Pumpkin Pie Mid Cork Cake

Getting into the season, enjoy!

PUMPKIN-PIE MID CORK-CAKE.
THE deacon read aloud from the Home that some woman wanted my way of making corn-cake and pumpkin-pies, and he said, "Pipsey, if you can't tell her no woman can, for really, let me go where I will, I don't find any such pumpkin-pie and corn-cake as you make here at home."
The woman must make allowance for the deacon's partiality. We hope our recipes may be satisfactory.
In making pumpkin-pies women generally stew the pumpkin and rub it through a colander, but this is a troublesome, mussy way that we don't like to see, and we never practice it. Instead, we select a solid, fine-grained, sweet, yellow pumpkin and steam or bake the large pieces, and scrape it off with a heavy spoon. Scrape slowly, and a little at a time, rejecting any lumps or stringy pieces that may come off. Squash is preferable to pumpkin, and should always be used instead, if it can be obtained—but, call it pumpkin-pie—that sounds better. Then to every quart of pumpkin, take one quart of good, rich milk and one cup of sweet cream, four well-beaten eggs, two tablespoons of molasses, a teaspoon of salt, a teaspoon of ginger, and sugar to the taste. I never put in any cinnamon. Just before it is passed at the table, grate a little nutmeg over it. Let the crust be good, and high enough around the edge of the pie-pan that the contents will not run over. A great deal depends on the baking. Do not put the mixture into the crust until the moment you put the pie into the oven; and then if the fire is too hot the |iif will not be cooked, and if not hot enough, it will be soggy.
One must be watchful and careful. For any kind of baking—bread, cake, biscuit or pie—the fire should have been a hot one and beginning to go down before anything goes into the oven. When a pumpkin or custard-pie is well baked and done enough, it will have puffed up beautifully—risen up from the edges quite like a loaf. WIien token out of the oven it should not remain on the pan a minute, else it will grow moist . If the pan has been dusted properly with flour, the pic can be slipped off easily on to a bread-cloth or folded paper. We rarely eat pie away from home because we have whims on the subject that we respect. So many women bake pies on old plates, old greasy, infirm plates that have seen faithful service—greased anew every time they were used, and too often the pies were left on them to cool, and the lower crust is soggy and strong, and not fit to enter one's stomach. And so many women, in baking lemon, pumpkin, corn^starch and custard-pies, put a plaster of beaten egg on top which is intended to be very pretty, but imparts an eggy taste that is not proper nor good.
To tell when a pumpkin-pie is baked done, shake the pan a little, and if it is firm in the centre, as it is at the edges, it is cooked. If the milk is new and creamy, and the materials good of which pumpkin or custard-pies are made, one fresh egg is enough to allow to each pie.
In the season of squashes we fare well at oor house for pumpkin-pie. We always steam sqisash for dinner, and if any pieces are left we make a bowl of custard, and thicken it sufficiently with some of the nicely prepared squash, and only a few minutes time is taken up with the job.
In looking over this, we would make one correo tion. In case the pumpkin or squash is cooked down until it is quite dry— not much moisture remaining in it—stirred into one quart and one cupful of milk, might make the mixture a little too thick for a good pie—in this case the woman must adopt Mudlaw's rule, and guess at it. She must use her own judgment just as she will be obliged to in determining by the taste of the ingredients how much sugar is required. If the mixture - too thick, the pies will be too dry. A woman must use judgment in this case, the same as she uses tact in her friendly intercourse with her acquaintances, and in the bringing up of her family, the clever managing of her husband, etc.
We have tried to make this plain and simple enough for a little girl.
To make corn-cake, take one pint of soar milk, and dissolved eoda enough to sweeten it, one egg, a level teaspoonful of salt, one handful of wheat flour, and meal enough to make a thin batter. Beat well. Into a sheet-iron bread-pan put » lump of butter the size of a hulled walnut, and when melted and stirred all over the pan, pour'in the batter and work the melted butter into it with a spoon, by turning the edges in and in, until it is thoroughly incorporated. Place in a hot oveji that will begin to bake immediately, and the larg«, thin cake, the size of the pan, will be deliciousljr done in about fifteen minutes. It will be crisp, and tender, and excellent for any meal you choose, especially for breakfast on a winter morning. Cist it out in square checks like ginger-bread. Now, if vou want it extra nice, let a part of the sour milk be taken out of the bottom of the cream crock; if so, use less soda and less butter. If the sour milk be poor or watered, then take two egge instead of one to make up for the lack. In case you have a churning that will not "come," do not fret about it or get mad and give it to the pigs, but stand the cream away in a fresh jar in a cool place, and use it in half a dozen ways that will"pay" better than if it had turned off a roll of second-rate butter. You can use it in making corn-cake, jumbles, doughnuts, meal-puddings, tarts, graham gems, griddle-cakes of rye, wheat, graham or corn-meal; for tea-cakes, soda-biscuit* or pan-cakes. The boys in our family used to hail the day that the "butter didn't come."
In all these things in which sour cream can be used to excellent advantage, allowance must be made for the difference between it and plain sour milk, and less eggs used, and no butter at all in the jumbles and doughnuts, and only a trifle in the tea-cakes and soda-biscuit. It is a good plan in making cake, for instance, to note down the exact quantities of the ingredients used until the result is perfectly satisfactory, then yon have a recipe of your own that can be relied upon.
We have in our up-stairs fruit-closet five or six
pound boxes of flour made out of dried pumpkin. This flour is a decided advantage over the common iray of cooking pumpkin or squash whenever it is Deeded for pies. By using the pumpkin-flour a pie can be made as soon as the milk, sugar, eggs and ginger are put together. We first heard of it n Marion Harland's admirable cook-books.
To the young housekeeper whose lament was that she could not make good coffee, if she "tried never so hard," we send our own way, and the good old deacon often says, "seems to me your L' iffee gets better and better!"
A heaping tablespoonful of ground coffee for each person and "one for the pot," is the usual allowance. Take part of an egg and a little cold water, and thoroughly moisten it . In the meanwhile let the pot be scalding with fresh, boiling water in it . See that it is clean and free from all old grounds, then pour in on the coffee half the quantity of boiling water needed, allowing about a half a pint less water than there are tablespoons of coffee. Make a compact little roll out of a strip of stout paper and stick it in the nose of the pot that the fine aroma may not be wasted. Boil for five or eight minutes, then slip a knife round inside of the pot to free it from grounds, and place it back where it will merely simmer, for ten minutes. Then pour in the balance of the boiling water; when settled, pour out half a cupful and return it, with three or four spoonfuls of cold water, and your nice, fragrant coffee is made. Use good cream and the finest of sugar, and you will then know how to make good coffee that will do you good to drink, and you will be pleased to •!:••.- it to your husband, family and friends.
Pipsey Potts.

PUMPKIN-PIES.
I AM not "Pipsey" nor "Chatty," but my brother's wife says no one can make any better pumpkin-pies or brown-bread than I do—does the "corn-bread" mean what we call brown-bread or johnney-cake?
PtncpxiN-PlE.—One quart stewed pumpkin, one quart and a half sweet milk, one teacup of flour, sifted with the pumpkin through a colander. Heat the milk and pumpkin together over steam. Season with one tablespoonful ginger, one tablejpoonful cassia, half tablespoonful salt, heaping Buioerfal sugar, half teacup molasses; after the pumpkin, and milk, and spices, etc.. are thoroughly scalded together,add four eggs well beaten. Fill your crust and bake until the pumpkin boils or bubbles.
Brown-bread.—One cup and a half sour milk, two-thirds cup molasses, two-thirds cup rye meal, one cup and a half Indian-meal, one teaspoouful soda, half teaspoonful salt. Steam in a covered dish two hours and a half or bake in a covered dish two hours and a half in a moderate oven. If you don't like it as sweet as this makes it, put what molasses you want into a cup and then put in water until the cup is two-thuds full.
Indian-cake.—One pint of corn-meal, one pint of flour, two eggs, one cup white sugar, three tablespoonfuls cream, two tablespoonful creamtartar, one teaspoonful soda, two cups sweet milk. Bake in hot oven.
I would send this direct to E. F. G. if I knew her address. P. M. 8.
Source: Arthur's Home Magazine ©1881