Directions for Cookery, in its Various Branches

seeds. SUGAR BISCUIT. Wet a pound of sugar with two large tea-cups full of milk; and rub a pound of butter into two pounds of flour; adding a table-spoonful of cinnamon, and a handful of carraway seeds. Mix in the sugar, add a tea-spoonful of pearl-ash dissolved, and make the whole into a stiff dough. Knead it, and then roll it out into a sheet about half an inch thick. Beat it on both sides with the rolling-pin, and then cut it out with the edge of a tumbler into round cakes. Prick them with a fork, lay them in buttered pans, and bake them light brown in a quick oven. You may colour them yellow by mixing in with the other ingredients a little of the infusion of saffron. RUSKS. Sift three pounds of flour into a large pan, and rub into it half a pound of butter, and half a pound of sugar. Beat two eggs very light, and stir them into a pint and a half of milk, adding two table-spoonfuls of rose water, and three table-spoonfuls of the best and strongest yeast. Make a hole in the middle of the flour, pour in the liquid, and gradually mix the flour into it till you have a thick batter. Cover it, and set it by the fire to rise. When it is quite light, put it on your paste-board and knead it well. Then divide it into small round cakes and knead each separately. Lay them very near each other in shallow iron pans that have been sprinkled with flour. Prick the top of each rusk with a fork, and set them by the fire to rise again for half an hour or more. When they are perfectly light, bake them in a moderate oven. They are best when fresh. You can convert them into what are called Hard Rusks, or Tops and Bottoms, by splitting them in half, and putting them again into the oven to harden and crisp. MILK BISCUIT. Cut up three quarters of a pound of butter in a quart of milk, and