said, that sugar was’ the chief agent in degeneration of the teeth, but, in his opinion, a much greater factor was the eating of white bread, which contained hardly anything except starch. People should eat wholemeal bread, which contained all the -nutritive elements, and those which counteracted the effect of starch on the teeth. The masticating of hard foodstuffs not only caused the mouth to he well foimed but also cleaned the teeth. Fruit should be eaten at the end of a meal.-. The acid in the fruit was beneficial to the whole state of the mouth. _ ■ ( ' Referring to the very prevalent disease of pyorrhoea, Sir Henry Baldwin stated that, though it was incurable in its later , stages, if it was detected within a short time of its inception it could be very simply cured. The chief remedy was the rubbing of the gums. Ordinary salt could be added to the water, but the most important item in the treatment was the friction set up by an instrument such as a tooth brush. Pyorrhoea had nothing in common with dental decay, except that it was set up by germs, which attacked the most vulnerable part, the free edge of the gum. If, not . attended to . in, its early . stages the germs penetrated to the socket of the tooth, which became loose, = and in such a , case the only thing that could be done was the entire extraction of the teeth.