Kitchen Matters

Here for you today, madam, is this good recipe to make in your kitchen, for your guests and for your family, as though it came from the finest confectioner's shops...

Meringue Simon — it consists of three parts: the pastry, the filling, and the topping.

1 — Meringue Simon pastry

Flour: 2 teacups
Butter or Crisco: 1/2 teacup
Baking powder: 1/2 teaspoon
Salt: 1/2 teaspoon
Iced water: 6 soup spoons

• Sift two cups of flour with half a teaspoon of baking powder and half a teaspoon of salt • Add half a cup of butter or (Crisco) and rub it into the flour, either with your fingers or with a fork • Add five or six soup spoons of iced water (one spoon after another) • Continue mixing until the flour becomes a dough that holds together. Knead it until smooth, then roll it out to a thickness of one-eighth of a qirat and set it in its special hollowed mold, taking care to bring the dough up the wall of the mold. Bake it in a hot oven, 450 degrees, for five minutes, until it sets and its color turns golden.

2 — Meringue Simon filling

Water: 2 cups
Starch: 4 tablespoons
Flour: 2 tablespoons
Sugar: 1 cup
Egg yolks: 3
Lemon juice: 4 tablespoons
Grated lemon rind: 2 teaspoons
Salt: 1 teaspoon

• Put the water on the fire to boil • Blend the starch, the flour, and the sugar with half a cup of cold water until smooth • Add to it the lightly beaten egg yolks • Add it slowly to the boiling water, and cook it five minutes, stirring it all the while • Take it off the fire and add the lemon juice, the rind, and the salt.

Pour it into the heart of the baked pastry.

3 — The topping, or face

Egg whites: 3
Sugar: 3 tablespoons
Baking powder: 1 teaspoon

• Beat the whites and add the sugar slowly, continuing to beat • Add the baking powder and beat again • Spread it over the face of the mold, on top of the filling • Bake it in a moderate oven (325 degrees) for ten minutes, until its color turns golden.

And here now, madam, is a second delicious recipe:

Chocolate cakes

Ingredients

Eggs: 3
Sugar: 1 teacup
Chocolate: 2 1/2 squares
Butter: 1/3 teacup
Vanilla: 1/2 teaspoon
Flour: 1/2 teacup
Baking powder: 1/2 teaspoon
Salt: 1/8 teaspoon
Chopped walnuts: 1 teacup

• Beat two eggs well, then beat a cup of sugar with them

• Melt, over hot water, two and a half squares of bitter chocolate (that is, without milk) together with a third of a cup of butter (a square of chocolate equals three large spoonfuls)

• Add this mixture to the beaten eggs and sugar, then add half a teaspoon of vanilla and beat it all well

• Add half a cup of flour with half a teaspoon of baking powder and an eighth of a teaspoon of salt

• Finally, mix in a cup of chopped walnuts. Spread this mixture in a mold greased with butter and dusted with flour — let it be spread thin — then bake it in a moderately hot oven, at 325 degrees, for thirty minutes

• Cut it into square pieces while it is still in the mold, before it cools.