Waffles

We are indebted to the Germans for this cake, which, if this receipt is exactly followed, will be found excellent. Warm a quart of milk, and cut up in it a quarter of a pound of the best fresh butter, and stir it about to soften in the warm milk. Beat eight eggs till very thick and smooth, and stir them gradually into the milk and butter, in turn with half a pound of sifted flour. Then add two table-spoonfuls of strong fresh brewer's or baker's yeast. Cover the pan with a clean thick cloth, and set it in a warm place to rise. When the batter has risen nearly to the top, and is covered with bubbles, it is time to bake; first stirring in a wine-glass of rose-water. Having heated your waffle-iron in a good fire, grease it inside with the fresh butter used for the waffle mixture, or with fresh lard; fill it, and shut the iron closely. Turn it on the fire, that both sides of the cake may be equally well done. Each side will require about three minutes baking. Take them out of the iron by slipping a knife underneath. Then grease and prepare the iron for another waffle. Butter them, and send them to the tea-table "hot and hot;" and, to eat with this, a bowl or glass dish of sugar flavored with powdered cinnamon.

In buying waffle irons choose them very deep, so as to make a good impression when baked - if shallow, the waffle will look thin and poor. Those that bake one waffle at a time are the handsomest and most manageable.

Soft Crullers

Sift a pound and a half of flour, and have ready a pound of powdered sugar. Heat in a round-bottomed sauce-pan a quart of water; and when quite warm, stir the flour gradually into the water. In another vessel set a pound of nice fresh butter over the fire, and when it begins to melt, stir it, by degrees, into the flour and water. Then add, gradually, the powdered sugar, and a grated nutmeg. Take the sauce-pan off the fire, and beat the contents with a wooden spaddle, (which is far better than a spoon) till they are thoroughly mixed. Next, having beaten six eggs till very thick and light, stir them, gradually, into the mixture, and then beat the whole very hard till it becomes a thick batter. Add rose-water or lemon juice, Flour a pasteboard, and lay out the batter upon it in the form of rings. The best and easiest way is to pass it through a screw funnel.

Have ready on the fire a pot of boiling lard. Put in the crullers, taking them off the board one at a time, on a broad-bladed knife. Boil but a few at a time. They must be of a fine brown. Lift them out with a perforated skimmer, draining back the lard into the pot. Lay them on a large dish, and dredge them with sugar.

These, if properly managed, are far superior to all other crullers, but they cannot be made in warm weather.

Dough-Nuts

On baking day, take two pounds of very light bread dough that has been made in the usual manner. Put it into a broad pan. Rub into it half a pound of fresh butter, and half a pound of powdered sugar, and a table-spoonful of mixed nutmeg and cinnamon. Wet it with half a pint of milk, and mix in three well beaten eggs. Cover it, and set by the fire to rise again. When quite light, flour your pasteboard, and make the dough into oval balls; or, you may cut it into diamond shapes, (handling it as little as possible.) Have ready, over the fire; a pot of boiling lard. Drop the dough-nuts into it, and boil them; or fry them brown in a frying-pan.

Take them out one by one in a perforated skimmer, draining back the lard into the pan. Spread them on a large dish, and sift sugar over them. Eat them fresh; when heavy and stale they are not fit. This is a German cake.