Part 21

PLAIN PANCAKES.--Sift half a pound or a pint of flour. Beat seven eggs very light, and stir them gradually into a quart of rich milk. Then add by degrees the flour, so as to make a thin batter. Mix it very smooth, pressing out all the lumps with the back of a spoon. Set the frying-pan over the fire, and when it is hot, grease it with a spoonful of lard. Then put in a ladle full of the batter, and fry it of a light brown, turning it with care to prevent its breaking. Make each pancake large enough to cover the bottom of a dessert plate; greasing the pan every time. Send them to table hot, accompanied by powdered sugar and nutmeg mixed in a small glass bowl. Have wine with them also.

SWEETMEAT PANCAKES.--Take a large red beet-root that has been boiled tender; cut it up and pound it in a mortar till you have sufficient juice for colouring the pancakes. Then make a batter as in the preceding receipt, and stir into it at the last enough of the beet juice to give it a fine pink colour. Or instead of the beet juice, you may use a little cochineal dissolved in a very small quantity of brandy. Fry the pancakes in a pan greased with lard or fresh butter; and as fast as they are done, spread thickly over them raspberry jam or any sort of marmalade. Then roll them up nicely, and trim off the ends. Lay them, side by side, on a large dish, and strew powdered sugar over them. Send them to table hot, and eat them with sweetened cream.

PLAIN CUSTARDS.

Tie together six or eight peach leaves, and boil them in a quart of milk with a large stick of cinnamon broken up. If you cannot procure peach leaves, substitute a handful of peach-kernels or bitter almonds, or a vanilla bean split in pieces. When it has boiled hard, strain the milk and set it away to cool. Beat very light eight eggs, and stir them by degrees into the milk when it is quite cold, (if warm, the eggs will curdle it, and cause whey at the bottom,) and add gradually a quarter of a pound of sugar. Fill your cups with it; set them in a Dutch oven, and pour round them boiling water sufficient to reach nearly to the tops of the cups. Put hot coals under the oven and on the lid, (which must be previously heated by standing it up before a hot fire,) and bake the custards about fifteen minutes. Send them to table cold, with nutmeg grated over each. Or you may bake the whole in one large dish.

SOFT CUSTARDS--Are made in the above manner, except that to a quart of milk you must have twelve yolks of eggs, and no whites. You may devote to this purpose the yolks that are left when you have used the whites for cocoa-nut or almond puddings, or for lady cake or maccaroons.

BOILED CUSTARDS.--Beat eight eggs very light, omitting the whites of four. Mix them gradually with a quart of cold milk and a quarter of a pound of sugar. Put the mixture into a saucepan with a bunch of peach leaves, or a handful of broken up peach-kernels or bitter almonds; the yellow peel of a lemon, and a handful of broken cinnamon; or you may boil in it a vanilla bean. Set it on hot coals, and simmer it slowly, stirring it all the time. As soon as it comes to a boil, take it immediately off the fire, or it will curdle and be lumpy. Then strain it: add a table-spoonful of rose-water, and put it into glass cups. You may lay in the bottom of each cup a maccaroon soaked in wine. Grate nutmeg over the top, and send it to table cold. Eat it with tarts or sweetmeats.

RICE CUSTARD.--Boil some rice in milk till it is quite dry; then put it into small tea-cups, (pressing it down hard,) and when it is cold and has taken the shape of the cups, turn it out into a deep dish, and pour a boiled custard round it. Lay on the top of each lump of rice a piece of preserved quince or peach, or a piece of fruit jelly. In boiling the rice, you may mix with it raisins or currants; if so, omit the sweetmeats on the top. Ground rice is best.

Another way of boiling custard is to put the mixture into a pitcher, set it in a vessel of boiling water, place it on hot coals or in a stove, and let it boil slowly, stirring it all the time.

SNOWBALL CUSTARD.--Make a boiled custard as in the preceding receipts; and when it is done and quite cold, put it into a deep glass dish. Beat to a stiff froth the four whites of eggs that have been omitted in the custard, adding eight or ten drops of oil of lemon. Drop the froth in balls on the top of the dish of custard, heaping and forming them with a spoon into a regular size and shape. Do not let them touch each other. You may lay a fresh rose leaf on the top of every one.

APPLE CUSTARD.--Pare, core, and quarter a dozen large juicy pippins. Strew among them the yellow peel of a large lemon grated very fine; and stew them till tender, in a very small portion of water. When done, mash them smooth with the back of a spoon; (you must have a pint and a half of the stewed apple;) mix a quarter of a pound of sugar with them, and set them away till cold. Beat six eggs very light, and stir them gradually into a quart of rich milk, alternately with the stewed apple. Put the mixture into cups, or into a deep dish, and bake it about twenty minutes. Send it to table cold, with nutmeg grated over the top.

LEMON CUSTARD.--Take four large ripe lemons, and roll them under your hand on the table to increase the juice. Then squeeze them into a bowl, and mix with the juice a very small tea-cup full of cold water. Use none of the peel. Add gradually sufficient sugar to make it _very sweet_. Beat twelve eggs till quite light, and then stir the lemon juice gradually into them, beating very hard at the last. Put the mixture into cups, and bake it ten minutes. When done, grate nutmeg over the top of each, and set them among ice, or in a very cold place.

These custards being made without milk, can be prepared at a short notice; they will be found very fine.

Orange custards may be made in the same manner.

GOOSEBERRY CUSTARD.--Top and tail two quarts of green gooseberries. Stew them in a very little water; stirring and mashing them frequently. When they have stewed till entirely to pieces, take them out, and with a wooden spoon press the pulp through a cullender. Stir in (while the pulp is hot) a table-spoonful of butter, and sufficient sugar to make it very sweet. Beat six eggs very light. Simmer the gooseberry pulp over a gentle fire, and gradually stir the beaten eggs into it. When it comes to a boil, take it off immediately, stir it very hard, and set it out to cool. Serve it up cold in glasses or custard cups, grating some nutmeg over each.

ALMOND CUSTARD.--Scald and blanch half a pound of shelled sweet almonds, and three ounces of shelled bitter almonds; throwing them as you do them into a large bowl of cold water. Then pound them one at a time in a mortar; pouring in frequently a little rose water to prevent their oiling, and becoming dark-coloured and heavy. Melt a quarter of a pound of loaf-sugar in a quart of cream or rich milk, and stir in by degrees the pounded almonds. Beat ten eggs very light, and stir them gradually into the mixture; adding a powdered nutmeg, and a tea-spoonful of powdered mace and cinnamon mixed. Then put the whole into a pitcher, and place it in a kettle or pan of boiling water, the water coming up to the lower part of the neck of the pitcher. Set it over hot coals, and let it boil (stirring it all the time) till it is quite thick, but not till it curdles. Then take the pitcher out of the water; pour the custard into a large bowl, and stir it till it cools. Put it into glass cups, and send it to table cold. Sweeten some cream or white of egg. Beat it to stiff froth and pile it on the top of the custards.

BOILED COCOA-NUT CUSTARD.--To a pound of grated cocoa-nut allow a pint of unskimmed milk, and six ounces of white sugar. Beat very light the yolks of six eggs. Stir them gradually into the milk, alternately with the cocoa-nut and sugar. Put the mixture into a pitcher; set it in a vessel of boiling water; place it on hot coals, and simmer it till it is very smooth and thick; stirring it all the time. As soon as it comes to a hard boil, take it off the fire; pour it into a large bowl, and set it out to cool. When cold, put it into glass cups. Beat to a stiff froth the white of egg that was left, and pile it on the custards.

BAKED COCOA-NUT CUSTARD.--Grate as much cocoa-nut as will weigh a pound. Mix half a pound of powdered white sugar with the milk of the cocoa-nut, or with a pint of cream; adding two table-spoonfuls of rose water. Then stir in gradually a pint of rich milk. Beat to a stiff froth the whites of eight eggs, and stir them into the milk and sugar, a little at a time, alternately with the grated cocoa-nut: add a tea-spoonful of powdered nutmeg and cinnamon. Then put the mixture into cups, and bake them twenty minutes in a Dutch oven half filled with boiling water. When cold, grate loaf-sugar over them.

CHOCOLATE CUSTARD.--Scrape fine a quarter of a pound of chocolate, and pour on it a pint of boiling water. Cover it, and let it stand by the fire till it has dissolved, stirring it twice. Beat eight eggs very light, omitting the whites of two. Stir them by degrees into a quart of cream or rich milk, alternately with the melted chocolate, and three table-spoonfuls of powdered white sugar. Put the mixture into cups, and bake it about ten minutes. Send them to table cold, with sweetened cream, or white of egg beaten to a stiff froth, and heaped on the top of each custard. No chocolate is so good as Baker's prepared cocoa.

MACCAROON CUSTARDS.--These must be made in china custard cups. Put four maccaroons into each cup, and pour on them three spoonfuls of white wine. Mix together a pint of cream, and a pint of milk; and boil them with a large stick of cinnamon broken up, and a small bunch of peach leaves or a handful of broken bitter almonds. Then strain the milk; stir in a quarter of a pound of white sugar, and set it away to cool. Beat very light eight eggs, (omitting the whites of four,) and stir them gradually into the cream and milk when quite cold. Fill your cups with the mixture, (leaving the maccaroons at the bottom,) and set them in a Dutch oven or iron baking pan, which must be half full of boiling water. Heat the oven-lid first, by standing it up before a hot fire; then put it on, spreading coals over the top. Place sufficient coals under the oven, and bake the custards about ten minutes. When cold, heap beaten white of egg on the top of each. These custards are very fine.

SYLLABUB, OR WHIPT CREAM.

Pare off very thin the yellow rind of four large lemons, and lay it in the bottom of a deep dish. Squeeze the juice of the lemons into a large bowl containing a pint of white wine, and sweeten it with half a pound of powdered loaf-sugar. Then, by degrees, mix in a quart of cream. Pour the whole into the dish in which you have laid the lemon-peel, and let the mixture stand untouched for three hours. Then beat it with rods to a stiff froth, (first taking out the lemon-peel,) and having put into each of your glasses a table-spoonful or more of fruit jelly, heap the syllabub upon it so as to stand up high at the top. This syllabub, if it can be kept in a cold place, may be made the day before you want to use it.

COUNTRY SYLLABUB.--Mix half a pound of white sugar with a pint of fine sweet cider, or of white wine; and grate in a nutmeg. Prepare them in a large bowl, just before milking time. Then let it be taken to the cow, and have about three pints milked into it; stirring it occasionally with a spoon. Let it be eaten before the froth subsides. If you use cider, a little brandy will improve it.

A TRIFLE.--Place half a pound of maccaroons or Naples biscuits at the bottom of a large glass bowl. Pour on them as much white wine as will cover and dissolve them. Make a rich custard, flavoured with bitter almonds or peach leaves: and pour it when cold on the maccaroons; the custard may be either baked or boiled. Then add a layer of marmalade or jam. Take a quart of cream, mix with it a quarter of a pound of sugar, and half a pint of white wine, and whip it with rods to a stiff froth; laying the froth (as you proceed) on an inverted sieve, with a dish under it to catch the cream that drips through; which must be saved and whipped over again. Instead of rods you may use a little tin churn. Pile the frothed cream upon the marmalade in a high pyramid. To ornament it,--take preserved water-melon rind that has been cut into leaves or flowers; split them nicely to make them thinner and lighter; place a circle or wreath of them round the heap of frothed cream, interspersing them with spots of stiff red currant jelly. Stick on the top of the pyramid a sprig of real flowers.

FLOATING ISLAND.--Take a quart of rich cream, and divide it in half. Sweeten one pint of it with loaf-sugar, and stir into it sufficient currant jelly to colour it of a fine pink. Put it into a glass bowl, and place in the centre a pile of sliced almond-sponge cake, or of lady cake; every slice spread thickly with raspberry jam or marmalade, and laid evenly one on another. Have ready the other pint of cream, flavoured with the juice of two lemons, and beaten with rods to a stiff froth. Heap it all over the pile of cake, so as entirely to cover it. Both creams must be made very sweet.

A RASPBERRY CHARLOTTE.--Take a dozen of the square or oblong sponge-cakes that are commonly called Naples biscuits. They should be quite fresh. Spread over each a thick layer of raspberry jam, and place them in the bottom and round the sides of a glass bowl. Take the whites of six eggs, and mix with them six table-spoonfuls of raspberry or currant jelly. Beat the egg and jelly with rods till very light, and then fill up the bowl with it. For this purpose, cream (if you can conveniently procure it) is still better than white of egg.

You may make a charlotte with any sort of jam, marmalade, or fruit jelly. It can be prepared at a short notice, and is very generally liked. You may use ripe strawberries, washed and sweetened.

A PLUM CHARLOTTE.--Stone a quart of ripe plums; first stew, and then sweeten them. Cut slices of bread and butter, and lay them in the bottom and round the sides of a large bowl or deep dish. Pour in the plums boiling hot, cover the bowl, and set it away to cool gradually. When quite cold, send it to table, and eat it with cream.

CLOTTED CREAM.--Mix together a jill of rich milk, a large wine glass of rose water, and four ounces of white sugar. Add to it the beaten yolks of two eggs. Stir the mixture into a quart of the best cream; set it over hot coals, and let it just come to a boil, stirring it all the time. Then take it off, pour it into a glass bowl, and set it away to get cold. Eat it with fresh strawberries, raspberries, or with any sort of sweetmeats.

LEMON CREAM.--Beat well together a quart of thick cream and the yolks of eight eggs. Then gradually beat in half a pound of powdered loaf-sugar, and the grated rind of three large lemons. Put the mixture into a porcelain skillet, and set it on hot coals till it comes to a boil; then take it off, and stir it till nearly cold. Squeeze the juice of the lemons into a bowl; pour the cream upon it, and continue to stir it till quite cold. You may serve it up in a glass bowl, in glass cups, or in jelly glasses. Eat it with tarts or sweetmeats.

ORANGE CREAM.--Beat very light six eggs, omitting the whites of two. Have ready a pint of orange juice, and stir it gradually into the beaten egg, alternately with a pound of powdered loaf-sugar. Put into a porcelain skillet the yellow rind of one orange, pared very thin; pour the mixture upon it, and set it over a slow fire. Simmer it steadily, stirring it all the time; but when nearly ready to boil, take it off, remove the orange-peel, and put the mixture into glasses to get cold.

CURDS AND WHEY.--Take a piece of rennet about three inches square, and wash it in two or three cold waters to get off the salt; wipe it dry, and fasten a string to one corner of it. Have ready in a deep dish or pan, a quart of unskimmed milk that has been warmed but not boiled. Put the rennet into it, leaving the string hanging out over the side, that you may know where to find it. Cover the pan, and set it by the fire-side or in some other warm place. When the milk becomes a firm mass of curd, and the whey looks clear and greenish, remove the rennet as gently as possible, pulling it out by the string; and set the pan in ice, or in a very cold place. Send to table with it a small pitcher of white wine, sugar and nutmeg mixed together; or a bowl of sweetened cream, with nutmeg grated over it.

You may keep rennet in white wine; cutting it in small pieces, and putting it into a glass jar with wine enough to cover it well. Either the wine or the rennet will be found good for turning milk; but do not put in both together, or the curd will become so hard and tough as to be uneatable.

Rennets properly prepared and dried, are sold constantly in the Philadelphia markets. The cost is trifling; and it is well to have one always in the house, in case of being wanted to make whey for sick persons. They will keep a year or more.

LEMON ICE CREAM

Have ready two quarts of very rich thick cream, and take out a pint. Stir gradually into the pint, a pound of the best loaf-sugar powdered fine; and the grated rind and the juice of four ripe lemons of the largest size, or of five or six smaller ones. If you cannot procure the fruit, you may flavour the cream with essence or oil of lemon; a tea-spoonful or more, according to its strength. The strongest and best essence of lemon is the white or whitish; when tinged with green, it is comparatively weak, having been diluted with water; if quite green, a large tea-spoonful will not communicate as much flavour as five or six drops of the white. After you have mixed the pint of cream with the sugar and lemon, beat it gradually and hard into the remaining cream, that is, the three pints. Cover it, and let it stand to infuse from half an hour to an hour. Then taste it, and if you think it necessary, stir in a little more lemon juice or a little more sugar. Strain it into the freezer through a fine strainer, (a tin one with small close holes is best,) to get rid of the grated lemon-peel, which if left in would prevent the cream from being smooth. Cover the freezer, and stand it in the ice cream tub, which should be filled with a mixture, in equal quantities, of coarse salt, and ice broken up as small as possible, that it may lie close and compact round the freezer, and thus add to its coldness. Snow, when it can be procured, is still better than ice to mix with the salt. It should be packed closely into the tub, and pressed down hard. While the cream is freezing, keep it always in motion, whirling the freezer round by the handle, and opening the lid frequently to stir and beat the cream, and to scrape it down from the sides with a long-handled tin spoon. Take care that no salt gets in, or the cream will be spoiled. When it is entirely frozen, take it out of the freezer and put it into your mould; set it again in the tub, (which must be filled with fresh ice and salt,) and leave it undisturbed till you want it for immediate use. This second freezing, however, should not continue longer than an hour, or the cream will become inconveniently and unpleasantly hard, and have much of the flavour frozen out of it. Place the mould in the ice tub, with the head downwards, and cover the tub with pieces of old carpet while the second freezing is going on. When it has arrived at the proper consistence, and it is time to serve it up, dip a cloth in cold water, and wash it round the mould for a few moments, to loosen the cream and make it come out easily; setting the mould on a glass or china dish. If a pyramid or obelisk mould, lift it carefully off the top. If the mould or form represents doves, dolphins, lap-dogs, fruit baskets, &c. it will open down the middle, and must be taken off in that manner. Serve it up immediately lest it begin to melt. Send round sponge-cake with it, and wine or cordials immediately after.

If you have no moulds, but intend serving it up in a large bowl or in glasses, it must still be frozen twice over; otherwise it can have no smoothness, delicacy, or consistence, but will be rough and coarse, and feel in the mouth like broken icicles. The second freezing (if you have no mould) must be done in the freezer, which should be washed out, and set again in the tub with fresh ice and salt. Cover it closely and let the cream stand in it untouched, but not less than two hours. When you put it into glasses, heap it high on the top.

Begin to make ice cream about four or five hours before it is wanted for use. If you commence it too early, it may probably be injured by having to remain too long in the second freezing, as it must not be turned out till a few moments before it is served up. In damp weather it requires a longer time to freeze.

If cream is scarce, mix with it an equal quantity of rich milk, and then add, for each quart, two table-spoonfuls of powdered arrow-root rubbed smooth in a little cold milk. Orange ice cream is made in the same manner as lemon.

STRAWBERRY ICE CREAM.--Take two quarts of ripe strawberries; hull them, and put them into a deep dish, strewing among them half a pound of powdered loaf-sugar. Cover them, and let them stand an hour or two. Then mash them through a sieve till you have pressed out all the juice, and stir into it half a pound more of powdered sugar, or enough to make it very sweet, and like a thick syrup. Then mix it by degrees with two quarts of rich cream, beating it in very hard. Put it into a freezer, and proceed as in the foregoing receipt. In two hours, remove it to a mould, or take it out and return it again to the freezer with fresh salt and ice, that it may be frozen a second time. In one hour more, it should be ready to turn out.

RASPBERRY ICE CREAM--Is made according to the preceding receipt.

PINE-APPLE ICE CREAM.--To each quart of cream allow a large ripe pine-apple, and a pound of powdered loaf-sugar. Pare the pine-apple, slice it very thin, and mince it small. Lay it in a deep dish and strew the sugar among it. Cover the dish, and let the pine-apple lie in the sugar for two or three hours. Then strain it through a sieve, mashing and pressing out all the juice. Stir the juice gradually into the cream, beating it hard. Put it into the freezer, and let it be twice frozen before it is served up.

VANILLA ICE CREAM.--Take a large vanilla bean, and boil it slowly in half a pint of milk till all the flavour is drawn out, which you may know by tasting it. Then mix into the milk half a pound of powdered loaf-sugar, and stir it very hard into a quart of rich cream. Put it into the freezer, and proceed as directed in the receipt for Lemon Ice Cream; freezing it twice.

ALMOND ICE CREAM.--Take six ounces of bitter almonds, (sweet ones will not do,) blanch them, and pound them in a mortar, adding by degrees a little rose water. Then boil them gently in a pint of cream till you find that it is highly flavoured with them. Then pour the cream into a bowl, stir in a pound of powdered loaf-sugar, cover it, and set it away to cool gradually; when it is cold, strain it, and then stir it gradually and hard into three pints of cream. Put it into the freezer, and proceed as directed in the first ice cream receipt. Freeze it twice. It will be found very fine.

Send round always with ice cream, sponge cake or Savoy biscuits. Afterwards wine, and cordials, or liqueurs as they are now generally called.