Part 24

Ingredients: One pound of butter beaten to a cream, one pound of pounded sugar, ten eggs (whites and yolks beaten separately), one pound of dried flour, eight ounces of almonds, eight ounces of candied peel, two wine-glasses of brandy.

When all are well beaten together, add three pounds of English currants and one pound of raisins (both dredged in flour). Set it immediately in a moderate oven, and bake three hours at least.

BOSTON CREAM-CAKES.

_Paste._--One pint of water, half a pound of butter, three-quarters of a pound of flour, ten eggs.

Boil the water and butter together; stir in the flour while boiling, and let it cook a moment; when cool, add the eggs, well beaten, with a tea-spoonful of saleratus and a little salt. Drop with a spoon on buttered tins, forming little cakes some distance apart. Bake in a quick oven; they will puff in baking. When done and cold, cut one side large enough to insert the cream with a spoon. This will make about sixty cakes.

_Cream._--One cupful of flour, two cupfuls of sugar, four eggs, one quart of milk.

Beat the eggs and sugar together, then add flour and enough of the milk to make a smooth and thin paste; pour this into the remainder of the milk when it is boiling, and stir constantly until it is sufficiently thickened; flavor with vanilla. Do not use it until it is cold. It is better to make this, as indeed all custards, in a custard-kettle.

CRULLERS (_Miss Amanda Newton_).

Beat three eggs well with four table-spoonfuls of sugar; add four or five table-spoonfuls of melted lard, then flour enough to make it not too stiff. Roll rather thin (one-third of an inch). Cut the cakes into shapes, and throw them into boiling lard, like doughnuts. They may be simply shaped, as in Fig. 1. To give them the shape of Fig. 3, first cut the paste, as in Fig. 2; hold the first line with the thumb and finger of the left hand, then with the right hand slip the second line under the first, then the third under the second, and so on until they are all slipped under; pinch the two ends together, and the cruller will be in form of Fig. 3.

DOUGHNUTS (_Mrs. Bartlett_).

Ingredients: Two eggs, one cupful of sugar, one cupful of sour milk, half a tea-spoonful of soda, four table-spoonfuls of melted lard; add flour, making the dough rather soft.

Fry them in hot lard, and sprinkle pulverized sugar over them while still hot.

BREAD-CAKE.

Ingredients: Three cupfuls of bread-dough, one cupful of butter, three scant cupfuls of sugar, one cupful of raisins or English currants, three eggs, a nutmeg grated, one tea-spoonful of soda, two of cream of tartar, a wine-glassful of brandy.

GINGERBREAD (_Mrs. Lansing_), No. 1.

Ingredients: Two cupfuls of molasses, one cupful of butter, one cupful of sugar, one cupful of milk (sour or sweet), five eggs, five cupfuls of sifted flour, two table-spoonfuls of ginger, half a tea-spoonful of cloves, one tea-spoonful of soda.

GINGERBREAD (No. 2).

Ingredients: One cupful (half a pint) of molasses, one cupful (half a pint) of boiling water, butter the size of an egg, one tea-spoonful each of ground cloves, ground cinnamon, ginger, and soda, half a pound of flour (light weight).

First, put butter (partly melted) into the molasses, then spices. Dissolve the soda in the boiling water; stir it into the molasses, etc.; then the flour. Cream of tartar should not be used with molasses.

CHOCOLATE-CAKE.

Make a cup-cake with the following ingredients: One cupful of butter, two cupfuls of sugar, three cupfuls of flour, one cupful of milk, four eggs beaten separately, one tea-spoonful of soda, two tea-spoonfuls of cream of tartar, or two tea-spoonfuls of yeast powder.

Cut the cup-cake, when baked, through the middle, or bake it in two or three parts. Put a layer of the chocolate mixture between and on the top and sides of the cake.

_Chocolate Mixture._--Five table-spoonfuls of grated chocolate, with enough cream or milk to wet it, one cupful of sugar, and one egg well beaten. Stir the ingredients over the fire until thoroughly mixed; then flavor with vanilla.

MOUNTAIN-CAKE.

Ingredients: Whites of six eggs, one and a quarter cupfuls of sugar, one and a quarter cupfuls of flour, half a cupful of butter, half a cupful of sweet milk, half a cupful of corn starch, a little vanilla, two tea-spoonfuls of baking-powder.

Bake it in two or three parts, like jelly-cake; put a frosting between the layers and on top of the cake, made of the whites of four eggs, nine table-spoonfuls of pulverized sugar, and a little vanilla; or use grated cocoa-nut, mixed thickly in the frosting, without vanilla; or use the chocolate mixture in the preceding receipt; or make it a jelly-cake.

CREAM CAKE OR PIE (_Mrs. Arnold_).

This is an excellent dessert cut as a pie, or it may be served as a cake for tea.

_Crust._--Three eggs, one cupful of sugar, one cupful of flour, one-third of a tea-spoonful of soda, and one tea-spoonful of cream of tartar. Beat the whites and yolks well separately; stir all together as quickly as possible, and bake in two pans (if rather small; if large, use only one), the batter three-quarters of an inch thick.

_Cream._--Two and a half cupfuls of sweet milk, four even table-spoonfuls of sugar, two table-spoonfuls of flour, and one egg. Boil this a few moments until it has thickened, and flavor with vanilla or lemon.

When the crust is cold, split it, and put the custard between.

This cake is much improved with a boiled icing.

SPONGE JELLY-CAKE (_Mrs. Pope_).

Ingredients: Five eggs, one cupful of sugar, one cupful of flour, two even tea-spoonfuls of yeast-powder, and grated rind of a lemon.

Beat the yolks, sugar, and lemon together to a cream; add whites of eggs beaten to a stiff froth; then the flour and yeast-powder perfectly mixed. Bake in a dripping-pan, and when done spread jelly (not sweet) over the bottom of the cake, roll it from the side, and sprinkle sugar over the top; or bake it in two or three jelly-cake pans, and spread jelly between. The cake may be iced on the bottom. The rolled jelly-cake may be cut into slices, and served with a sweet sauce for dessert.

COCOA-NUT CONES.

Ingredients: One pound of cocoa-nut grated, half a pound of sugar, the whites of two eggs, and the yolk of one egg.

Beat the yolk well; add the sugar to it; then the cocoa-nut and whites of the eggs beaten to a stiff froth. Drop by the tea-spoonful on sheets of buttered paper placed on tins. Form each little cake into the shape of a cone, and bake in a moderate oven about half an hour.

CROQUANTE CAKE (_Mrs. Lackland_).

Ingredients: Three-quarters of a pound of shelled almonds, half a pound of citron, three-quarters of a pound of sugar, three-quarters of a pound of flour, and six eggs.

Blanch and halve the almonds, and slice the citron; mix them well together, and roll them in flour; add to them the sugar, then the eggs (well beaten), lastly the flour. Butter shallow pans, and lay in the mixture two inches thick. After it is baked in a quick oven, slice the cake into strips one inch wide, and turn every strip. Return the pan to the oven, and bake the sides a little. When cold, put it away in tin boxes. This cake will keep a year or more, and for reserve use is quite invaluable.

TO BLANCH ALMONDS.

Put them over the fire in cold water, and let them remain until the water is almost at the boiling-point, not allowing them to boil; then throw them into cold water. Remove the skins, and dry the almonds in a cloth before using.

When they are to be pounded for macaroons, _méringues_, etc., they should be first dried for two or three days in a gentle heat.

REBECCA CAKE (_Mrs. North_).

Ingredients: Half a cupful of butter, one cupful of sugar, one cupful of sweet milk, one egg, one pint of flour, one tea-spoonful of soda, and two tea-spoonfuls of cream of tartar.

For a change, a cupful of raisins or of English currants, or a mixture of both, or an addition of sliced citron, may be added.

GINGER-SNAPS (_Mrs. Leach_).

Ingredients: One pint of molasses, one coffee-cupful of brown sugar, one coffee-cupful of butter, one table-spoonful of ginger, and one heaping tea-spoonful of soda dissolved in one table-spoonful of hot water.

Mix very thick with flour, and roll them very thin.

PLAIN COOKIES.

Ingredients: One cupful of butter (or half butter and half lard), two cupfuls of sugar, one cupful of milk, two eggs, about a quart of flour (cookies are better to have no more flour than is necessary for rolling them thin without sticking), three tea-spoonfuls (not heaping) of yeast-powder, or one tea-spoonful of cream of tartar and half a tea-spoonful of soda.

Sour milk can be used, when add the half tea-spoonful of soda, and omit the cream of tartar. Bake in a quick oven.

ALMOND MACAROONS.

Blanch and skin eight ounces of Jordan almonds and one ounce of bitter ones; dry them on a sieve, and pound them to a smooth paste in a mortar, adding occasionally a very little water, to prevent them from getting oily; add to them five ounces of pulverized sugar, one tea-spoonful of rice flour, and the whites of three eggs beaten to a stiff froth; with a spoon, put this on paper in drops the size of a walnut; bake in a slow oven until they are of a light-brown color, and firmly set; take them from the paper by wetting the under side of it.

LADY’S-FINGERS.

Mix six yolks of eggs with half a pound of powdered sugar; work the preparation with a spoon until it is frothy; then mix into it the whites of six eggs well beaten, and at the same time a quarter of a pound of flour, dried and sifted. Put this batter into a _méringue_ bag, and squeeze it through in strips, two or three inches long, and sprinkle over some fine sugar; bake in a slack oven twelve or fourteen minutes.

MÉRINGUES À LA CRÈME.

Ingredients: Six whites of eggs, nine ounces of pulverized sugar, half a pint of cream (whipped), three ounces of sugar with the cream, a slight flavoring of vanilla.

Whip the eggs to a very stiff froth, add three or four drops of vanilla, and mix in the pulverized sifted sugar, by turning the sugar all over the eggs at once, and cutting it together very carefully. Sprinkle sugar over a tin platter, and on it place table-spoonfuls of this mixture at convenient distances apart; smooth the tops, and sprinkle a little sugar over them also.

The secret of making _méringues_ is in the baking. Put them into a moderate oven, and leave the oven-door open for thirty-five minutes at least. They should not be allowed to color for that time, which would prevent them from drying properly, and a thin paper crust is very undesirable for a _méringue_; in fact, the longer they dry before coloring, the thicker will be the crust. They should be in the oven at least three-quarters of an hour, only allowing them to color slightly the last two or three minutes. While they are still hot, scoop out carefully the soft contents, and when they are cold fill them with whipped cream, press two of them together, forming a ball, and put them into the refrigerator to set the cream.

_Whipped Cream._--Add the three ounces of sugar and a flavoring of vanilla, sherry, or any thing preferred, to the cream, and when whipped put the froth into a kitchen bowl, and whip it again with the egg-whip or a machine egg-beater; this makes it finer-grained and stiffer.

A much prettier arrangement for dessert is the _méringue_ as it is fashioned at Delmonico’s. Instead of little _méringues_, each one is made a half ball, about six inches in diameter. They are dried very slowly, so that the crust is about one-third of an inch thick. When emptied of the soft interiors, and when cold, two shells are placed on a platter, like an open clam-shell. The whipped cream, when about to serve (already set, by being on the ice), is banked between them, reaching as high above as suits the fancy. The cream may be decorated with strawberries, raspberries, etc., or it may be served without ornamentation.

GERMAN CAKE (_Mrs. Schulenburg_).

Ingredients: One pound of flour, three-quarters of a pound of butter, six ounces of sugar, one egg, half a cupful of rum.

Bake in a pie-pan, pressing the cake until it is about one-quarter of an inch high. Before baking, sprinkle sugar and ground cinnamon on top; after it is baked, cut it into squares while it is yet warm.

RANAQUE BUNS.

Ingredients: One pound of butter, one and a quarter pounds of sugar, two pounds of flour, six eggs, four table-spoonfuls of ground cinnamon.

Mix the cinnamon into the flour; rub the butter to a cream, then mix the flour with it. Beat the sugar with the eggs, then all together, as little as possible. Distribute this by the spoonful into rough-looking cakes on buttered tins placed at a little distance apart. This is a very nice lunch-cake.

FROSTING.

The old way of making frosting was a half-day’s work. I now laugh at the extra exertion once made to be sure that the eggs were sufficiently and properly beaten. The following is the true way to make frosting, which is done and dried on the cake in ten minutes, allowing three minutes for the making:

Use a heaping tea-cupful of fine pulverized sugar to the white of each egg, or, say, a pound of sugar to the whites of three eggs. Beat the whites until they are slightly _foaming_ only; do not beat them to a froth. The sugar may all be poured on the egg at once, or, if considered easier to mix, it may be gradually added. Either way, as soon as the sugar and eggs are thoroughly stirred together, and flavored with a little lemon or vanilla, the icing is ready to spread over the cake. It would be advisable to ice the cakes as soon as they are taken from the oven. The icing made with the white of one egg is quite sufficient to frost an ordinary-sized cake.

It is very little extra trouble to decorate a frosted cake. One can purchase funnels for the purpose with different shaped ends. In place of no better funnel, make a cornucopia of stiff writing-paper; fill it with the frosting, and press it out at the small end, forming different shapes, according to taste, over the cake. Little centre-pieces or leaves can always be purchased at the confectioner’s to aid in the decoration.

For a cocoa-nut-cake, mix plenty of the grated cocoa-nut into the frosting, which spread over the cake; decorate it then with plain frosting.

For a chocolate-cake, after spreading over the chocolate frosting mentioned in the receipt for chocolate-cake, decorate it with delicate lines of the white frosting.

The appearance of boiled icing (which is generally flavored with lemon) is much improved also by a decoration with the plain white frosting.

BOILED ICING.

Ingredients: One pound of sugar, whites of three eggs.

First, boil the sugar with a little water; when it is ready to candy, or will spin in threads when dropping from the end of a spoon, take it off the fire, and while it is still boiling hot add the whites of the eggs _well_ beaten, stirring them in as fast as possible. Flavor with lemon (if preferred), vanilla, Jamaica rum, or any of the flavorings, and it is ready for use.

CANDIES.

CARAMELS (_Mrs. Wadsworth_).

Ingredients: One cupful of best sirup, one cupful of brown sugar, one cupful of white sugar, two cupfuls of grated chocolate, two cupfuls of cream, vanilla, one tea-spoonful of flour mixed with the cream.

Rub the chocolate to a smooth paste with a little of the cream; boil all together half an hour, and pour it into flat dishes to cool; mark it with a knife into little squares when it is cool enough.

WHITE-SUGAR CANDY (_Miss Eliza Brown_).

Ingredients: Four pounds of sugar, one pint of water, four table-spoonfuls of cream, four table-spoonfuls of vinegar, butter the size of an egg.

Boil all together slowly for about three-quarters of an hour.

VINEGAR CANDY (_Mrs. Clifford_).

Ingredients: Three cupfuls of sugar, half a cupful of vinegar, half a cupful of water, one tea-spoonful of soda.

When it boils, stir in the soda. If the candy is preferred clear, stir it as little as possible; if grained, stir it.

ICES.

With a patent five-minute freezer (it really takes, however, from fifteen minutes to half an hour to freeze any thing), it is as cheap and easy to make ices in summer as almost any other kind of dessert. If one has cream, the expense is very little, as a cream-whipper costs but twenty-five cents. A simple cream, sweetened, flavored, whipped, and then frozen, is one of the most delicious of ice-creams. By having the cream quite cold, a pint can be whipped, with this cream-whipper, in five or ten minutes. It will require ten cents’ worth of ice--half of it to freeze the preparation, and the other half to keep it frozen until the time of serving. Salt is not proverbially expensive; a half-barrel or bushel of coarse salt will last a long time, especially as a portion of it can be used a second time. In summer, fruits, such as peaches or pears, quartered, or any kind of berries, are most delicious half frozen and served with sugar. The chocolate ice-cream with fruit is excellent. The devices of form for creams served at handsome dinners in large cities are very beautiful; for instance, one sees a hen surrounded by her chickens; or a hen sitting on the side of a spun-glass nest, looking sideways at her eggs; or a fine collection of fruits in colors. One may see also a perfect imitation of asparagus with a cream-dressing, the asparagus being made of the _pistache_ cream, and the dressing simply a whipped cream. These fancy displays are, of course, generally arranged by the confectioner. It is a convenience, of course, when giving dinner companies, to have the dessert or any other course made outside of the house; but for ordinary occasions, ices are no more troublesome to prepare than any thing else, especially when they can be made early in the day, or even the day before serving.

FROZEN WHIPPED CREAM.

Flavor and sweeten the cream, making it rather sweet. Whip it, and freeze the froth.

VANILLA ICE-CREAM.

Beat the yolks of eight eggs with three-quarters of a pound of sugar until very light. Put one and a half pints of rich milk on the fire to scald, highly flavored with the powdered vanilla-bean (say, one heaping table-spoonful). When the milk is well scalded, stir it into the eggs as soon as it is cool enough not to curdle. Now stir the mixture constantly (the custard pan or pail being set in a vessel of boiling water) until it has slightly thickened. Do not let it remain too long and curdle, or it will be spoiled. When taken off the fire again, mix in a quarter of a box of gelatine, which has been soaked half an hour in two table-spoonfuls of lukewarm water near the fire. The heat of the custard will be sufficient to dissolve it, if it is not already sufficiently dissolved. Cool the custard well before putting it into the freezer, as this saves time and ice. When it is in the freezer, however, stir it almost constantly until it begins to set; then stir in lightly a pint of cream, whipped. Stir it for two or three minutes longer, put it into a mold, and return it to a second relay of ice and salt. The powdered vanilla can be purchased at drug-stores or at confectioners’. It is much better than the extract for any purpose, and is used by all the best _restaurateurs_.

DELMONICO VANILLA CREAM.

Ingredients: One and a half pints of cream, one ounce of isinglass, one pound of sugar, yolks of eight eggs, half a pint of milk, vanilla powder.

_Scald_ the cream only; then add the isinglass dissolved in the milk, and pour it on the sugar and eggs beaten together to a froth; add the flavoring. Strain, cool, and freeze it; then pack it for three hours and a half at least.

CHOCOLATE ICE-CREAM

is made in the same way as the vanilla ice-cream, adding a flavoring of chocolate and a little vanilla powder. For instance, to make a quart and a half of cream: Make the boiled custard with the yolks of six eggs, half a pound of sugar, one pint of boiled milk, and a tea-spoonful (not heaping) of vanilla powder. Pound smooth four ounces of chocolate; add a little sugar and one or two table-spoonfuls of hot water. Stir it over the fire until it is perfectly smooth. Add this and a table-spoonful of thin, dissolved gelatine to the hot custard. When about to set in the freezer, add one pint of cream, whipped.

TO MAKE A MOLD OF CHOCOLATE AND VANILLA CREAMS.

Freeze the different creams in two freezers. Cut a piece of pasteboard to fit the centre of a mold; fill each side with the two creams, remove the pasteboard, and imbed the mold in ice and salt for two hours.

STRAWBERRY ICE-CREAM.

Sprinkle sugar over strawberries, mash them well, and rub them through a sieve. To a pint of the juice add half a pint of good cream. Make it very sweet. Freeze it in the usual way, and, when beginning to set, stir in lightly one pint of cream (whipped), and, lastly, a handful of whole strawberries, sweetened. Put it into a mold, which imbed in ice. Or, when fresh strawberries can not be obtained, there is no more delicious cream than that made with the French bottled strawberries. Mix the juice in the bottle with the cream, and add the whipped cream and the whole strawberries, when the juice, etc., have partly set in the freezer.

Many prefer this cream of a darker red color, which is obtained by using prepared cochineal.

NAPOLITAINE CREAM.

To make a form of three colors: Vanilla, chocolate, and strawberry ice-creams are frozen in three different freezers, and filled in a mold the form of a brick in three smooth layers of equal size.

CHOCOLATE FRUIT ICE-CREAM.

Make a chocolate cream. When set in the freezer, add about half a pound of assorted French candied or preserved fruits cut into small pieces. Put it into a melon-shaped mold, to imitate a plum-pudding. When ready to serve, turn the cream on a platter, and make a circle around it of whipped cream, sweetened and flavored with vanilla. This cream is a decided success, and a beautiful dessert for a dinner-party. It may be improved by sprinkling over it chopped almonds dried of a light-brown color, mixed with chopped pistachios. This is intended to imitate the rugged appearance of the rind of a melon.

FROZEN FRUIT CUSTARD.

Ingredients: One pint of rich milk, one pint of cream (whipped), yolks of three eggs, one and a half cupfuls of sugar, one pint of fresh peaches cut into pieces not too small, or fresh ripe berries.

Beat the eggs and sugar well together. Heat the pint of milk almost to the boiling-point, and add it gradually to the beaten eggs and sugar. Return it to the custard-kettle, and stir it constantly until it has slightly thickened, taking care that it does not curdle. When the custard is partly frozen, having stirred it in the usual way, add the whipped cream; stir a few minutes longer, and then stir in the fruit. Put all into a mold, which place in a fresh relay of ice and salt.

GERMAN STEAMER BAKED ICE-CREAM.

This dish was at least a curiosity, served at the table of one of the German steamers. A flat, round sponge-cake served as a base. A circular mold of very hard frozen ice-cream was placed on this, and then covered with a _méringue_, or whipped white of egg, sweetened and flavored. The surface was quickly colored with a red-hot salamander, which gave the dish the appearance of being baked.

The gentleman who told me about this dish insisted that it was put into the oven and quickly colored, as the egg surrounding the cream was a sufficiently good non-conductor of heat to protect the ice for one or two minutes. However, there is less risk with a salamander.

PINE-APPLE ICE-CREAM PUDDING.