Beard on Bread (34 page)

Among the breads baked on a griddle (the Scots insist on saying “girdle”), scones seem to run high in popularity. They are rather sour-flavored because of the buttermilk content, and their delicate texture makes them excellent when hot, split, buttered well, and spread with raspberry jam. Cold, they are best cut in half, toasted, and served swimming in butter. Exceptionally easy to make, they are apt to be a novelty to some people.

[8 to 12 scones]

Sift the flour, cream of tartar, salt, sugar, and baking soda together. Take a cupful of the mixture and combine it with enough buttermilk or sour cream to make a soft dough. Pat it with the hand on a floured board and form into a circle ½ inch thick. Cut in wedges and bake on a floured griddle over a medium heat until lightly browned, then turn to brown on the other side. Serve hot or cold.

Potato scones are paper-thin, rather odd in flavor, and extremely interesting. They are usually served cold with sweet butter, but there is no reason why they can’t be offered warm, wrapped in a napkin. They have a kinship to some forms of the Scandinavian
lefse.

[18 scones]

Mix the mashed potatoes, butter, salt, and flour until thoroughly blended. Divide the dough into thirds and roll out each third into a circle about ¼ inch thick. Cut each circle into sixths and bake on a hot floured griddle, or in a hot floured skillet, for about 5 minutes, turning once to cook on both sides.

Crumpets bear a close similarity to English muffins and to English muffin bread. Rather soggy and holey, they must be toasted and treated to quantities of butter and good homemade jam. They were formerly standard tea food in England, but have for some reason lost their popularity. I still love them, maybe because of the buttery heaviness.

Crumpets are baked in rings on a hot griddle. You can use small flan rings available in kitchen equipment shops, or failing that, you can use empty 7-ounce cans, such as those in which salmon and tuna come packed, with both the top and bottom smoothly removed.

[8 to 10 crumpets]

Combine the milk and boiling water and cool to lukewarm. Add the yeast and sugar and allow to proof. Blend the salt and the sifted flour, combine with the yeast mixture, and beat thoroughly for several minutes with a wooden spoon or with your hand. Let the batter rise in a warm place until almost doubled in bulk and rather bubbly. Add the dissolved soda and beat into the batter. Allow to rise again until doubled in bulk.

Spoon the batter into buttered rings placed on a moderately hot griddle to a depth of about ½ inch. Cook until dry and bubbly on top. Remove the rings, turn the crumpets, and brown lightly on the other side. Let cool. To serve, toast and flood with butter.

These are simply wheat-flour pancakes made with a starter. In earlier times people kept a starter going especially for pancakes. Nowadays we usually make the starter the night before, which is what we are doing in this case. It makes light, puffy, absolutely delicious pancakes.

[About 12 to 14 cakes]

The night before making the pancakes combine the yeast, water, 1 tablespoon sugar, and 1 cup of flour in a mixing bowl. Cover with a cloth and leave overnight to rise. The next morning beat the egg well in a mixing bowl and add 1 to 2 tablespoons sugar. Beat again, add the yeast mixture, and stir in the salt, butter, and the second cup of flour; add milk if mixture seems too thick. However, the batter
should
be a little thicker than is customary. The pancakes should be baked on a well-buttered griddle. Serve at once with melted butter, syrup, or honey, and bacon, ham, or even a little steak.

Buckwheat cakes have had a strong part in American cookery for the last 150 to 200 years, epitomizing the hearty fare of country life. The batter would be left to rise overnight, then in the morning the cakes were mixed and baked and served spanking hot for breakfast with good slices of country ham, bacon, or sausages and sometimes with all three, as well as with maple syrup, honey, or treacle, and tons of butter.

[About 20 small pancakes]

The night before, mix the yeast with the water in a large bowl, add the salt and the flours, and cover the bowl with a cloth. Let the batter stand all night in a warm place. In the morning, add the molasses, baking soda, and melted butter to make a very, very thin batter. Bake on a well-buttered griddle two or three cakes at a time, and serve them on a hot plate with plenty of melted butter and warm syrup or honey.