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Pick, and wash clean half a pound of Zante currants; drain them, and wipe them in a towel, and then spread them out on a flat dish, and place them before the fire to dry thoroughly. Prepare about a quarter of a pound or half a pint of finely-grated bread-crumbs. Have ready a heaping tea-spoonful of powdered mace, cinnamon, and nutmeg mixed. When the currants are dry, dredge them thickly on all sides with flour, to prevent their sinking or clodding in the pudding while baking. Cut up in a deep pan half a pound of the bestfresh butter, and add to it half a pound of fine white sugar, powdered. Stir the butter and sugar together with a wooden spaddle, till they are very light and creamy. Then add a table-spoonful of wine, and a table-spoonful of brandy. Beat in a shallow pan, eight eggs till perfectly light, and as thick as a good boiled custard. Afterwards, mix with them, gradually, a pint of rich milk and the grated bread-crumbs, stirred in alternately. Next, stir this mixture, by degrees, into the pan of beaten butter and sugar, and add the currants a few at a time. Finish with a table-spoonful of strong rose-water; or a wine-glass full, if it is not very strong. Stir the whole very hard. Butter a large deep white dish, or two of soup-plate size. Put in the batter. Set it directly into a brisk oven, and bake it well. When cold, dredge the surface with powdered sugar. Serve it up in the dish in which it was baked. You may ornament the tops with bits of citron cut into leaves and forming a wreath; or with circles of preserved strawberries.
This will be found a very fine pudding. It must be baked in time to become quite cold before dinner.
For currants, you may substitute raisins of the best quality; seeded, cut in half, and well dredged with flour.
Instead of rose-water you may stir in the yellow rind (finely grated) of one large lemon, or two small ones, and their juice also.
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Take ripe currants, and having stripped them from the stalks, measure as many as will make a heaping quart. Cover the bottom of a deep dish with slices of bread, slightly buttered, and with the crust cut off. Put a thick layer of currants on the bread, and then a layer of sugar. Then other layers of bread, currants, and sugar, till the dish is full; finishing at the top with very thin slices of bread. Set it into the oven, and bake it half an hour. Serve it either warm or cold; and eat it with sweetened cream.
Instead of currants you may take cherries, (first stoning them all,) raspberries, ripe blackberries, or barberries, plums, (first extracting the stones,) stewed cranberries, or stewed gooseberries. If the fruit is previously stewed, the pudding will require but ten minutes' baking. When it is sent to table, have sugar at hand in case it should not be sweet enough.
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Stir together, till very light, a quarter of a pound of powdered sugar and a quarter of a pound of fresh butter. Beat six eggs very light, and stir into them a half pint of rich milk. Add, gradually, the eggs and milk to the butter and sugar, alternately with a half pound of sifted flour. Add a glass of sweet wine and some grated nutmeg. When all the ingredients are mixed, stir the batter very hard. Then put it into small deep pans, or cups that havebeen well buttered, filling them about two thirds with the batter. Set them immediately into a brisk oven, and bake them brown. When done, remove them from the cups, and place them to cool on an inverted sieve. When quite cold make a slit or incision in the side of each cake. If very light, and properly baked, they will be hollow in the middle. Fill up this cavity with ice cream, carefully put in with a spoon, and then close the slit with your fingers to prevent the cream running out. Spread them on a large dish. Either send them to table immediately before the ice-cream melts or keep them on ice till wanted.
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Take the whites of eight eggs, and beat them to a stiff froth that will stand alone. Then beat into them, gradually, (a tea-spoonful at a time,) two pounds or more of finely-powdered loaf sugar; continuing to add sugar till the mixture is very thick, and finishing with lemon juice or extract of rose. Have ready some sheets of white paper laid on a baking board, and with a spoon drop the mixture on it in long oval heaps, about four inches in length. Smooth and shape them with a broad-bladed knife, dipped occasionally in cold water. The baking board used for this purpose should be an inch thick, and must have a slip of iron beneath each end to elevate it from the floor of the oven, so that it may not scorch, nor the bottoms of the meringues be baked too hard. This baking-board must not be of pine wood, as a pine board will communicate a disagreeable taste of turpentine. The oven must be moderate. Bake the meringues of a light brown. When cool, take them off the paper by slipping a knife nicely beneath the bottom of each. Then push back or scoop out carefully a portion of the inside of each meringue, taking care not to break them. Have ready some nice whipped cream, made in the following proportion:—Take a quarter of a pound of broken-up loaf sugar, and on some of the lumps rub off the yellow rind of two large lemons. Powder the sugar, and then mix with it the juice of the lemons, and grate in some nutmeg. Mix the sugar with a half pint of sweet white wine. Put into a pan a pint of rich cream, and whip it with rods or a wooden whisk, or mill it with a chocolate mill till it is a stiff froth. Then mix in, gradually, the other ingredients; continuing to whip it hard a while after they are all in. As you proceed, lay the froth on an inverted sieve, with a dish underneath to catch the droppings; which droppings must afterwards be whipped and added to the rest. Fill the inside of each meringue with a portion of the whipped cream. Then put two together, so as to form one long oval cake, joining them nicely, so as to unite the flat parts that were next the paper, leaving the inside filled with the whipped cream. Set them again in the oven for a few minutes. They must be done with great care and nicety, so as not to break. Each meringue should be about the usuallength of a middle finger. In dropping them on the paper, take care to shape the oval ends handsomely and smoothly. They should look like very long kisses.
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Beat very stiff the whites of three eggs, and then beat in gradually half a pound of powdered loaf sugar. Scrape down very fine three ounces of the best chocolate, (prepared cocoa is better still,) and dredge it with flour to prevent its oiling; mixing the flour well among it. Then add it gradually to the mixture of white of egg and sugar, and stir the whole very hard. Cover the bottom of a square tin pan with a sheet of fine white paper, cut to fit exactly. Place upon it thin spots of powdered loaf sugar about the size of a half dollar. Pile a portion of the mixture on each spot, smoothing it with the back of a spoon or a broad knife, dipped in cold water. Sift white sugar over the top of each. Set the pan into a brisk oven, and bake them a few minutes. When cold, loosen them from the paper with a broad knife.
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Break up a large ripe cocoa-nut. Pare the pieces, and lay them awhile in cold water. Then wipe them dry, and grate them as finely as possible. Lay the grated cocoa-nut in well-formed heaps on a large handsome dish. It will require no cooking. The heapsshould be about the circumference of a half dollar, and must not touch each other. Flatten them down in the middle, so as to make a hollow in the centre of each heap; and upon this pile some very nice sweetmeat. Make an excellent whipped cream, well sweetened and flavored with lemon and wine, and beat it to a stiff froth. Pile some of this cream high upon each cake over the sweetmeats. If on a supper-table, you may arrange them in circles round a glass stand.
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Take fine fresh figs that are perfectly ripe, such as can only be obtained in countries where they are cultivated in abundance. Weigh them, and to every two pounds of figs allow a pound and a half of sugar, and the grated yellow rind of a large orange or lemon. Cut up the figs, and put them into a preserving kettle with the sugar, and orange or lemon rind, adding the juice. Boil them till the whole is reduced to a thick smooth mass, frequently stirring it up from the bottom. When done, put it warm into jars, and cover it closely.
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Cut up half a pound of fresh butter in a pint ofWest Indiamolasses, and warm them together slightly till the butter is quite soft. Then stir them well, and add gradually a half pound of good brown sugar, a table-spoonful of powdered cinnamon, and twoheaped table-spoonfuls of ground ginger, or three, if the ginger is not very strong. Sift two pounds or two quarts of flour. Beat four eggs till very thick and light, and stir them gradually into the mixture, in turn with the flour, and five or six large table-spoonfuls of carraway seeds, a little at a time. Dissolve a very small tea-spoonful of pearlash or soda in as much lukewarm water as will cover it. Then stir it in at the last. Stir all very hard. Transfer it to a buttered tin pan with straight sides, and bake it in a loaf in a moderate oven. It will require a great deal of baking.
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Sift two pounds of flour into a pan, and cut up in it a pound and a quarter of fresh butter; rub the butter well into the flour, and then mix in a pint ofWest Indiamolasses and a pound of the best brown sugar. Beat eight eggs till very light. Stir into the beaten egg two glasses or a jill of brandy. Add also to the egg a tea-cupful of ground ginger, and a table-spoonful of powdered cinnamon, with a tea-spoonful of soda melted in a little warm water. Wet the flour, &c., with this mixture till it becomes a soft dough. Sprinkle a little flour on your pasteboard, and with a broad knife spread portions of the mixture thickly and smoothly upon it. The thickness must be equal all through; therefore spread it carefully and evenly, as the dough will be too soft to roll out. Then with the edge of a tumbler dipped in flour,cut it out into round cakes. Have ready square pans, slightly buttered; lay the cakes in them sufficiently far apart to prevent their running into each other when baked. Set the pans into a brisk oven, and bake the cakes well, seeing that they do not burn.
You may cut them out small with the lid of a cannister (or something similar) the usual size of gingerbread nuts.
These cakes will keep during a long voyage, and are frequently carried to sea. Many persons find highly-spiced gingerbread a preventive to sea-sickness.
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Take half a pint from a quart of rich milk, and boil in it a large handful of bitter almonds or peach kernels, blanched and broken up; also half a dozen blades of mace, keeping the sauce-pan closely covered. When the milk is highly flavored and reduced to one half the quantity, take it off and strain it. Stir, gradually, into the remaining pint and a half of milk, five heaping table-spoonfuls of ground rice; set it over the fire in a sauce-pan, and let it come to a boil. Then take it off, and while it is warm, mix in gradually a quarter of a pound of fresh butter and a quarter of a pound of white sugar. Afterwards, beat eight eggs as light as possible, and stir them gradually into the mixture. Add some grated nutmeg. Stir the whole very hard; put it into a deep dish, and set it immediately into the oven. Keep itbaking steadily for an hour. It should then be done. Eat it cool, having sifted sugar over it.
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Blanch half a pound of shelled sweet almonds, by scalding them with boiling water, till the skins peel off easily. Then throw them into a bowl of cold water, and let them stand awhile. Take them out and wipe them separately. Afterwards set them in a warm place to dry thoroughly. Put them, one at a time, into a marble mortar, and pound them to a smooth paste, moistening them, as you proceed, with a few drops of rose-water to prevent their oiling. When you have pounded one or two, take them out of the mortar with a tea-spoon, and put them into a deep plate beside you, and continue removing the almonds to the plate till they are all done. Scrape down, as fine as possible, half a pound of the best chocolate, or of Baker's prepared cocoa, and mix it thoroughly with the pounded almonds. Then set the plate in a cool place. Put the whites of eight eggs into a shallow pan, and beat them to a stiff froth that will stand alone. Have ready a pound and a half of finely-powdered loaf sugar. Stir it hard into the beaten white-of-egg, a spoonful at a time. Then stir in, gradually, the mixture of almond and chocolate, and beat the whole very hard. Drop the mixture in equal portions upon thin white paper, laid on square tin pans; smoothing them with a spoon into round cakes about the size of a half dollar. Dredge the top of eachlightly with powdered sugar. Set them into a quick oven, and bake them a light brown. When done, take them off the paper.
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Pick, wash, and dry half a pound of Zante currants, and having spread them out on a flat dish, dredge them well with flour. Grate some bread into a pan, till you have a pint of crumbs. Pour over the grated bread a pint of boiling milk, into which you have stirred, (as soon as taken from the fire,) a piece of fresh butter the size of an egg. Cover the pan and let it stand an hour. Then beat it hard, and add nutmeg, and a quarter of a pound of powdered white sugar, stirred in gradually, and two table-spoonfuls of the best brandy. Beat six eggs till very light, and then stir them by degrees into the mixture. Lastly, add the currants a few at a time, and beat the whole very hard. It should be a thick batter. If you find it too thin, add a little flour. Have ready, over the fire, a hot frying-pan with boiling lard. Put in the batter in large spoonfuls, (so as not to touch,) and fry the fritters a light brown. Drain them on a perforated skimmer, or an inverted sieve placed in a deep pan, and send them to table hot. Eat them with wine, and powdered sugar.
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Take several pounds of thevery bestfresh butter. Cut it up in a large tin sauce-pan, or in any clean cooking vessel lined with tin. Set it over the fire, and boil and skim it during half an hour. Then pour it off, carefully, through a funnel into a stone jar, and cover it closely with a bladder or leather tied down over the lid. The butter having thus been separated from the salt and sediment, (which will be found remaining at the bottom of the boiling vessel,) if kept closely covered and set in a cool place, will continue good for a month, and be found excellent for frying and stewing, and other culinary purposes. Prepare it thus in May or June, and you may use it in winter, if living in a place where fresh butter is scarce at that season.
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Having been accidentally omitted in its proper place, we here insert a receipt for very fine mutton soup. Try it. If for a large family, take two necks of mutton of the best quality, and let the butcher disjoint it. To each pound of meat allow a quart of water. Put it into a soup-pot, with a slice of ham, which will render the soup sufficiently salt. Boil it slowly, and skim it well, till the scum ceases to appear. If you have no ham, season the meat, when you first put it in, with a tea-spoonful of salt. In the mean time prepare the vegetables, but do not put them in till the meat has boiled to rags, and all the scum has risen to the surface and been carefully removed. It is then time to strain outthe shreds of meat and bone, return the soup to the pot, and add the vegetables. First, have ready the deep yellowoutsidesof three or four carrots grated, and stir them into the soup to enrich it, and give it a fine color. Next, add turnips, potatos, parsnips, salsify, celery, (including its green leaves from the top) and onions that have been already peeled and boiled by themselves to render them less strong. All the vegetables should be cut nicely into small pieces of equal size, (as for Soup à la Julienne.) You may add some boiled beets, handsomely sliced. And (if approved) strew in at the last a handful of fresh leaves of the marygold flower, which adds a flavor to some persons very agreeable. Put all these vegetables gradually into the soup, (those first that require the longest boiling,) and when they are allquite donethe soup is finished. If well made, with a liberal allowance of meat and vegetables, and well boiled, it will be much liked—particularly if served as Julienne soup, for company.
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Take a large pan of rich unskimmed milk that has set in the dairy all night, and is from pasture-fed cows in the summer. Have ready a small tea-cup of rennet-water, in which a piece of rennet, from four to six inches square, has been steeping several hours. Stir the rennet-water into the pan of milk, and set it in a warm place till it forms a firm curd. Tie up the curd in a clean linen bag, andhang it up in the dairy with a pan under it to receive the droppings, till it drips no longer. Then transfer the curd to a small cheese mould. Cover it all over with a clean linen cloth, folded over the sides, and well secured. Put a heavy weight on the top, so as to press it hard. The wooden vessel in which you mould cream cheeses, should be a bottomless, broad hoop, about the circumference of a dinner plate. Set it (before you fill it with the curd) on a very clean table or large flat dish. Turn it every day for four days, keeping it covered thickly all over with fresh green grass, frequently renewed. When done, keep it in a dry cool place, first rubbing the outside with fresh butter. Whenonce cut, use the whole cheese on that day, as it may spoil before the next. Send it to the tea-table cut across in triangular or pie pieces.
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Take three quarts of the bestWest Indiamolasses—no other will do. Put it into a thick block-tin kettle, (or abain-marie) and stir in a pound and a half of the best and cleanest brown sugar. Boil slowly and skim it well, (stirring it always after skimming,) and taking care that it does not burn. Prepare the grated rind and the juice of three large lemons or oranges, and stir them in after the molasses and sugar have boiled long enough to become very thick. Continue to boil and stir till it will boil no longer, and the spoon will no longer move. Try some in a saucer, and let it get cold. If it isbrittle, it is done. Then take it from the fire, and transfer it immediately to shallow square tin pans, that have been well greased with nice fresh butter or sweet oil. Spread it evenly, and set it to cool.
While boiling, you may add three or four spoonfuls of shell-barks, cracked clean from their shells, and divided into halves. Or the same quantity of roasted pea-nuts or ground-nuts. With both nuts and lemon it will be very good.
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Before preserving and pickling time, buy at a druggist's, two ounces of the clearest and whitest gum tragacanth. Obtain also two grains of corrosive sublimate, (indispensable to this cement), and having picked the gum tragacanth clean, and free from dust and dark or discolored particles, put it with the sublimate into a very clean yellow or white-ware mug that holds a small quart and has a close-fitting lid belonging to it. Then fill the vessel more than two-thirds with very clean water, either warm or cold; and put on the lid. Let it rest till next morning. Then stir it with anunpaintedstick, that will reach quite down to the bottom. Repeat the stirring frequently through the day, always replacing the lid. In a few days the cement will have risen to the top of the mug, and have become a fine, clear, smooth paste,far superior to any other; and, by means of the corrosive sublimate, it will keep perfectly well to an indefinite period, if always closely covered, and having no sort of metal dipped into it. On no account attempt to keep this paste in tin, or even in silver. Both paste and metal will turn black and become spotted. Remember this.
When going to put away your sweetmeats or pickles, this paste will come into use, and be found invaluable. It is best to keep all these things in small jars, as opening a large jar frequently, mayinjure its contents by letting in the air. In a large family, or where many pickles are eaten, those in most frequent use may be kept in stone-ware jars, with a wooden spoon always at hand for taking them out when wanted. On the surface of every jar of pickles, put one or two table-spoonfuls of salad oil, and then cover the top of the jar closely with a circular piece of bladder or thin leather. Next cut out a narrow band of the same, and cement it on with gum tragacanth paste, (made as above), and let it remain till you open the jar for use.
For sweetmeats, have glass or white-ware jars. Lay on the surface of each a circular paper, cut to fit and dipped in brandy. Next, put on an outside cover of bladder or thick white paper secured with a band of the same, coated with tragacanth paste. When this cement is used, the jars will not be infested with ants or other insects, the corrosive sublimate keeping them out.
This paste should be at hand in every library or office, when wanted for papers or books. It requires no boiling when made, and is always ready, and never spoils. For a small quantity, take an ounce of the best gum tragacanth and a grain of corrosive sublimate. Get a covered white or yellow-ware mug that holds a pint; such a mug will cost but twelve cents. Dissolve in less than a pint of water.
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These are most useful and satisfactory utensils,as all who have tried them can certify. They are to be had of various sizes at the best household furniture stores, and are made to order by the chief tinsmiths. The French make great use of the Bain-Marie; which, in some measure, accounts for the general superiority of their cookery.
This utensil, as made in America, is a double kettle of the strongest and best block-tin. The bottom of the outside kettle is of strong copper or iron, well tinned, andkept so. The food, however, is all contained in the inner kettle, which is of tin entirely. After the food is in, (having with it no water whatever), put on the lid tightly, and through the tube on the outside, pour into the outer kettle the water that is to cook it. If it boils away too fast, replenish it with more water poured in at the tube.
If it boils too slowly, quicken it by adding some salt put in at the tube. Keep the kettle closely covered, except when removing the lid to take off the scum; and do this quick and seldom. The superfluous steam is all the time escaping through the top of the tube and through a very small hole in the lid. Nothing cooked in this manner (with all the water outside) can possibly burn or scorch. After every skimming, stir the stew down to the bottom before you replace the lid. To cook in a Bain-Marie, requires a strong, steady heat, well kept up; and you must begin earlier than in the common way of stewing. This is an excellent vessel for boiling custards, blancmanges, marmalades, and many other nice things; as a goodhousewife will soon discover. Also, for making beef tea and other preparations for invalids. It is well to keep a small one purposely for a sick room.
If from deficiency of sugar, or being kept too warm, or not closely covered, any of your sweetmeats turn sour, do not hastily throw them away, but carefully remove the surface, (even if coated with blue mould), add an additional portion of sugar so as to make them very sweet, and put them into a Bain-Marie. Fill the outer kettle withhotwater, and boil it till you find the preserves restored to their proper taste. Then put them up again in jars that have been well scalded, rinsed, and sunned, and lay brandied paper on the surface of each.
Mouldy pickles may be recovered in a similar manner, adding fresh spices and vinegar before you put them up again.
Bain-Marie; or, Double Kettle. (Pronounced Bine Maree.)Bain-Marie; or, Double Kettle. (PronouncedBine Maree.)