Part 31

_Sweet Potato Cake_--Is made like the above cocoa-nut cake. The sweet potatos must be pared and grated _raw_, till you have as much as weighs half a pound. Then proceed as above, and with the same ingredients and proportions. You may boil and mash the sweet potatos; but be sure, afterwards, to pass them through a coarse sieve, or they may chance to clod and become heavy. If well made, and well flavored, this cake is very nice.

GOLDEN CAKE.--The best time for making this cake is when ripe oranges are plenty. For one cake select four large deep-colored oranges, and roll each one under your hand upon a table to soften them, and increase the juice. Weigh a pound of the best loaf sugar. On some of the largest pieces rub off the yellow or outer rind of the oranges, omitting the white entirely. The white or inner rind of oranges or lemons should never be used for any thing. Cut the oranges, and squeeze their juice through a strainer into a large saucer or a small deep plate. Powder all the sugar, including that which has the orange zest upon it, and put it into a deep earthen pan, with a pound of the best fresh butter cut up among it. With a wooden spaddle stir the butter and sugar together, till very light and creamy. In a shallow pan beat twelve eggs, omitting the _whites_ of three. Sift into a dish a small quart of the best and finest flour, and stir it gradually into the pan of butter and sugar and orange, in turn with the beaten egg, a little at a time of each. Stir the whole very hard; and when done, immediately transfer the batter to square tin pans, greased with the same fresh butter that was used for the cake. Many a fine cake has been spoiled, at last, by the poor economy of greasing the pans with salt butter. Fill the pans to the top. If the cake has been well made, and well beaten, there is no danger of the batter running over the edges. Put it, immediately, into a quick oven and bake it well, not allowing the heat to be lessened till the cake is quite done. When cool, cut it into squares. If you ice it, flavor the icing with orange juice.

Do not attempt to make this cake with yolk of egg only, by way of improving the yellow color. Without any whites, it will assuredly be tough and heavy. Cakes may be made light with white of egg only, but never with yellow of egg only.

If you use soda, saleratus, hartshorn, or any of the alkalis, they will entirely destroy the orange flavor, and communicate a bad taste of their own.

SILVER CAKE.--Scald in a bowl of boiling water two ounces of shelled bitter almonds. As you peel off the skins throw each almond into a bowl of ice-cold water. When all are blanched, take them out, and wipe them dry on a clean napkin. Put them, one at a time, into a very clean marble mortar, and pound each one separately to a smooth paste, adding, as you pound them, a few drops of strong rose-water, till you have used up a large wine-glass full. As you remove the pounded almonds from the water, lay them lightly and loosely on a plate. When all are done, put them into a very cool place. In a deep earthen pan cut up a pound of fresh butter into a pound of powdered sugar, and with a wooden spaddle stir the butter and sugar together till perfectly light. Into another pan sift three quarters of a pound of fine flour, and in a broad shallow pan beat with small rods the whites only of eighteen eggs till they are stiff enough to stand alone. Then, gradually, and alternately, stir into the pan of beaten butter and sugar the flour, the beaten white of eggs, and the pounded almonds. Give the whole a hard stirring at the last. Transfer it to square tin pans greased with the same butter, and bake it well. When cool, cut it into square cakes, and send it to table on china plates, piled alternately with pieces of golden cake, handsomely arranged. If you ice silver cake, flavor the icing with strong rose-water.

These cakes, (gold or silver) if made as above, will be found delicious. The yolk of egg left from the silver cake may be used for soft custards. But yolk of egg alone, will not raise a cake; though white of egg will.

APEES.--Cut up a pound of fresh butter into two pounds of sifted flour, and rubbing the butter very fine, and mixing in a pound of powdered sugar, with a heaped tea-spoonful of mixed spice, nutmeg, mace, and cinnamon, and four tea-spoonfuls of carraway seeds. Moisten the whole with a large glass of white wine; and barely sufficient cold water to make a stiff dough. Mix it well with a broad knife, and roll it out into a sheet less than half an inch thick; then with the edge of a tumbler, or a tin cake-cutter, divide it into round small cakes. Bake them in oblong pans, (tin or iron) slightly buttered; and do not place them so closely as to touch. Bake them in a quick oven, till they are of a pale brown. These cakes are soon prepared, requiring neither eggs nor yeast.

MARMALADE MERINGUES.--Make a mixture as for apees, omitting only the carraway seeds. Roll out the sheet of dough quite thin; cut it into round flat cakes with the edge of a tumbler, and bake them a few minutes, till lightly colored. Take them out of the oven and spread them thickly with very nice marmalade, or with ripe strawberries or raspberries, sweetened, and mashed without cooking. Have ready a stiff meringue of beaten white of egg and sugar. Pile it high over the marmalade on each cake. Heap it on with a spoon, so as quite to conceal the marmalade, and do not smooth it on the top. It should stand up _uneven_ as the spoon left it. Set it again in the oven for a minute or two, to harden it.

JUMBLES.--Mix together, all at once, in a deep pan, a pound of butter cut up in a pound of powdered sugar, a pound of sifted flour, and six eggs, previously beaten very light in a pan by themselves. Add a table-spoonful of powdered spice, (mixed nutmeg, mace, and cinnamon) and a glass of mixed wine and brandy; or else a glass of rose water; or the juice and grated yellow rind of a large lemon. Stir the whole very hard till all the ingredients are thoroughly mixed, and become a soft dough. Flour your hands and your pasteboard, and lay the dough upon it. Take off equal portions from the lump, and with your hands form them into round rolls, and make them into rings by joining together the two ends of each. Place the jumbles (not so near as to touch,) in tin pans slightly buttered, and bake them in a very brisk oven little more than five or six minutes, or enough to color them a light brown. If the oven is too cool, the jumbles will spread and run into each other. When cold, sift sugar over them. _Jumbles_ may be made with yolks of eggs only, if the whites are wanted for something else.

_Cocoa-nut Jumbles_--Are made as above, only with finely grated cocoa-nut instead of flour, and with white of egg instead of yolk.

_Cocoa-nut Puffs._--Grate any quantity of cocoa-nut. Mix it with powdered sugar and a little beaten white of egg, and lay it in small heaps of equal size. On the top of each place a ripe strawberry, raspberry, or any small preserved fruit, flattening a slight hollow, to hold it without its rolling off.

SCOTCH CAKE.--Take a pound of fresh butter, a pound of powdered white sugar, and two pounds of sifted flour. Mix the sugar with the flour, and rub the butter into it, crumbled fine. Add a heaped table-spoonful of mixed nutmeg and cinnamon. Put _no water_, but moisten it entirely with butter. A small glass of brandy is an improvement. Roll it out into a large thick sheet, and cut it into round cakes about the size of saucers. Bake them on flat tins, slightly buttered. This cake is very crumbly but very good, and of Scottish origin. It keeps well, and is often sent from thence, packed in boxes.

JELLY CAKE.--For baking jelly cake you must have large flat tin pans rather larger than a dinner plate. But a very clean soap-stone griddle may be substituted, though more troublesome. Make a rich batter as for pound cake, and bake it in single cakes, (in the manner of buckwheat, or thicker) taking care to grease the tin or soap-stone with _excellent_ fresh butter. Have ready, enough of fruit jelly or marmalade, to spread a thick layer all over each cake when it cools. Pile one on another very evenly, till you have four, five, or half a dozen; and ice the surface of the whole. Cut it down in triangular pieces like a pie. Jelly cake is no longer made of sponge cake, which is going out of use for all purposes, as being too often dry, tough, and insipid, and frequently not so good as plain bread.

ALMOND MACAROONS.--The day before they are wanted, prepare three quarters of a pound of shelled sweet almonds, and a quarter of a pound of shelled bitter almonds; by scalding, blanching, and pounding them to a smooth paste in a marble mortar, (one or two at a time) adding, as you proceed, rose-water to prevent their oiling, and becoming dark and heavy. Having beaten to a stiff froth the whites of six eggs, and prepared a pound of powdered loaf sugar, beat the sugar into the egg a spoonful at a time. Then mix in gradually the pounded almonds, and add a grated nutmeg. Stir the whole very hard, and form the mixture into small round balls. Then flatten slightly the surface of each. Butter slightly some shallow tin pans. Place the macaroons not so close as to be in danger of touching; and glaze them lightly with a little beaten white of egg. Put them into a brisk oven, and bake them a light brown.

Ground-nut macaroons are made in the same manner.

_Chocolate Macaroons._--Scrape down, very fine, half a pound of Baker's prepared cocoa. Beat to a stiff froth the white of four eggs, and beat into the white of egg a pound of powdered loaf sugar, in turn with the chocolate, adding a little sifted flour if the mixture appears too thin. Grease the bottom of some oblong tin pans, very slightly, with sweet oil. Having formed the mixture into small thick cakes, lay them (not close,) in the pan, and bake them a few minutes. Sift sugar over them while warm.

KISSES.--Having beaten to a stiff froth, till it stands alone, the whites of eight eggs, mix with it, gradually, three quarters of a pound of finely powdered loaf sugar, beating it in very hard, a spoonful at a time, and as you proceed flavoring it with extract of vanilla, rose, or lemon juice. If the meringue is not thoroughly beaten and very stiff, the kisses will lose their shape and run in baking. Try one first, and if that runs, beat a while longer before you bake the whole. Pile portions of the meringue on sheets of letter paper, placing each heap far apart. Smooth and shape them with a broad knife dipped in cold water. Make them about the size and form of half eggs, with the flat part downwards. Arrange them on a smooth hickory board, and set it in a quick oven, (leaving the door open) and watch them well. A few minutes will color them a pale brown, and that is all they require. Then take them out, and set them to cool. When cool, slip a knife carefully under each, and remove them from the paper. Then with your knife hollow the meringue from the base of each kiss and scrape upwards toward the top, being careful not to break through the outside or crust. Fill up this vacancy with any sort of stiff jelly. Then clap two halves together, and unite them at the base, by moistening the edges with a little of the meringue that was left. Handle them very carefully throughout.

Large kisses, of twice or thrice the usual size, are introduced at parties, filled with ice cream, or flavored calf's foot jelly.

It is very customary now to finish a fine charlotte russe with a thick layer of this jelly at the top.

LAFAYETTE GINGERBREAD.--Cut up in a deep pan half a pound of the best fresh butter, with a half pound of excellent brown sugar; and stir it to cream with a spaddle. Add a pint of West India molasses, mixed with half a pint of warm milk; four table-spoonfuls of ginger; a heaped table-spoonful of mixed powdered cinnamon and powdered mace and nutmeg; and a glass of brandy. Sift in a pound and a half of fine flour. Beat six eggs till very light and thick, and mix them, alternately, into the pan of butter, sugar, molasses, &c. At the last, mix in the yellow rind (grated fine) of two large oranges and the juice. Stir the whole very hard. Melt in one cup a very small level tea-spoonful of soda, and in another a small level salt-spoon of tartaric acid. Dissolve them both in lukewarm water, and see that both are quite melted. First stir the soda into the mixture, and then put in the tartaric acid. On no account exceed the quantity of the two alkalis, as if too much is used, they will destroy entirely the flavoring, and communicate a very disagreeable taste instead. Few cakes are the better for any of the alkaline powders, and many sorts are entirely spoiled by them. Even in gingerbread they should be used very sparingly, rather less than more of the prescribed quantity. Having buttered, (with the same butter) a large round or oblong pan, put in the mixture, and bake it in a moderate oven till thoroughly done, keeping up a steady heat, but watching that it does not burn. There is no gingerbread superior to this, if well made. Instead of lemon or orange, cut in half a pound of seedless raisins, dredge them well with flour, and stir them, gradually, into the mixture.

This is also called Franklin gingerbread.

GINGER NUTS.--Cut a pound of the best fresh butter into two pounds or two quarts of sifted flour, and half a pound of fine brown sugar. Add four heaped table-spoonfuls of ground ginger; a heaped table-spoonful of powdered cinnamon, and the same quantity of mixed nutmeg and mace. Mix all the ingredients thoroughly together; adding, gradually, a large pint of West India molasses, and the grated yellow rind and juice of a lemon or orange. Stir it very hard with a spaddle. Flour your hands, break off pieces of the dough, and knead each piece a little; then flatten them on the top. Make them the size of a quarter dollar. Or, (flouring your pasteboard) roll out the dough, and cut out the ginger-nuts with the edge of a small wine-glass. Bake them on buttered tins, having first glazed them with a thin mixture of molasses and water. The same dough may be baked in long straight sticks, divided by lines deeply marked with a knife.

There are many other gingerbreads; but any of the soft sorts may be made with little variation from the foregoing directions for Lafayette gingerbread; and of the hard sort of ginger-nut preparation, the above is the basis of the rest. If the receipts are liberally and exactly followed, it will be found that to those two none are superior.

PIGEON PIE.--For this pie take six fine fat tame pigeons, carefully cleaned and picked. Lay them in cold water for an hour, changing the water twice during that time. This is to remove what is called "the taste of the nest." Have ready the yolks of six hard-boiled eggs, seasoned with powdered nutmeg. Place a bit of fresh butter rolled in flour, in the inside of each pigeon, with its liver cut up, and with a yolk of egg seasoned with powdered mace. Lay a nice tender beef steak, or thin veal cutlet, in the bottom of a large deep dish, that has been lined with puff-paste. Butter the steak, and dredge it with flour. There must be meat enough to cover well the bottom of the pie dish. Lay the pigeons upon it, with the breast downward, (their heads and feet cut off, and their livers cut up, and put inside with the stuffing.) Fill up the dish with water. Roll out and put on the lid of the pie, which you may ornament with paste leaves or flowers, according to your taste. For company, pigeon pies are expected to look handsome. It is no longer fashionable to have the feet of the pigeons sticking out of the slit in the top of the paste.

Moorfowl, pheasants, partridges, or quails, may be made into pies in the above manner. It is usual, for partridge pies, to peel two fine sweet oranges; and having divided them into quarters, carefully remove the strings and seeds, and put the oranges into the birds without any other stuffing. Instead of beef steak or veal cutlet, lay a thin slice of cold ham in the bottom of the pie-dish.

This receipt, and the following, were accidentally omitted in their proper places.

CHICKEN PIE.--Skin a pair of fine fowls, and cut them up. Save out the necks, backs, feet, livers, and gizzards, and the ends of the pinions; and seasoning them with a little pepper and salt add some trimmings or spare bits of fresh beef or veal, and stew them in a small sauce-pan with a little water, to make the gravy. Let them stew till all to rags, and then strain off the liquid; and while hot, stir into it a beaten egg and a bit of fresh butter, dredged with flour. In the mean time make a nice puff-paste, and roll it out rather thick; divide it in two circular sheets. Line with one sheet the bottom and sides of a deep pie dish, and put in the best pieces of chicken. Lay among them four hard-boiled eggs, sliced or quartered. Season well with powdered mace or nutmeg. The gravy being strained, pour that into the pie, and finish at the top with a layer of butter divided into small pieces, and dredge with flour. This is what the old English cookery books mean when they say--"Close the pie with a _lear_."

A chicken pie will be improved by the addition of a dozen or more large fresh oysters, stewed. If you add oysters, take off the lid or upper crust as soon as the pie is baked, and put in the oysters _then_; if put in at the beginning, they will bake too long. Replace the lid nicely, and send the pie to table hot.

The lid should have in the top a cross slit with a nice paste flower in it. To make a paste flower roll out a straight narrow slip of paste, about four or five inches wide. Roll it up with your fingers as if you were rolling up a ribbon. Then with a sharp knife cut four clefts in the upper half, and when baked, it will spread apart as like the leaves of a flower.

SWEETMEATS.

No sweetmeats can either look well or taste well unless the fruit and the sugar are of the best quality. As in all other branches of cookery, it is false economy to provide bad or low-priced ingredients. It has of late years been difficult to obtain _very_ good sugar at any price, so much is adulterated with flour or ground starch. In the common powdered sugar the flour is so palpable that we are surprised at its having any sale at all; and the large quantity required to produce any perceptible sweetness renders it totally unfit for sweetmeats, or indeed for any thing else. The best brown sugar is better than this, having clarified it with white of egg. To do this, allow to every pound of sugar the beaten white of an egg, and a half pint of clear cold water. Having poured the water on the sugar, let it stand to melt before it goes on the fire. Then add the white of egg and put in on to boil. When it boils, carefully take off the scum as it rises, and add when it is boiling hard another jill or quarter pint of water for each pound of sugar. Remove it from the fire when the scum ceases to rise, and let it stand for a quarter of an hour to settle. Strain, and bottle it for use. The best brown sugar _thus prepared_ will make a good syrup; and good marmalade, when white sugar of the best quality is not to be obtained. But for the nicest sweetmeats use always, if you can, the best double-refined loaf.

In warm weather there is nothing better for a preserving fire than a portable charcoal furnace placed out in the open air; as in a room with the doors or windows shut the vapor of charcoal is deadly, and never fails to produce suffocation. Of whatever the fire is made, it should be clear and steady without smoke or blaze. Never use copper or bell-metal for either preserving or pickling. For all such purposes employ only iron, lined with what is called porcelain or enamel, but is in reality a thick strong white earthen, first made at Delft, in Holland. This lining will crack if the kettle is placed over a blaze, which it should never be. All sweetmeats should be boiled with the lid off. If covered, the steam having no means of escaping, returns upon them, and causes them to look dark and unsightly. When done, put the sweetmeats warm into jars or glasses, and leave them open a few hours that the watery particles may evaporate, but have them all pasted and closely covered before night. Do nothing to render your preserves hard, or firm, as it is called. It is better to have them soft and tender. The old custom of steeping them for days in salt and water, and then boiling them in something else to remove the salt, is now considered foolish, and is seldom practised.

Put up jellies and small sweetmeats in common tumblers, laying on the surface of each a double cover of white tissue paper cut exactly to fit, and then put on another cover of thick white paper pleated and notched where it descends below the edge, using always gum tragacanth paste, which you should keep always in the house, as it requires no boiling; and if in making it, a bit of corrosive sublimate (not larger than a cherry-stone) is dissolved with the ounce of gum tragacanth and the half pint of warm water, in a yellow or white-ware mug, and _stirred only with a stick_, the paste will never spoil, and if kept covered, will be found superior to all others. No metal must touch this cement, as it will then turn black and spoil.

Keep your sweetmeats always in a dry place. But if after a while you see a coat of mould on the surface, you need not throw them away, till you have tried to recover them by carefully removing every particle of mould, filling up the jars with fresh sugar, and setting them, one by one, in a bottle of water, and in this way boiling them over again. But if they have an unpleasant smell, and you see insects about them, of course they must be thrown away. To purify jars, clean and scrape them, and wash them thoroughly with ley and water, or with a solution of soda--afterwards exposing them to the sun and air for a week or more.

_Jellies._--We have already given directions for various fruit jellies in the chapter on Fine Desserts. They are all made nearly in the same manner, using the juice of the fruit, and sufficient sugar to make it congeal and to keep it. Jellies should always be bright and transparent, and therefore require the best and ripest of fruit and the finest of loaf sugar.

MARMALADE OR JAMS.--Marmalade or jams are the easiest sweetmeats to make, and are useful for all sweetmeat purposes. They are all made nearly in the same manner; and to be very good, and to keep well, at least a pound of fine sugar should be allowed to every pound of fruit--the fruit being quite ripe, freshly gathered, and of the best kind.

_For Peach Marmalade_--Take fine, juicy free-stone peaches. Pare them; cut them in half; remove the stones, and let them be saved and the kernels extracted to use as bitter almonds. Cut up the peaches, and allow for each pound a pound of sugar. Lay the peaches (with all the sugar among them,) in a large pan or tureen, and let them rest for three or four hours. Boil the peaches and sugar together in a porcelain kettle (without a cover) for half an hour, skimming and stirring well. When it becomes a thick smooth mass it is finished. Put it up in glass jars, and leave it uncovered till cool; but not longer. The flavor will be much improved by boiling with the peaches and sugar one or two handfuls of the kernels, blanched and pounded; or else a bunch of fresh peach leaves, to be removed afterward.