“Nepaug picnic suppers had been reduced to scientific principles under Miss Standish's rule. There was a picnic coffee-pot and a picnic-dipper, a set of wooden plates and a pile of Japanese paper napkins. All these went into one basket, together with cups and glasses and knives and forks. Another, still more capacious, held the sandwiches and biscuit, the cake and coffee, the pepper and salt, beside the jar of orange marmalade, and the pies surreptitiously borrowed from the pantry, where they were reposing upon the larder shelf, tranquilly awaiting the morrow's dessert. Everything was neatly stowed away,--no crowding, no crumbling. Miss Standish was willing to take any amount of trouble; all she asked was to be appreciated.”
A cook of roughly the same moment, setting down the same dish.
1 cup scalded milk ¼ cup yolks of eggs ½ cup whole eggs ⅔ cup butter ½ cup sugar 2 yeast cakes ½ teaspoon extract lemon or 2 pounded cardamon seeds 4⅔ cups flour _French Confectioner_ Cool milk; when lukewarm, add yeast cakes, and when they are dissolved add remaining ingredients, and beat thoroughly with hand ten minutes; let rise six hours. Keep in ice-box over night; in morning turn on floured board, roll in long rectangular piece one-fourth inch thick; spread with softened butter, fold from sides toward centre to make three layers. Cut off pieces three-fourths inch wide; cover and let rise. Take each piece separately in hands and twist from ends in opposite directions, coil and bring ends together at top of cake. Let rise in pans and bake twenty minutes in a moderate oven; cool and brush over with confectioners’ sugar, mois
Sources: The passage is from Maud Wilder Goodwin, Flint: His Faults, His Friendships and His Fortunes, free to read in full at Project Gutenberg. The recipe is from Farmer, The Boston cooking-school cook book of 1896, also free in full. Both are in the public domain in the United States. The binding above is ours — slate cloth, teapot stamp.