Five heaping tablespoonfuls of flour = one cupful.

Two cupfuls of liquid or dry material = one pint

Four cupfuls of liquid or dry material = one quart.

MIXING MATERIALS.—­In the compounding of recipes, various modes are employed for mingling together the different ingredients, chief of which are stirring, beating, and kneading.

By stirring is meant a continuous motion round and round with a spoon, without lifting it from the mixture, except to scrape occasionally from the sides of the dish any portion of the material that may cling to it.  It is not necessary that the stirring should be all in one direction, as many cooks suppose.  The object of the stirring is to thoroughly blend the ingredients, and this may be accomplished as well by stirring—­in one direction as in another.

Beating is for the purpose of incorporating as much air in the mixture as possible.  It should be done by dipping the spoon in and out, cutting clear through and lifting from the bottom with each stroke.  The process must be continuous, and must never be interspersed with any stirring if it is desired to retain the air within the mixture.

Kneading is the mode by which materials already in the form of dough are more thoroughly blended together; it also serves to incorporate air.  The process is more fully described in the chapter on “Bread,”

TEMPERATURE.—­Many a cook fails and knows not why, because she does not understand the influence of temperature upon materials and food.  Flour and liquids for unfermented breads cannot be too cold, while for bread prepared with yeast, success is largely dependent upon a warm and equable temperature throughout the entire process.

COOKING UTENSILS.—­The earliest cookery was probably accomplished without the aid of any utensils, the food being roasted by burying it in hot ashes or cooked by the aid of heated stones; but modern cookery necessitates the use of a greater or less variety of cooking utensils to facilitate the preparation of food, most of which are so familiar to the reader as to need no description. (A list of those needed for use will be found on page 66.) Most of these utensils are manufactured from some kind of metal, as iron, tin, copper, brass, etc.  All metals are dissolvable in certain substances, and some of those employed for making household utensils are capable of forming most poisonous compounds when used for cooking certain foods.  This fact should lead to great care on the part of the housewife, both in purchasing and in using utensils for cooking purposes.

Iron utensils, although they are, when new, apt to discolor and impart a disagreeable flavor to food cooked in them, are not objectionable from a health standpoint, if kept clean and free from rust.  Iron rust is the result of the combination of the iron with oxygen, for which it has so great an affinity that it will decompose water to get oxygen to unite with; hence it is that iron utensils rust so quickly when not carefully dried after using, or if left where they can collect moisture.  This is the reason why a coating of tallow, which serves to exclude the air and moisture, will preserve ironware not in daily use from rusting.