Lucka 4

Teatime by Itzchak Tarkay

For afternoon tea was quite a feature of Bertram's.
It was nothing less than splendid. Presiding over the ritual was Henry, a large and magnificent figure, a ripe fifty, avuncular, sympathetic, and with courtly manners of that long vanished species: the perfect butler. Slim youths preformed the actual work under Henrys's austere direction. There were large crested silver teapots. The china, if not actully Rockingham and Davenport, looked like it. The Blind Earl services were particulare favourites. The tea was the best Indian, Ceylon, Darjeeling, Lapsang, etc. As for eatables, you could ask for anything you liked — and get it!
On this particular day, November 17th Lady Selina Hazy, sixty-five, up from Leicestershire, was eating delicious well-buttered muffins with all an elderly lady's relish.
Her absorption with muffins, however, was not so great that she failed to look up sharply every time the inner pair of swing doors opened to admit a newcomer._ _ _

"Only place in London you still get muffins. Real muffins. Do you know when I went to America last year they had something called muffins on the breakfast menue. Not real muffins at all. Kind of teacake with raisins in them. I mean, why call them muffins?"

She pushed in the last buttery morsel and looked around vaguely. Henry materialized immediately. Not quickly or hurriedly. It seemed that, just suddenly, he was there.

"Anything further I can get you, my lady? Cake of any kind?"

"Cake?" Lady Selina thought about it, was doubtful.

"We are serving very good seed cake, my lady. I can recommend it."

"Seed cake? I haven't eaten seed cake for years. It is real seed cake?"

"Oh yes, my lady. The cook has had the receipt for years. You'll enjoy it, I'm sure.
Agatha Christie
"At Bertram's Hotel"

Cold Water Muffins

Sift a quart of flour, add to it a little salt, a large spoonful of yeast, beat the white of a fresh egg to a froth; after mixing the flour up with cold water into a soft dough, add the egg; set it in a moderately warm place. Next morning beat it well with a spoon, put it on the bake-iron in round cakes; when one side is nicely brown, turn them; keep them hot till sent to table, split and butter them. If you wish to have muffins for tea, they should be made up early in the Morning.
From Domestic Cookery, Useful receipts, and hints to young housekeepers, by Elizabeth E. Lea