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.
Cream-cake.
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.
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.
Cocoanut-cake.
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.
Apple-cake.
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.
Chocolate-cake.
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.
White Cup-cake.
One cup of butter.
Two cups of powdered sugar.
Three cups of prepared flour.
One cup of sweet milk.
Whites of five eggs.
One teaspoonful of essence of bitter almond.
Cream butter and sugar; add milk and beat hard before putting in the
whites of the eggs. Stir in flavoring and, lightly and quickly, the
prepared flour. Bake in small tins.
Frosting for Cake.
Whites of three eggs.
Three cups of powdered sugar.
Strained juice of a lemon.
Put the whites into a _cold_ bowl and add the sugar at once, stirring
it in thoroughly. Then whip with your egg-beater until the mixture is
stiff and white, adding lemon-juice as you go on. Spread thickly over
the cake, and set in the sun, or in a warm room to dry.
White Lemon Cake.
Make “white cup-cake,” bake in jelly cake-tins and let it get cold.
Prepare a frosting as above directed, but use the juice of two lemons
and the grated peel of one. Spread this mixture between the cakes and
on the top.
Sponge Cake.
Do not attempt this until you have had some practice in the management
of ovens, and let your first trial be with what are sometimes termed
“snow-balls,”—that is, small sponge cakes, frosted. Put six eggs into
a scale and ascertain their weight _exactly_. Allow for the sponge
cake the weight of the eggs in sugar, and half their weight in flour.
Grate the yellow peel from a lemon and squeeze the juice upon it. Let
it stand ten minutes, and strain through coarse muslin, pressing out
every drop.
Beat the yolks of the eggs very light and then the sugar into them; the
lemon-juice; the whites, which should have been whipped to a standing
froth;—finally, stir in the sifted flour swiftly and lightly. Bake in
a steady oven from twenty-five to thirty minutes, glancing at them now
and then, to make sure they are not scorching, and covering with white
paper as they harden on top.
This is an easy, and if implicitly obeyed, a sure receipt.
Nice Gingerbread.
Three eggs.
One cup of sugar.
One cup each of molasses, “loppered” or buttermilk, and
of butter.
One tablespoonful of ground ginger, a teaspoonful of
cinnamon, and half as much allspice.
Four and a half _full_ cups of sifted flour.
One teaspoonful of soda dissolved in a tablespoonful of
boiling water.
Put butter, molasses, sugar and spice in a bowl, set in a pan of hot
water and stir with a wooden spoon until they are like brown cream.
Take from the water and add the milk. Beat yolks and whites together
until light in another bowl, and turn the brown mixture gradually in
upon them, keeping the egg-beater going briskly.
When well-mixed, add the soda, at last, the flour. Beat _hard_ three
minutes, and bake in well-buttered pans.
Sugar Cookies.
Two cups of sugar.
One cup of butter.
Three eggs, whites and yolks beaten together.
_About_ three cups of flour sifted with one teaspoonful
of baking powder.
One teaspoonful of nutmeg, and half this quantity of
cloves.
Cream butter and sugar, beat in the whipped eggs and spice; add a
handful at a time the flour, working it in until the dough is stiff
enough to roll out. Flour your hands well and sprinkle flour over a
pastry-board. Make a ball of the dough, and lay it on the board. Rub
your rolling-pin also with flour and roll out the dough into a sheet
about a quarter of an inch thick.
Cut into round cakes; sift granulated sugar over each and bake quickly.
Ginger Snaps.
Two cups of molasses.
One cup of sugar.
One cup of butter.
Five cups of flour.
One heaping teaspoonful of ground ginger, and the same
quantity of allspice.
Stir molasses, sugar and butter together in a bowl set in hot water,
until _very_ light. Mix in spices and flour, and roll out as directed
in last receipt, but in a thinner sheet. Cut into small cakes and bake
quickly.
All cakes in the composition of which molasses is used, are more apt to
burn than others. Watch your ginger snaps well, but opening the oven as
little as may be.
These spicy and toothsome cakes are better the second day than the
first, and keep well for a week or more.
14
JELLIES, CREAMS AND OTHER FANCY DISHES FOR TEA AND LUNCHEON OR
SUPPER-PARTIES.
THE pleasing custom in many families is to make the daughters
responsible for “fancy cookery.” Mamma turns naturally, when company
is expected, to her young allies for the manufacture of cake, jellies,
blanc-mange, etc., and for the arrangement of fruit and flowers, and
seldom cavils at the manner in which they do the work.
The difference in the appointment of feasts in houses where there are
girls growing up and grown, and in those where there are none, is so
marked that I need not call attention to it.
Lemon or Orange Jelly.
One package of gelatine soaked in two cups of cold
water.
Two and a half cups of sugar.
Juice of four lemons and grated peel of two (same of
oranges).
Three cups of boiling water.
A quarter-teaspoonful powdered cinnamon.
Soak the gelatine two hours; add lemon juice, grated peel, sugar and
spice, and leave for one hour. Pour on the boiling water, stir until
dissolved, and strain through double flannel. Do not shake or squeeze,
but let the jelly filter clearly through it into a bowl or pitcher set
beneath. Wet moulds in cold water and set aside to cool and harden.
Ribbon Jelly.
Take one third currant jelly, one third lemon jelly, and as much plain
blanc-mange. (_See Desserts._)
When all are cold and begin to form, wet a mould, pour in about a
fourth of the red jelly and set on the ice to harden; keep the rest
in a warm room, or near the fire. So soon as the jelly is firm in the
bottom of the mould, add carefully some of the white blanc-mange, and
return the mould to the ice. When this will bear the weight of more
jelly, add a little of the lemon, and when this forms, another line of
white.
Proceed in this order, dividing the red from the yellow by white, until
the jellies are used up. Leave the mould on ice until you are ready to
turn the jelly out.
A pretty dish, and easily managed if one will have patience to wait
after putting in each layer until it is firm enough not to be disturbed
or muddied by the next supply.
Buttercup Jelly.
One half package of gelatine soaked in half a cup of
cold water for two hours.
Three eggs.
One pint of milk.
One heaping cup of sugar.
One teaspoonful of vanilla.
Bit of soda the size of a pea stirred into the milk.
Heat the milk to scalding in a farina-kettle and stir in the soaked
gelatine until the latter is dissolved, and strain through a coarse
cloth. Beat the yolks of the eggs light, add the sugar and pour the
boiling mixture gradually upon it, stirring all the time.
Return to the farina-kettle and stir three minutes, or until it begins
to thicken. Let it cool before you flavor it. Whip the white of one egg
stiff, and when the yellow jelly coagulates around the edges, set the
bowl containing the frothed white in cracked ice or in ice-water and
beat the jelly into it, spoonful by spoonful, with the egg-whip, until
it is all in and your sponge thick and smooth. Wet a mould and set it
on the ice to form. Lay about the base when you dish it.
Whipped Cream.
I have been assured by those who have made the experiment, that
excellent whipped cream can be produced, and very quickly, by the use
of our incomparable Dover Egg-beater. I have never tried this, but my
pupils may, if they have not a syllabub-churn.
Put a pint of rich, sweet cream in a pail or other wide-mouthed vessel
with straight sides, and set in ice while you whip or churn it.
As the frothing cream rises to the top, remove it carefully with a
spoon and lay it in a perfectly clean and cold colander, or on a hair
sieve, set over a bowl. If any cream drips from it return to the vessel
in which it is whipped to be beaten over again. When no more froth
rises, whip a tablespoonful of powdered sugar into the white syllabub
in the colander, and it is ready for use.
Swan’s Down Cream.
One pint of whipped cream.
Whites of three eggs beaten to a stiff froth.
One cup of powdered sugar.
One teaspoonful essence bitter almond.
Just before you are ready to send the dish to table, beat whipped
cream, frothed whites, sugar and flavoring together in a bowl set deep
in cracked ice. Heap in a glass dish and leave in the ice until it is
to be eaten.
Send sponge cake around with it.
Jellied Oranges.
Cut a small round piece from the blossom end of each of six or eight
oranges, and scoop out the pulp very carefully, so as not to widen the
hole, or tear the inside of the fruit. Use your fingers and a small
teaspoon for this purpose until the oranges are empty and clean.
Lay them then in very cold water while you prepare with the pulp and
juice you have taken out, and the grated peel of another orange, half
the quantity of orange-jelly called for by the receipt for lemon jelly.
When it is quite cold, fill the orange-skins with it, and set in a cold
place to harden.
In serving them, cut the oranges cross-wise with a _sharp_ knife and
arrange in a glass dish, the open sides upward. A few orange, lemon,
or japonica leaves to line the edges of the dish, will give a pretty
effect.
Ambrosia.
Peel fine, sweet oranges, and cut into small pieces, extracting the
seeds. Put a layer in a glass dish and sprinkle well with sugar. In
this scatter a thick coating of grated cocoanut, strewing this also
with powdered sugar. Over the cocoanut lay thin slices of bananas,
peeled and cut crosswise. Fill the dish in this order, the top being
covered with banana.
A nice dessert for Sundays and warm afternoons when one dreads the heat
of the stove.
How to make Coffee and Tea.
If you wish to have really strong coffee, allow a cup of freshly-ground
coffee to a quart of boiling water. Put the coffee in a bowl and wet
with half a cup of cold water. Stir in the white and shell of a raw
egg, and turn into a clean, newly-scalded coffee-boiler. Shut down
the top and shake hard up and down half a dozen times before pouring
in the boiling water. Set where it will boil hard, but not run over,
for twenty minutes, draw to the side of the range and check the boil
suddenly by pouring in a third of a cup of cold water. Let it stand
three minutes to settle, and pour off gently into the pot which is to
be set on the table.
Scald the milk to be drunk with coffee, unless you can serve really
rich cream with it.
Tea.
FIRST RULE. The water should boil.
SECOND RULE. The water in which the tea is steeped, must be boiling.
THIRD RULE. The water used for filling the pot must be boiling.
I speak within bounds when I say that I could tell on the fingers of my
two hands the tables at which I have drunk really good, hot, fresh tea.
Sometimes it is made with boiling water, then allowed to simmer on the
range or hob until the decoction is rank, reedy and bitter. Sometimes
too little tea is put in, and the beverage, while hot enough, is but
faintly colored and flavored.
Oftenest of all, the tea is made with unboiled water, or with water
that did boil once, but is now flat and many degrees below the point of
ebullition.
Scald the china, or silver, or tin teapot from which the beverage is
to flow directly into the cups; put in an even teaspoonful of tea for
each person who is to partake of it, pour in a half-cup of boiling
water and cover the pot with a cozy or napkin for five minutes. Then,
fill up with boiling _water from the kettle_ and take to the table.
Fill the cups within three minutes or so and you have the fresh aroma
of the delicious herb.