When breakfast was on the table, Molly directed Marta to go up-stairs with pail and cloth and to bring down the soiled water, fill the ewer with fresh, etc. As Harry rose to put on his coat, Molly ran up-stairs and put on her hat and gloves. “I am going to the depot with you, Harry,” she said, when she reappeared ready for walking, “and I shall do my marketing as I return.”
“That is a good idea, Molly; the walk will be good for you.”
Before leaving the house, Molly passed through the kitchen, and told Marta, after she had finished her breakfast, to wash the breakfast things, but to leave the fat (that she had herself removed from the stove and covered, so that the fumes might not fill the house, before she went in to breakfast) till she returned. “After you have washed up, if I am not here, fill the lamps and clean the chimneys.”
This Marta was doing when she got back, and while she finished, Molly took off her outdoor clothes and donned her apron. “Now, Marta, I will show you about this fat, and I want you to remember to do just as you see me do, every time you use it. This is a piece of cheese-cloth; the fat is still quite hot (Molly had left it on the iron shelf over the range), but not scalding; I put the cloth over this empty lard-pail, and without shaking the fat, pour it through the cloth. You see all this fine black sediment that remains on the cloth and in the saucepan? That, if it were not strained out, would discolor whatever you fried in it. When it is strained each time, you can use it a dozen times; so you see it is not extravagant to fry in deep fat. Now you have a very greasy cloth and saucepan, but pour a quart of boiling water and a piece of washing-soda as big as a walnut on them, stir them, and you see you have no more grease, only some nice soapy water and a clean saucepan!”
Marta’s interest had been all alive since she had seen the chops, and she explained how often she had seen cooks in Germany bread cutlets, and they came out of the pan only breaded here and there. Never had she seen them all over alike, except at a restaurant where she had been dish-washer, and where there was a man cook.
“The crumbs come off for one of two reasons,—either they were too large (when I use bread instead of cracker I sift them), or the fat had not been hot enough; two or three large crumbs would spoil the whole, for they would fall off, bring others with them, and leave bare pale spots.”
As she made the explanation she had worked over the bread, which had risen to twice its first bulk, and put it into a tin pan, and set it to rise again. “That will only make one nice loaf, but it is as much as we shall eat while fresh. Now, while my hands are in flour, I will make a plain cake, and while it is baking, Marta, you and I will go up-stairs to the bedrooms. But first look well at the bread in the pan; you see it is barely half full; I worked it thoroughly, so that it has again to rise; when it is twice the size it now is it will be ready for the oven.”
She got for her cake two eggs, half a cup of butter, one of sugar, and a cup and a half of flour, a lemon, a nutmeg, and a tea-spoonful of baking-powder. Remembering she would need them, she had brought half a dozen of lemons and an ounce of nutmegs in with her. She set Marta to cream the butter and sugar, while she separated the yolks of the eggs and beat the whites till they were quite firm.
“This is only a plain ‘one, two, three, four’ cake, Marta, but it will be made nicer by the flavoring. When you know how to make this cake, always remember to vary the flavor, and the cake will seem much better than ordinary cup cake; sometimes you can add, the last thing, a cup of candied lemon and orange peel, cut fine,—I will show you how to candy them when we have collected enough,—or a cup of currants; either of these must be made warm, flour shaken through them, and the cake stirred only just enough, after they are in, to mix them, or they will all go to the bottom. This cake we will flavor with lemon and nutmeg. Mix the two yolks now with the butter and sugar, grate half the nutmeg, beginning at the blossom end or there will be a hole all through it; when you see that, always turn the nutmeg, begin at the other end, and there will be no hole; then grate the peel of the lemon to them, add a quarter tea-spoonful of salt, and mix all together; now sift in part of the flour with the baking-powder, then part of this cup of milk, now more flour, and the rest of the milk; the batter is rather stiff as yet, but the whites of the eggs will thin it enough,—they are the last to go in.”
Molly buttered a cake-pan, and the mixture, a thickish batter, was poured in, and then powdered sugar was sifted over and the cake put in the oven.
“The oven is nice and hot. I like to cover a cake the first half hour, so I will put this pie-pan over the top; another time I will have a piece of card-board ready and keep it for the purpose. Remember, if you want to make this cake when we are short of butter, you can use half lard. Now look at the bread; it will be ready in about twenty minutes, and the oven will be just nice for it. Meanwhile we will go upstairs.”