The Birmingham age-herald., 1924-02-17
Master Recipes For Any Dough
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y MRS. cHRIsTINI FsgD rs,ckl

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 sy MRS. cHaisTiME ,FREDERick
 A great number of foods in daily use have similar nature which is only slightly varied and called by any other name will taste as good! That is, we find batters and doughs resulting in gems, mullins, soft breads, biscuits, short cakes, griddle cakes--the list is too long to mention. But before taking up the first principles on which they are all based and may be evolved, let us get this distinction between batter and a dough and learn something of how to combine ingredients.
 The distinction between a batter and dough depends on the difference in the proportion of water or iquid-if one unit of liquid is used with two units of flour, we have batter; but if one unit of liquid is combined with from three to four units of flour, the mixture becomes a dough. And there is every gradation between pour batter" and such as used in pancakes and waff1es up to the "stiff dough" used in steamed buildings and certain breads.
 All batters and dough have the same ingredients-flour, liquid and season. ings plus q rising agent, which may be either yeast or baking powder. All are mixed the same, viz.-the dry in- gredients are sifted twice or many times in order to aerate them and distribute the baking powder and sea- soning as evenly as possible. The bak- ing powder is added to dry ingredients and not to the liquid, because if it were added to the latter it might make bubbles of gas and cause the mixture to be lumpy and uneven
 < If shortening, oil or fats is an ingre- dient, it is preferable to melt it and add it last to batter mixture; or it may be cut in with knife or worked in with the fingers. If eggs are added they should be well beaten, and gen. orally the yolks added, alternately witn milk or liquid, to the flour and baking powder mixture. Whipped whites are folded in lust, thus secur- ing the greatest amount of air and lightness in the mixture. If eggs are included, then the mixture should be cooked at lower temperature than if no eggs, because if eggs are cooked at high temperature they become tough and help harden the product.
 Let us take standard muffin recipe, as: One cup flour, two tablespoonfuls sugar, one-half teaspoonful salt, two level teaspoonfuls baking powder, one egg, two tablespoonfuls melted short ening and from one-half to one-third | cup milk. By combining and sitting flour, salt, sugar and baking powder, then adding beaten yolks, milk, melted fat, and last the whipped whites, we evolve a delicious muffin mixture. The flour may be all rye, all wheat, half and half, all or half corn, half wheat and half bran. Further, the same rec ipe, just a little thinner, makes a batter for griddle cakes and also a batter for waffles. In short, learning this simple master recipe" of bat ter mixture, we have dozens of gems, mullins, griddle cakes and allied forms at the tips of our fingers.
 The same recipe, a little thicker, may be baked in sheet in flat pan, as corn bread, or made still thicker in the form of a small loaf in a brick pan. Always remember that the flat ter the pan it is to be baked in the thinner may be the mixture and the reverse.
 The master recipe for a baking pow der biscuit is as follows: 2 cups flour, teaspoons baking powder, 1-2 tea spoon salt. 2 tablespoons shortening and 1-2 to 1-3 cup liquid. If this soft dough is rolled and cut out small, and baked quickly, we have the typical tea or baking powder biscuit. If laid on top of a meat pie it becomes ''crust." !" If cut out or dropped on top of a steaming meat or fruit it at once be- comes dumping" If filled with ore. serves or canned fruit and rolled and cooked over steam it is jelly roll or boiled dumpling. All that must be re- membered is to vary the amount of iquid-for baking more liquid or more moist dough may be used than when the dough is to be steamed. Also for either baking as biscuit or in crust form more shortening may be safely added than if the dough is to be steamed, when it might become soggy when too much fat was used.
 All pans or gem moulds for what ever batter mixture should be very hot and well oiled before being filled they should be filled not over half full !; they require quick oven. Indeed, all batters must be cooked or poured onto hot or evenly heated surface and cooked most quicklyAzslow cooking makes them tough. A good plan is to place half teaspoon Shortening in each gem botto mand put the entire pan into the oven. With circular or rotary motion equalize the grease on the entire pan, pouring off any excess. This will insure satisfactory ereasing to prevent sticking.
 Some batter mixtures call for sour milk or molasses. In using all mo- laoses, its acidity must be neutraIized with baking soda, the best way being to add the soda to g little boiling water and then stir into the molasses. If this is done then baking powder aI, Aso may be used, but never use mo- iasses and baking powder only. The proportion of oneo-half teaspoon baking soda to each one cup of sour milk or molasses is correct.
 Practice with theo master gem req. ape in it's simplest form, then make changes in the flour, and by adding more liquid practice it as griddle mixture. After becoming expert at a simple griddle cake, thy the mixture as wffle or make it stiffer into the form of soft bread. At least, three chapters in the usual cook book can be crossed out for any on skilled in a single 'first principlss' of batter mixtures. "A