Twelve mealy potatoes, peeled and sliced.One quart of tomatoes—canned or fresh.One half of an onion.Two stalks of celery.One tablespoonful of minced parsley.Four tablespoonfuls of butter, cut up and rolled in flour.One tablespoonful of cornstarch wet and dissolved in cold water.One lump of white sugar.Three quarts of cold water will be needed.
Twelve mealy potatoes, peeled and sliced.
One quart of tomatoes—canned or fresh.
One half of an onion.
Two stalks of celery.
One tablespoonful of minced parsley.
Four tablespoonfuls of butter, cut up and rolled in flour.
One tablespoonful of cornstarch wet and dissolved in cold water.
One lump of white sugar.
Three quarts of cold water will be needed.
Parboil the sliced potatoes fifteen minutes in enough hot water to cover them well. Drain this off and throw it away. Put potatoes, tomatoes, onion, celery and parsley on in three quarts of cold water, and cook gently two hours.
Then rub them all through a colander, return the soup to the pot, drop in the sugar, season to taste with pepper and salt, boil up once and take off the scum before adding the floured butter, and when this is dissolved, the cornstarch.
Stir two minutes over the fire, and your soup is ready for the table. Very good it will prove, too, if the directions be exactly followed.
When celery is out of season, you can use instead of it, a little essence of celery, or, what is better, celery salt.
ONE of the most comico-pathetico true stories I know is that of a boy, the youngest of a large family, who, having always sat at the second table, knew nothing experimentally of the choicer portions of chicken or turkey. Being invited out to dinner as the guest of a playmate, he was asked, first of all present, “what part of the turkey he preferred.”
“Thecarker” (carcass), “and a little of thestuff” (stuffing), “if you please,” replied the poor little fellow, with prompt politeness.
It was his usual ration, and in his ignorance, he craved nothing better.
The pupil in cookery who enjoys tossing upentrées, and devising daintyrechauffés, but cannot support the thought of handling raw chickens and big-boned joints of butcher’s meat, is hardly wiser than he.
It is a common fallacy to believe that this branch of the culinary art is uninteresting drudgery, fit only for the hands of the very plain hired cook.
Another mistake, almost as prevalent, lies in supposing that she can, of course, perform the duty properly. There is room for intelligent skill in so simple a process as roasting a piece of meat, nor is the task severe or repulsive. Practically, it is far more important to know how to do this well, than to be proficient in cake, jelly, and pudding making.
Have a steady, moderate fire in the stove-grate. Increase the heat when the meat is thoroughly warmed.
Lay the beef, skin side uppermost, in a clean baking-pan, and dash all over it two cups ofboilingwater in which a teaspoonful of salt has been dissolved. This sears the surface slightly, and keeps in the juices.
Shut the oven door, and do not open again for twenty minutes. Then, with a ladle or iron spoon dip up the salted water and pour it over the top of the meat, wetting every part again and again. Eight or ten ladlefuls should be used in this “basting,” which should be repeated every fifteen minutes for the next hour. Allow twelve minutes to each pound of meat in roasting beef.
Do not swing the oven door wide while you baste, but slip your hand (protected by an old glove or a napkin) into the space left by the half-open door, and when you have wet the surface of the roast quickly and well, shut it up again to heat and steam.
A little care in this respect will add much to the flavor and tenderness of the beef.
Should one side of it, or the back, brown more rapidly than the rest, turn the pan in the oven, and should the water dry up to a few spoonfuls, pour in another cupful from the tea-kettle.
About twenty minutes before the time for the roasting is up, draw the pan to the oven-door, and sift flour over the meat from a flour dredger or a small sieve. Shut the door until the flour browns, then baste abundantly, and dredge again.
In five minutes, or when this dredging is brown, rub the top of the meat with a good teaspoonful of butter, dredge quickly and close the door.
If the fire is good, in a few minutes a nice brown froth will encrust the surface of the cooked meat. Lift the pan to the side table, take up the beef by slipping a strong cake-turner or broad knife under it, holding it firmly with a fork, and transfer to a heated platter.
Set in the plate-warmer, or over boiling water, while you make the gravy.
Set the pan in which the meat was roasted,onthe range when the beef has been removed to a dish. Scrape toward the centre the browned flour from sides and bottom and dust in a little more from your dredger as you stir. If the water has boiled away until the bottom of the pan is exposed, add a little,boiling hot, directly from the teakettle and stir until the gravy is of the consistency of rich cream.
Pepper to taste and pour into a gravy boat.
While I give these directions, I may remark that few people of nice taste likemadethickened gravy with roast beef. Many prefer, instead, the red essence which follows the carver’s knife and settles in the dish. The carver should give each person helped his or her choice in this matter.
I am thus explicit with regard to roasting beef because the process is substantially the same with all meats. Dash scalding water over the piece put down for cooking in this way: heat rather slowly at first, increasing the heat as you go on; baste faithfully; keep the oven open as little as may be and dredge, then baste, alternately, for twenty minutes, or so, before dishing the meat.
Cook exactly as you would beef: but if you wish a made gravy, pour it first from the baking-pan into a bowl and set in cold water five minutes, or until the fat has risen to the top.
Skim off all of this that you can remove without disturbing the dregs. It is “mutton-tallow”—very good for chapped hands, but not for human stomachs. Return the gravy to the fire, thicken, add boiling water, if needed, and stir until smooth.
Always send currant, or grape jelly, around with mutton and lamb.
Cook two minutes less in the pound than you would mutton. Instead of gravy, you can send in with it, if you choose
To two tablespoonfuls of chopped mint, add a tablespoonful of white sugar and nearly two thirds of a cup of vinegar. Let them stand together ten minutes in a cool place before sending to table.
Must be cooked twice as long as beef or mutton, and very well basted, the flesh being fibrous and dry. To the made gravy add two teaspoonfuls of stewed and strained tomato, or one tablespoonful of tomato catsup, and cook one minute before pouring into the gravy-boat.
It would not be possible for me to write such directions as would enable you to prepare a fowl for cooking. Yet I advise you to learn how to draw and dress poultry. Watch the process closely, if you have opportunity, or else ask some experienced friend to instruct you.
For the present we will suppose that our fowl is ready for the roasting pan. Lay it in tenderly, breast uppermost, pour a bountiful cup of boiling water, slightly salted, over it, if it be a chicken or duck, two cupfuls, if a turkey, and roast, basting often, about twelve minutes for each pound. When the breastbone browns, turn the fowl on one side, and as this colors, on the other, that all may be done evenly. Dredge once with flour fifteen minutes before taking up the roast and when this browns, rub all over with a tablespoonful of butter. Shut up ten minutes longer and it is ready for dishing.
Chop the liver and soft parts of the gizzard—which have been roasted with the fowl—fine,and stir into the gravy while you are making it.
Cut up a full-grown fowl into joints, dividing the back and breast into two pieces each. Lay these in cold water, slightly salted, for half an hour. Wipe dry with a clean cloth. In the bottom of a pot scatter a handful of chopped fat salt pork, with half a teaspoonful of minced onion. On this lay the pieces of chicken. Sprinkle a double handful of pork on the top with another half teaspoonful of onion, pour in carefully, enough cold water to cover all, fit on a close top, and set the pot where it will heat slowly. It should not boil under one hour at least. Increase the heat, then, but keep at averygentle boil for another hour, or until the chicken is tender. The time needed for cooking will depend on the age of the fowl. Fast stewing will harden and toughen it.
When done, take out the chicken with a fork and arrange on a warm dish, coveringand keeping it hot in the plate warmer or over boiling water. Add to the gravy left in the pot two tablespoonfuls of chopped parsley, a heaping tablespoonful of butter cut up in the same quantity of flour, half a teaspoonful of salt, and a quarter of a teaspoonful of pepper. Stir to a boil. Meanwhile, beat up an egg in a bowl, add a teaspoonful of cornstarch, and a small cupful of milk, and when these are mixed, a cupful of the boiling gravy. Beat hard and pour into the pot where is the rest of the gravy. Bring to a quick boil, takeat oncefrom the fire and pour over the chicken. Cover and let it stand over hot water three minutes before sending to table.
The chicken must be split down the back as for broiling, washed well and wiped dry. Lay it, breast upward, in a baking pan; pour in two cups of boiling water, in which has been dissolved a heaping tablespoonful of butter,and cover with another pan turned upside down and fitting exactly the edges of the lower one. Cook slowly half an hour, lift the cover and baste plentifully with the butter water in the pan; cover again and leave for twenty minutes more. Baste again, and yet once more in another quarter of an hour. Try the chicken with a fork to see if it is done.
An hour and ten minutes should be enough for a young fowl. Baste the last time with a tablespoonful of butter; cover and leave in the oven ten minutes longer before transferring to a hot dish. It should be of a fine yellow brown all over, but crisped nowhere.
Thicken the gravy with a tablespoonful of browned flour, wet up in a little water, salt and pepper to taste, boil up once and pour a cupful over the chicken, the rest into a gravy boat.
There is no more delightful preparation of chicken than this.
Lay in clean cold water for five or six hours when you have washed off all the salt. Wipe and put it into a pot and cover deep in cold water. Boilgentlytwenty-five minutes per pound. When done, take the pot from the fire and set in the sink with the meat in it, while you make the sauce.
Strain a large cupful of the liquor into a saucepan and set it over the fire. Wet a tablespoonful of flour up with cold water, and when the liquor boils, stir it in with a great spoonful of butter. Beat it smooth before adding the juice of a lemon. Serve in a gravy-dish. Take up the beef, letting all the liquor drain from it, and send in on a hot platter.
(Save the pot-liquor for bean soup.)
Sew up the leg of mutton in a stout piece of mosquito net or of “cheese cloth;” lay it in a pot and cover several inches deep withboiling water. Throw in a tablespoonful of salt, and cook twelve minutes to the pound. Take up the cloth with the meat in it and dip inverycold water. Remove the bag and dish the meat.
Before taking up the mutton, make your sauce, using as a base a cupful of the liquor dipped from the pot. Proceed with this as you did with the drawn butter sauce for the corned beef, but instead of the lemon juice, add two tablespoonfuls of capers if you have them. If not, the same quantity of chopped green pickle.
IN attempting to make out under the above heading, a list of receipts, I have laid down my pen several times in sheer discouragement. The number and variety of esculents supplied by the American market-gardener would need for a just mention of each, a treatise several times larger than our volume. I have, therefore, selected a few of the vegetables in general use on our tables, and given the simplest and most approved methods of preparing them.
As a preface I transcribe from “Common Sense in the Household” “Rules applicable to the cooking of all Vegetables.”
Have them as fresh as possible.
Pick over, wash well, and cut out all decayed parts.
Lay them when peeled incoldwater before cooking.
If you boil them put a little salt in the water.
Cook steadily after you put them on.
Be sure they are thoroughly done.
Drain well.
Serve hot!
Pare them thin with a sharp knife. The starch or meal lies, in greatest quantities, nearest to the skin. Lay in clean cold water for one hour, if the potatoes are newly gathered. Old potatoes should be left in the water for several hours. If very old, they will be the better for soaking all night. New potatoes require half an hour for boiling, and the skins are rubbed off with a coarse cloth before theyare cooked. Those stored for winter use should be boiled forty-five minutes.
Wipe each dry before dropping them into a kettle of boiling water, in which has been mixed a heaping tablespoonful of salt.
Boil steadily until a fork will go easily into the largest.
Turn off the water by tipping the pot over on its side in the sink, holding the top on with a thick cloth wrapped about your hand, and leaving room at the lowest edge of the cover for the water to escape, but not for a potato to slip through.
Set the pot uncovered on the range; sprinkle a tablespoonful of salt over the potatoes, shaking the pot as you do this, and leave it where they will dry off, but not scorch, for five minutes.
Boil as directed in last receipt, and when the potatoes have been dried off, remove thepot to the sink, or table, break and whip them into powder with a four-tined fork, or a split spoon. When fine, add a great spoonful of butter, whipped in thoroughly, salting to taste as you go on.
Have ready a cup of milkalmostboiling, and beat in until the potato is soft and smooth.
Heap in a deep dish for the table.
Remove the outer layers until you reach the sleek, silvery, crisp skins. Cook in plenty of boiling, salted water, until tender. Forty minutes should be sufficient, unless the onions are very old and large. Turn off all the water; add a cupful from the tea-kettle with one of warm milk and stew gently ten minutes.
Heat, meanwhile, in a saucepan, half a cupful of milk with a large tablespoonful of butter.
Drain the onions in a hotcleancolander,turn them into a heated deep dish, salt and pepper lightly, and pour the boiling milk and butter over them.
Onions cooked thus are not nearly so rank of flavor as when boiled in but one water.
Put ripe tomatoes into a pan, pour boiling water directly from the kettle, upon them, and cover closely for five minutes. The skins will then come off easily.
When all are peeled, cut them up, throwing away the unripe parts and the cores, and put them into a clean saucepan with half a teaspoonful of salt.
Stew twenty minutes before adding a heaping tablespoonful of butter, one teaspoonful of white sugar (for a dozen large tomatoes) and a little pepper. Stew gently fifteen minutes, and serve.
Scald, skin, and cut each crosswise, intotwo or three pieces.Justmelt a teaspoonful of butter in a pie-plate, or pudding-dish, and put into this a layer of tomatoes. Lay a bit of butter on each slice, sprinkle lightly with salt, pepper, and white sugar, and cover with fine dry cracker, or bread crumbs. Fill the dish with alternate layers of tomato crumbs, having a thick coating of crumbs on the top, and sticking tiny “dabs” of butter all over it.
Bake, covered, half an hour. Take off the tin pan, or whatever you have used to keep in the steam, and brown nicely before sending to table.
Wash well, taking care not to scratch the skin, as they will “bleed” while in cooking if this is cut or broken.
Cook in boiling water an hour and a half if young, three, four or five hours as their age increases.
Drain, scrape off the skins, slice quickly with a sharp knife; put into a vegetable dish,and pour over them a half a cupful of vinegar, with two tablespoonfuls of butter, heated to boiling, and a little salt and pepper.
Let them stand three minutes covered in a warm place before serving.
Shell and leave in very cold water fifteen minutes. Cook in plenty of boiling, salted water. They should be done in half an hour.
Shake gently in a hot colander to get rid of the water; turn into a heated deep dish, sprinkle with salt and pepper, and stir in fast and lightlywith a fork, two tablespoonfuls of butter.
Eat while hot.
Do not cook these at all unless you are willing to take the trouble of “stringing” them.
With a small sharp knife cut off the stem and blossom-tips, then trim away the toughfibres from the sides carefully, and cut each bean into inch-lengths.
Lay in cold water for half an hour. Cook one hour in salted boiling water, or until the beans are tender.
Drain, butter and season as you would peas.
String beans half-trimmed and cut into slovenly, unequal lengths are a vulgar-looking, unpopular dish. Prepared as I have directed, they are comely, palatable and wholesome.
Pare, quarter, take out the seeds, and lay in cold water for half an hour.
Boil in hot salted water thirty minutes for summer squash; twice as long if the “Hubbard” or other varieties of winter squash are used. Take up piece by piece, and squeeze gently in a clean cloth, put back into the empty dried pot, and mash quickly and smoothly with a wooden spoon.
Stir in a heaping tablespoonful of butter for one large squash, or two small ones.
Season with pepper and salt; heat and stir until smoking hot, then dish and serve.
Trim off leaves and cut the stalk short.Lay in ice-cold water for half an hour.Tie it up in a bit of white netting.Put into a clean pot, coverdeepwith salted boiling water.Boil steadily, not hard, one hour and ten minutes.
Trim off leaves and cut the stalk short.
Lay in ice-cold water for half an hour.
Tie it up in a bit of white netting.
Put into a clean pot, coverdeepwith salted boiling water.
Boil steadily, not hard, one hour and ten minutes.
Before taking it from the fire, put a cupful of boiling water in a saucepan.
Wet a heaping teaspoonful of corn-starch with cold water, and stir into the boiling until it thickens. Then add two tablespoonfuls of butter, and when this is well stirred in, the strained juice of a lemon.
Remove the net from the cauliflower, lay ina deep dish, and pour over it the drawn butter made by the addition of the lemon juice intosauce tartare.
Slice it crosswise, and about an inch thick; lay in strong salt water for one hour with a plate on the topmost slice to keep it under the brine.
This will draw out the bitter taste.
Put a cupful of pounded crackers into a flat dish and season with salt and pepper.
Beat the yolks of two eggs in a shallow bowl. Wipe each slice of the egg plantdry, dip it in the egg, and roll it over and over in the crumbs. Have ready heated in a frying-pan, some sweet lard, and fry the vegetables in it to a fine brown.
As each slice is done, lay it in a hot colander set in the open oven, that every drop of grease may be dried off. Serve on a hot platter.
Wash very carefully, leaf by leaf, to get rid of sand and dust. Lay in very cold water until you are ready to cook it. Boil forty-five minutes; drain in a colander and chopfinein a wooden tray. Beat then three great tablespoonfuls of butter (this for a peck of spinach), a teaspoonful of white sugar, and half as much salt, with a little pepper. Whip all to a soft green mass and return to the empty pot.
As you stir it over the fire add a cupful of rich milk—cream, if you have it—whip up hard and turn into a deep dish.
Cut two hard-boiled eggs into thin slices, and lay in order on the spinach when dished.
ENGLISH cooks would call this “A Chapter on Sweets.” “Dessert” with them is usually applied to fruits, nuts, etc. Webster defines the word thus:
“A service of pastry, fruit or sweetmeats at the close of an entertainment; the last course at the table after the meat.”
Without dwelling upon the fact that when fruit and coffee are served they follow pastry or puddings or sweetmeats, we take advantage of the elastic definition and assume that the dessert of the family dinner is a single preparation of “sweets.”
The too-universalPIEwill not appear on ourmenu. I am tempted to wish its manufacture might soon be numbered among the lost arts.
Bayard Taylor once said that “If Rum had slain its thousands in America, Pork-fat (fried) and Pies had slain their ten thousands.”
The average pastry of our beloved land would drive a Patrick Henry to self-exile if he were obliged to eat it every day. Nor could one of a dozen inexperienced cooks manipulate puff-paste as it should be handled in order to be flaky and tender. Dexterity of motion and strength of wrist are needed for this operation, such as belong only to the trained cook.
The more wholesome and daintier jellies, custards and trifles, and plain puddings we have selected from the vast variety of sweet things known to our housewives, are adapted to the powers of novices in cookery, and not unworthy the attention of adepts.
This is the base of so many nice “fancydishes,” and is itself so excellent and popular that we may properly lay the knowledge how to prepare it properly as the foundation-stone of dessert making.
One quart of fresh, sweet milk.Five eggs.One cup of sugar.One quarter teaspoonful of salt.One teaspoonful of essence of vanilla, lemon or bitter almond.
One quart of fresh, sweet milk.
Five eggs.
One cup of sugar.
One quarter teaspoonful of salt.
One teaspoonful of essence of vanilla, lemon or bitter almond.
Heat the milk to a boil in a farina kettle, or in a tin pail set in a pot of boiling water.
In warm weather put a bit of soda no larger than a pea in the milk. While it is heating beat the eggs in a bowl. When the milk is scalding, add the salt and sugar, and pour the hot liquid upon the eggs, stirring all the while. Beat up well and return to the inner vessel, keeping the water in the outer at a hard boil. Stir two or three times in the first five minutes; afterward, almost constantly.
In a quarter of an hour itoughtto be done, but of this you can only judge by close observation and practice.
The color changes from deep to creamy yellow; the consistency to a soft richness that makes it drop slowly and heavily from the spoon, and the mixturetasteslike a custard instead of uncooked eggs, sugar and milk.
When you have done it right once, you recognize these signs ever afterward.
If underdone, the custard will be crude and watery; if overdone, it will clot or break.
Take it when quite right—just at the turn—directly from the fire, and pour into a bowl to cool, before flavoring with the essence.
With a good boiled custard as the beginning we can make scores of delightful desserts. First among these we may place
Fill small glasses nearly to the top with cold custard.Whip the whites of three eggs stiff.Beat in three teaspoonfuls of bright-colored jelly-currant, if you have it.Heap a tablespoon of thisméringueon the surface of each glassful.Set in a cold place until it goes to table.
Fill small glasses nearly to the top with cold custard.
Whip the whites of three eggs stiff.
Beat in three teaspoonfuls of bright-colored jelly-currant, if you have it.
Heap a tablespoon of thisméringueon the surface of each glassful.
Set in a cold place until it goes to table.
Floating Island.
Fill a glass bowl almost to the top with cold boiled custard and cover with améringuemade as in last receipt. Do not whip in the jelly so thoroughly as to color the frothed whites.
It is a prettier dish when the bright red specks just dot the snowy mass.
Make a nice custard; let it get perfectly cold, and pile on it, instead of the whipped egg, a large cupful of grated cocoanut, sprinkling it on carefully, not to disturb the custard.
Eat with sponge cake.
Like custard, this is the base—the central idea, or fact—of numberless elegant compounds, and is delightful in its simplest form.
One package of Cooper’s gelatine.Three pints of fresh, sweet milk.One even cupful of white sugar.One half teaspoonful of salt.One teaspoonful of vanilla or other essence.Soda as large as a pea, put into the milk.
One package of Cooper’s gelatine.
Three pints of fresh, sweet milk.
One even cupful of white sugar.
One half teaspoonful of salt.
One teaspoonful of vanilla or other essence.
Soda as large as a pea, put into the milk.
Soak the gelatine three hours in a cupful of cold water. Then heat the milk (salted) in a farina kettle.
When it is scalding, stir in without taking the vessel from the fire, the sugar and soaked gelatine. Stir three minutes after it is boiling hot, and strain through a coarse cloth into a bowl. Let it get almost cold before adding the flavoring. Wet a clean mould with cold water; pour in the blanc-mange and set on ice, or in a cold place until firm.
Dip a cloth in hot water, wring until it will not drip, wrap about the mould, turn bottom upward on a flat dish, and shake gently to dislodge the contents.
Eat with powdered sugar and cream.
Five minutes before taking the custard from the fire, add to it three heaping tablespoonful of grated Baker’s chocolate rubbed to a paste with a little cold milk. Stir until the mixture is of a rich coffee color.
Turn out, and when cold, flavor with vanilla and put into glasses.
Whip the whites of three eggs to a smoothméringue, beat in three tablespoonfuls of powdered sugar, and heap upon the brown mixture.
(Our French scholars will say that this should be termed “Brun-mange.”)
Mix with the soaked gelatine four heapingtablespoonfuls of Baker’s chocolate, grated, and stir into the scalding milk, and treat as above directed. In straining, squeeze the bag hard to extract all the coloring matter. Flavor with vanilla.
Soak the gelatine in a cupful of strong, clear black coffee, instead of the cold water, and proceed as with plain blanc-mange, using no other flavoring than the coffee.
Is made in the same way by substituting for the water very strong, mixed tea. Eat with powdered sugar and cream.
One package of gelatine.Two cups of white sugar.One small pineapple, peeled and cut into bits.One-half teaspoonful of nutmeg.Juice and grated peel of a lemon.Three cups ofboilingwater.Whites of four eggs.Soak the gelatine four hours in a cup of cold water.Put into a bowl with the sugar, nutmeg, lemon-juice, and rind and minced pineapple.
One package of gelatine.
Two cups of white sugar.
One small pineapple, peeled and cut into bits.
One-half teaspoonful of nutmeg.
Juice and grated peel of a lemon.
Three cups ofboilingwater.
Whites of four eggs.
Soak the gelatine four hours in a cup of cold water.
Put into a bowl with the sugar, nutmeg, lemon-juice, and rind and minced pineapple.
Rub the fruit hard into the mixture with a wooden spoon, and let all stand together, covered, two hours.
Then pour upon it the boiling water and stir until the gelatine is dissolved.
Line a colander with a double thickness of clean flannel, and strain the mixture through it, squeezing and wringing the cloth hard, to get the full flavor of the fruit. Set on ice until cold, but not until it is hard.
It should be just “jellied” around the edges, when you begin to whip the whites of the eggs in a bowl set in ice water. Whenthey are quite stiff, beat in a spoonful at a time the gelatine. Whip a minute after adding each supply to mix it in perfectly.
Half an hour’s work with the “Dover” will give you a white spongy mass, pleasing alike to eye and taste.
Wet a mould with cold water, put in the sponge and set on ice until you are ready to turn it out.
This is a delicious dessert. For pineapple substitute strawberries, raspberries, or peaches.
Two cups of fine, dry bread crumbs.Three cups of chopped apple.One cup of sugar.One teaspoonful of mace, and half as much allspice.Two teaspoonfuls of butter.One tablespoonful of salt.
Two cups of fine, dry bread crumbs.
Three cups of chopped apple.
One cup of sugar.
One teaspoonful of mace, and half as much allspice.
Two teaspoonfuls of butter.
One tablespoonful of salt.
Butter a pudding-dish and cover the bottomwith crumbs. Lay on these a thick layer of minced apple, sprinkled lightly with salt and spices—more heavily with sugar. Stick bits of butter over all. Then more crumbs, going on in this order until all the ingredients are used up. The top layer should be crumbs. Cover closely, and bake half an hour. Remove the cover and set on the upper grating of the oven until nicely browned. Send to table in the dish in which it was baked.
Two cupfuls of powdered sugar.Two tablespoonfuls of butter.Half teaspoonful of mace or nutmeg.Juice (strained) of a lemon.Two tablespoonfuls of boiling water.
Two cupfuls of powdered sugar.
Two tablespoonfuls of butter.
Half teaspoonful of mace or nutmeg.
Juice (strained) of a lemon.
Two tablespoonfuls of boiling water.
Melt the butter with the hot water and beat in, with egg whisk or “Dover,” the sugar, a little at a time, until the sauce is like a cream. Add lemon juice and nutmeg,mould into a mound on a glass dish, or a deep plate, and set in a cold place until it is firm. This is a good “hard sauce” for any hot pudding.
Two eggs.One cup of milk.One cup of sugar.One tablespoonful of butter.Three cups of prepared flour.If you have not the prepared, use family flour with two tablespoonfuls of baking powder, siftedtwicewith it.One tablespoonful of salt.
Two eggs.
One cup of milk.
One cup of sugar.
One tablespoonful of butter.
Three cups of prepared flour.
If you have not the prepared, use family flour with two tablespoonfuls of baking powder, siftedtwicewith it.
One tablespoonful of salt.
Put the sugar in a bowl, warm the butter slightly, but do not melt it, and rub it with a wooden spoon into the sugar until they are thoroughly mixed together. Beat the eggs light in another bowl, stir in the sugar and butter, then the milk, the salt, and lastly the flour.
Butter a tin cake mould well, pour in the batter and bake about forty minutes in a steady oven.
Should it rise very fast, cover the top with white paper as soon as a crust is formed, to prevent scorching.
When you think it is done stick a clean, dry straw into the thickest part. If it comes up smooth and not sticky the loaf is ready to be taken up.
Loosen the edges from the mould with a knife, turn out on a plate, and send hot to table. Cut with a keen blade into slices, and eat with pudding sauce.
An easy receipt and one that seldom fails to give general satisfaction.
NEVER undertake cake unless you are willing to give to the business the amount of time and labor needed to make itwell. Materials tossed together “anyhow” may, once in a great while, come out right, but the manufacturer has no right to expect this, or to be mortified when the product is a failure.
Before breaking an egg, or putting butter and sugar together, collect all your ingredients. Sift the flour and arrange close to your hand, the bowls, egg-beater, cake-moulds, ready buttered, etc.
Begin by putting the measured sugar into abowl, and working the butter into it with a wooden spoon. Warm the butter slightly in cold weather. Rub and stir until the mixture is as smooth and light, as cream. Indeed, this process is called “creaming.”
Now, beat the yolks of your eggs light and thick in another bowl; wash the egg-beater well, wipe dry and let it get cold before whipping the whites to a standing heap in a third vessel. Keep the eggs cool before and while you beat them. Add the yolks to the creamed butter and sugar, beating hard one minute; put in the milk when milk is used, the spices and flavoring; whip in the whites, and lastly, the sifted and prepared flour.
Beatfrom the bottomof the mixing-bowl with a wooden spoon, bringing it up full and high with each stroke, and as soon as the ingredients are fairly and smoothly mixed, stop beating, or your cake will be tough.
Let your first attempt be with cup-cake baked in small tins. Learn to manage youroven well before risking pound or fruit-cake.
Should the dough or batter rise very fast lay white paper over the top, that this may not harden into a crust before the middle is done. To ascertain whether the cake is ready to leave the oven, thrust a clean straw into the thickest part. If it comes out clean, take out the tins and set themgentlyon a table or shelf to cool before turning them upside down on a clean, dry cloth or dish.
One cup of butter.Two cups of sugar—powdered.Four eggs.One cup of sweet milk.One teaspoonful of vanilla.One half-teaspoonful of mace.Three cups of prepared flour, or the same quantity of family-flour with one even teaspoonful of soda and two of cream-tartar, sifted twice with it.
One cup of butter.
Two cups of sugar—powdered.
Four eggs.
One cup of sweet milk.
One teaspoonful of vanilla.
One half-teaspoonful of mace.
Three cups of prepared flour, or the same quantity of family-flour with one even teaspoonful of soda and two of cream-tartar, sifted twice with it.
Two teaspoonfuls of baking powder will serve the same end. Mix as directed in “Practical Preliminaries,” and bake in small tins.
Is made by mixing the above cup-cake, leaving out the flavoring, and baking it in “jelly-cake tins,” turning these out when almost cold by running a knife around the edges, and spreading all but that intended for the top with a thick coating of fruit-jelly. Sift white sugar over the upper one or frost it.
Mix a cup-cake without spice or other flavoring, bake in jelly-cake tins, and when cold spread between the layers this filling:
One egg.One cup of milk.One half cup of sugar.Two rounded teaspoonfuls of corn-starch.One teaspoonful of vanilla or other essence.
One egg.
One cup of milk.
One half cup of sugar.
Two rounded teaspoonfuls of corn-starch.
One teaspoonful of vanilla or other essence.
Scald the milk in a farina-kettle; wet the cornstarch with a little cold milk and stir into that over the fire until it thickens. Have the egg ready whipped light into a bowl; beat it in the sugar; pour the thick hot milk upon this, gradually, stirring fast, return to the kettle and boil (still stirring,) to a thick custard. Let it cool before seasoning.
Frost the top-cake, or sift powdered sugar over it.
Mix and bake as for jelly-cake, flavoring with rose-water.
Whip the whites of three eggs to a stiff froth.
Add one cup of powdered sugar, and two thirds of a grated cocoanut.
When the cakes are cold, spread between the layers.
To the remaining third of the cocoanut add four tablespoonfuls of powdered sugar, and cover the top of the cake with it.
Mix and bake as for jelly-cake, flavoring the dough with essence of bitter almond.
Beat one egg light in a bowl, and into it a cup of sugar. Add to this the strained juice and grated rind of a lemon.
Peel and grate three fine pippins or other ripe, tart apples directly into this mixture, stirring each well in before adding another. When all are in, put into a farina-kettle and stir over the fire until the apple-custard is boiling hot and quite thick. Cool and spread between the cakes. A nice and simple cake. Eat the day it is baked.
Mix and bake as for jelly-cake, flavoring with vanilla. For filling, whip the whites of three eggs stiff; stir in one cup and a half of sugar and four tablespoonfuls of Baker’s Vanilla Chocolate, grated. Beat hard for two minutes and spread between the layers and on the top of the cake.