together one cupful of “A” sugar, one-third of a cupful of water, and
a piece of butter the size of a walnut until it makes a soft lump when
tested in water. Remove from the fire and stir in the nuts. When it
begins to look cloudy, pour by the spoonful into buttered tins. It will
spread into flat cakes.
Maple nut candy
Butter a shallow tin and cover the bottom with butternut meats. Place
on the cooler part of the stove one quart of maple sugar and one cupful
of water. Cook slowly and test in water. When done, pour over the nut
meats. Before it hardens, mark into squares.
Crystallized fruits
Make a syrup of a pound of sugar and a gill of water. Boil, without
stirring, until a drop put into iced water becomes immediately brittle.
Remove the saucepan from the fire and set it at once in an outer pan
of boiling water. Add to the syrup the juice of a quarter of a lemon.
Run the prongs of a sharp pickle fork through each piece of fruit to be
candied, and dip it in the hot syrup. Lay on buttered or waxed paper to
dry.
Stuffed dates
Remove the stones from dates and fill with a mixture made as follows:
Put into an agate saucepan one cupful of granulated sugar and a gill of
cold water, with half a saltspoonful of cream of tartar. Stir just long
enough to dissolve the sugar, then boil, without touching, until a drop
put into cold water can be formed into a soft ball. Remove from the
fire immediately, skim off every particle of crust, if there be any
upon the surface of the syrup, and pour the syrup into a bowl. When so
cool and thick that the finger leaves a dent when pressed upon it, stir
with a wooden spoon to a smooth white paste. When too stiff to stir
with a spoon, work the mixture with the hands. This filling will keep
for weeks. When you wish to use it, set the cup containing it in a pan
of hot water until soft enough to handle.
Slippery-elm cough candy
Soak a good handful of dried slippery-elm bark in a pint of water all
night. In the morning bring it to a boil, strain and press to get out
all the mucilaginous matter, and put the liquid thus obtained over a
slow fire with two cupfuls of sugar. Wet the sugar well with lemon
juice before adding it to the slippery-elm tea. Simmer, stirring until
the sugar dissolves. When the candy “ropes” pour it out into broad
buttered tins and mark into squares. You may pull it white if you like.
It is palatable and excellent for colds and coughs.
[Illustration]
AFTERNOON TEA
In every respectable English dwelling, be it palace or cottage, tea is
served between four and five o’clock every afternoon in the year. The
crone in the almshouse takes hers direct from the hob in winter, and
in summer hobbles with her black teapot, a teaspoonful of the precious
leaves in the bottom, to the common kitchen to have it filled. Her
betters in name and in worldly gear assemble about the tea equipage in
drawing room or library, or in the family “parlor.”
For the wealthy there are tea-tables of divers patterns, some with
leaves that draw out to accommodate cups and saucers when set in array.
The conventional afternoon tea-table is lower than that intended to
hold bric-a-brac and books. The chair occupied by the mistress of the
house or one of her daughters is low and broad, that she may sit at her
ease while making and dispensing the beverage. The central figure upon
the tray is a teakettle of silver, copper, brass or lacquered Japanese
ware, with a spirit lamp beneath. When the water boils the tea is
“masked,” _i. e._, a little is poured upon the dry leaves in the pot,
a wadded “cozy” is fitted over the latter, and the tea is “drawn” for
about two minutes before the rest of the water is added.
[Illustration]
The cups are passed by a servant if none of the young people of the
family or intimate friends are present to whom the graceful task can be
delegated. The tone of the whole function is easy sociability.
This is especially marked in the English country house, where
sportsmen, who have been out with the dogs and gamekeeper all day,
are allowed to drift into the drawing-room, in splashed gaiters and
knickerbockers, for a chat and a cup of hot tea before going off to
dress for dinner.
As accompaniments to the tea we have a basket of light cakes or
biscuits, thin bread and butter, now and then buttered scones or “tea
cake.” Anything more elaborate mars the simplicity of the custom,
perverting it into an “occasion.” It ceases to be afternoon tea, a
rest station between the one o’clock luncheon and the seven or eight
o’clock dinner. In some towns and cities—particularly in the lavish
South—the effort to introduce this simplest of social functions has
failed ignominiously, because—like dish-washing, toast-making and
tea-making, speaking the truth and spelling correctly—the right way of
doing it is too easy to learn. The “spread” of oysters, salads, cakes
and creams, bouillon and bonbons, flummery and fruit, into which the
imported custom degenerated, was as foreign to the true spirit of the
original as the crush of elaborately dressed women and the sprinkle of
uncomfortable men who attended the teas was to the cordial informality
that should obtain with guests and entertainers.
It is a wholesome symptom in our feverish social system that the
beneficent break in the diurnal rush and press furnished by afternoon
tea-time is becoming more and more prevalent. In tens of thousands
of homes, in city and in country, five o’clock brings together the
scattered parts of the home circle in the living-room. Jaunty wicker
stands, three and four-storied, for holding plates of fancy biscuits,
thin bread and butter, cake and crisp strips of lightly buttered toast
spread with anchovy paste, have crept into conservative drawing-rooms;
teakettle, teapot and their appurtenances appear duly at the stroke of
the hour, and visitors who happen to call at that hour are cordially
made welcome to the grateful refreshment. “Tea” is always there, no
matter who comes or goes, and it typifies what we need more than all
else besides in a land where labor is the rule and relaxation the
exception—home joys, home comfort, home _rest_!
Five o’clock tea has come to stay! Whether as a simple refreshment for
busy women who long for a life-saving station in the afternoon rush, or
as an informal—and inexpensive—fashion of entertaining one’s friends,
it seems to be as firm a fixture on this side of the Atlantic as on the
other.
One of the chief charms of the afternoon tea is its adaptability. It
may be as much or as little of a function as one chooses. I do not
refer now to the cup of tea that the hostess pours for herself or the
chance friend every afternoon in the week, but to the tea where guests
are regularly invited. It may be madame’s At Home day, which extends
over a period of a few weeks, or runs through the whole winter, or it
may be one of the more formal occasions, to which guests are invited in
droves, and social debts thereby paid _en bloc_.
For the simpler function it is easy to lay down rules. Little is
required for it. If it is to be a weekly affair for which cards are
issued early in the season, it is foolish to plan an elaborate menu,
and even worse than foolish, for it is in bad taste. The guest who goes
to such a day, “at home,” does not expect a “spread,” and the hostess
who offers too much makes life harder for the timid woman of small
means who is not quite sure what is the correct thing, but is only
positive that it must be expensive.
For the ordinary one-day-every-week-all-winter afternoon tea there are
many houses where one has only bread and butter or fancy biscuits and
a simple cake. I know one woman who prides herself upon the quality of
the doughnuts she serves at her afternoon teas, and they are the only
sweets she has beyond a little dish of bonbons. To be sure, there are
simple sandwiches or thin bread and butter, but further than this she
does not go except for some special occasion.
For such an Afternoon Tea the following menus are offered as
suggestions:
AFTERNOON TEA MENU. I
Caviar Sandwiches Creamed Chicken Sandwiches
Fancy Cakes
Tea, or Coffee, or Chocolate
[Illustration: AFTERNOON-TEA ON THE VERANDA]
AFTERNOON TEA MENU. II
Chicken and Celery Sandwiches Anchovy Toast
Fancy Cakes
Tea, or Coffee, or Chocolate
These menus may be modified in many ways. Other varieties of sandwiches
may be provided. Both tea and coffee, or tea and chocolate, may be
offered. Plain cake may be supplied instead of the fancy cakes, and a
good tea biscuit may be given instead of one kind of sandwiches. Little
dishes of bonbons may stand by to supplement the feast.
For these, as for the ordinary afternoon tea where there are no invited
guests, the preparations are the same. The tea-table is not to be left
standing fully equipped to gather dust when it is not in use. The cups
and saucers and other tea plenishings are brought in on a tray and
placed on the table. This may be a regular tea-table, or it may be the
table one finds in every drawing-room where are piled the magazines and
books of the day. These may be swept to one side to make space for the
tray. The hostess may make the tea and pour it, or it may be brought in
ready from the kitchen.
When tea-time extends over the whole afternoon, a tea-ball will prove
of value. Then each guest is sure of a fresh hot cup of tea, and while
the alcohol lamp holds out to burn the supply will not fail.
If there are a good many guests there may be a maid at hand to pass
cups and offer the plates of sandwiches and sweets. But, as a rule, the
affair is so informal that hostess and guests wait on themselves.
With the cup and saucer there may be offered a plate, and some
hostesses offer doilies as well, but this is not obligatory. The maid
is chiefly needed to replenish the hot water, to take away empty cups
and the like, and if she is within sound of the bell, it answers as
well as though she were at the elbow of the hostess.
When the tea is to be a larger and more formal function, matters are
differently arranged. In those cases where a hostess gives perhaps two
days, and invites all her dear five hundred friends to be present at
one or the other of them, there is not room in the drawing-room for the
tea-table nor place for the chatty informality of the simpler afternoon
tea. The table is laid in the dining-room, or the library, and a friend
is invited to “pour.” If there are two beverages,—as there are, almost
invariably,—one friend takes each end of the table, and there may be
even a third, presiding over another hot drink, or over the punch bowl.
A waitress or two must be at hand to take away the dishes that have
been used and bring fresh, and to see that the guests have enough to
eat and drink. The hostess has no time to see to anything beyond the
salutations of the guests as they come in, and can only suggest to them
that they go out to the dining-room and find something to eat.
Once in a while, a hostess will give no more than is contained in the
menus already suggested, except that the supplies of all kinds may be
increased, and that there may be three kinds of sandwiches, instead of
one or two, and a larger choice in the matter of cake. Two hot drinks,
at least, must be supplied.
But in so large a function the bill of fare is more likely to be
something like the following:
AFTERNOON TEA MENU. III
Bouillon
Lobster Sandwiches Chicken Truffle Sandwiches
Lettuce Sandwiches
Salted Almonds Olives Bonbons Cakes
Tea Coffee
Chocolate, or Claret Punch
When an afternoon tea gets to this stage it may still be called “a
tea,” but it has gone far beyond that, and has become a daytime
reception. Even if the sun is shining outside there is usually
artificial light in the rooms. The lamps are burning with a pleasant
subdued light, there are candles with colored shades, the women who are
receiving and presiding over the table are in full dress. The table
itself is beautiful with china and cut glass and silver. Flowers are
about everywhere, and except that the men are in morning dress and the
women guests in street costume, it might be an evening party.
There is a reception held in the afternoon that is even more
elaborate than this. When a woman wants to make signal some special
“occasion,”—to honor a guest, or perhaps because it is the only “crush”
she gives in the year,—she often makes it a tea. For this the cards
will be out ten days or more in advance and the refreshments provided
are more elegant and numerous than those mentioned above. Such a
collation might be as follows:
AFTERNOON TEA MENU. IV
Bouillon
Chicken or Lobster Salad Creamed Oysters
Nut Sandwiches Sardine Sandwiches
Cream Cheese Sandwiches
Olives or Pimolas Salted Nuts Bonbons
Ices Frappé Cakes
Tea Coffee Chocolate Punch
The table is arranged for this as for the third tea mentioned, but
there must be waiters in attendance, and they serve nearly everything.
In most cases there is nothing done by the young women friends of the
hostess who gather in the dining-room except entertain the guests and
see that they have enough to eat. Once in a while, these young women
may preside at the coffee-urn, or the chocolate, or teapot, but it is
not a common occurrence.
[Illustration]
The matter has been put into the hands of “the profession.”
It is all very nice, and an excellent way to clear the debit side
of one’s social ledger, but the mind turns to the quiet afternoon
tea-table with the hot tea under the cozy, the saucer of sliced lemon,
the tiny flask of rum or the graceful cream jug, the sugar basin and
plate of sandwiches, or bread and butter, with affection one never
cherishes for the huge kettledrum.
SOME DAINTIES FOR AFTERNOON TEA
Tea cakes
Sift a quart of flour three times with two teaspoonfuls of
baking-powder and one of salt. Chop into this a tablespoonful of butter
and one of cottolene or other fat.
(In all preparations requiring shortening, cottolene is preferable to
lard.)
Mix in a bowl with a wooden spoon, adding about three cupfuls of milk,
or enough to make a soft dough. Turn out upon your board and roll, with
swift, light strokes into a sheet half an inch in thickness. Reverse a
jelly-cake tin upon the sheet and cut with a sharp knife cakes just the
size of the tin. With a spatula, transfer to a floured baking-pan and
bake in a quick oven.
Split while hot, butter and cut into triangular pieces, six to each
cake. Do not divide them until the triangles are drawn from the plate
by those who are to eat them.
Tea scones
Mix as directed in recipe for tea cakes, but cut into rounds with a
small biscuit cutter. Bake upon a soapstone griddle, upon both sides,
to a delicate brown; split and butter while hot. Line a plate or a tray
with a napkin, lay in the scones and fold the corners of the napkin
lightly over them.
Oatmeal scones
To three cupfuls of oatmeal add one of white flour, a teaspoonful of
salt and two of baking-powder. Heat three cupfuls of milk to scalding,
not to boiling, stir in a tablespoonful of sugar with two and a half
of butter, and mix with a wooden spoon these ingredients into a soft
dough.
_Do not touch it with your hands._
Turn out upon a kneading-board, roll into a sheet less than a quarter
of an inch thick, cut into rounds with a large biscuit-cutter, and bake
upon a hot soapstone griddle, turning to brown. Butter while hot.
Virginia wafers
Rub two tablespoonfuls of butter into a pint of flour, add enough iced
water to make a stiff dough, put up on a floured pastry board, and roll
out as thin as writing paper in rounds as large as a saucer. Bake in a
floured pan in a quick oven.
They should be rough and “bubbly” on top. Eat cold.
Corn-meal tea cakes
Mix fine white corn-meal with boiling milk; gradually add a little
salt, and let it simmer half an hour or more, then drop it from a large
spoon upon a soapstone griddle, and bake on both sides to an even
brown. Butter and eat _hot_.
Bristol tea cakes
Rub two level tablespoonfuls of butter into four cupfuls of sifted
flour; mix it with thin cream to a soft dough to roll out; toss the
dough upon a floured board, cut with a biscuit cutter into rounds and
bake on a hot griddle, or in the oven; split and butter them; serve on
a napkin.
Raisin bread
Make as you would ordinary white bread, with the addition of one-half
cupful of raisins to a small loaf. Spread thin, triangular slices of
this with butter, and then with a layer of cream cheese.
Hot milk tea cakes
Into three well-whipped eggs beat a cupful of sugar, a large cupful of
prepared flour, and a teaspoonful of vanilla. Beat hard; add a gill of
scalding hot milk, stir in quickly and turn the mixture into greased
pâté-pans. These cakes are best if eaten hot, but are also good cold.
Stuffed rolls
Light rolls, shaped like finger rolls, but larger, may be cut open
on one side, the crumb dug out and the cavity filled with minced and
seasoned chicken, turkey, ham, or tongue. Close the roll and bind it
with narrow ribbon tied with a bow and floating ends. You may tie the
ham rolls with one color, the chicken with another.
Peanut crisps
One cupful of roasted and chopped peanuts, one cupful of powdered
sugar, one tablespoonful of flour and the whites of two eggs. The
mixture is dropped on a buttered paper and baked to a light brown in a
moderate oven. A quart of unshelled peanuts will yield the necessary
cupful of chopped nuts.
Salted almonds
Shell and blanch the almonds by pouring boiling water over them,
letting them stand for ten minutes, then stripping off the skins. Dry
the nuts between the folds of a clean dish towel, and put them in a
baking-pan with a tablespoonful of melted butter. Turn them over and
over in this until all are coated, then set the pan in the oven until
the nuts are delicately browned, stirring often, that all may brown
evenly. Turn into a colander, strew thickly with fine salt, and shake
the colander hard to dislodge superfluous salt and grease. When cold,
the nuts will be crisp. Keep in a dry place.
Peanut butter for sandwiches
Shell and skin freshly-roasted peanuts and pound or grind them to a
fine powder. Mix to a smooth paste, with half as much butter as you
have peanut powder. If the butter is rather fresh, add a little salt.
Cream cheese for sandwiches
Into a broad pan pour the fresh warm milk as soon as possible after it
is milked; set at the side of the range and bring slowly to the point
where it just begins to simmer. Remove at once and set in the ice-box,
where it will cool suddenly, and leave it there for six or eight hours.
Now skim and press the clotted cream into small jars or deep saucers.
Sprinkle the top of the cream with fine salt, and cover. Keep in a cold
place until wanted.
Marguerites
The white of one egg, partly beaten; two tablespoonfuls of sugar, and
one-half cupful of chopped walnuts. Stir all together and spread on
wafers, or upon long narrow crackers. Bake to a light brown.
Ham and chicken sandwiches
Into a pint of cold boiled or roast chicken, chopped very fine, stir a
cupful of minced ham; season with a few minced olives, and moisten with
salad oil. Add white pepper to taste, and spread between thin slices of
crustless white bread, buttered lightly.
Cheese and olive sandwiches
Mix cream cheese and chopped olives together; spread very thin slices
of bread with the mixture; serve on a folded napkin.
Egg and olive sandwiches
Boil six eggs hard, remove the shells and chop the eggs very, very
fine. Stone and chop eighteen large olives, and mix these with the
minced egg. Moisten all with a little melted butter, season to taste
and mix to a moist paste. Spread on thin slices of crustless bread, and
press the two halves of the sandwich firmly together.
Lettuce and cream cheese sandwiches
Cut white bread into very thin slices and remove the crusts, then
butter lightly. Spread with Philadelphia cream cheese. Dip a leaf of
crisp lettuce in a French salad dressing, and lay it upon a slice of
the bread, then press another slice upon it. With a sharp pair of
scissors trim off the projecting leaf of lettuce. Pile these sandwiches
on a plate, cover and keep in the ice-box until wanted.
FRAPPÉ BEVERAGES
A pleasant custom prevalent at many summer afternoon teas is that of
passing nearly frozen beverages for the refreshment and delectation of
the guests. These glacés or frappés are so easily prepared that the
veriest tyro in the ice-making art need not be afraid to attempt them.
On a warm day they are a refreshing variety upon the conventional cup
of tea, and are so light and innocuous as not to interfere with the
enjoyment of the dinner which must come an hour or two later. These
ices are served in glasses, and with spoons.
Café frappé
Put two cupfuls of finely-ground coffee into a large French coffee-pot,
or biggin, and pour upon it two quarts of boiling water. When this has
dripped through the strainer, pour it into a pitcher and turn it back
into the strainer. Repeat this process four times, then pour the clear
coffee into a bowl, and stir into it two large cupfuls of granulated
sugar. Stir until the sugar is dissolved and set aside to cool. When
cold, add the unbeaten whites of two eggs, turn into a freezer and
grind until frozen, but still rather soft. When turned into a glass
it should be of about the consistency of soft snow. This rule of
consistency applies to all these frozen beverages.
Tea frappé
Scald a china teapot, put into it six teaspoonfuls of the best mixed
tea and pour upon it eight cupfuls of freshly-boiling water. Let this
stand for six or eight minutes, strain it into a bowl, and sweeten to
taste. When cold, turn into the freezer.
Frosted lemonade
Boil together for fifteen minutes two quarts of water, and four cupfuls
of granulated sugar. Remove from the fire and when the syrup is
lukewarm, add the juice of a dozen lemons. Set aside until cold, then
freeze.
Frozen orangeade
Mix together the juice from six oranges and two lemons. Boil together
three cupfuls of water and one cupful of sugar for ten minutes; remove
from the fire and add the orange and lemon juice. When cold, add the
unbeaten white of one egg, and freeze.
Frozen raspberry juice
Mash two quarts of red raspberries and cover them with three heaping
cupfuls of granulated sugar. Let this stand in a warm place for an
hour, then press through a cheese-cloth bag or a vegetable press to
extract all the juice. To this add the juice of three lemons and of one
orange, and two quarts of cold water. Stir well together and freeze.
Some persons put a spoonful of whipped cream upon each glass of this
ice. The contrast of the white with the pink is very pretty.
Ginger ale frappé
Open three bottles of imported ginger ale and turn the contents into
a bowl. Add the juice of four lemons and a half cupful of granulated
sugar. Stir until the sugar is dissolved; turn the mixture into a
freezer, and freeze. This ice is very refreshing.
WAFERS
Graham wafers
Sift three cupfuls of graham flour and one cupful of white flour with a
heaping teaspoonful of salt and two teaspoonfuls of baking powder. Melt
two tablespoonfuls of butter with one of sugar in a pint of scalding
milk. Make a hole in the middle of the flour, and pour this in. Stir to
a soft dough, turn upon a floured pastry-board, roll out quickly and
lightly into a thin sheet, cut into rounds with a biscuit-cutter, and
bake in a floured baking pan until brown and crisp. While hot, spread
lightly with butter.
Lemon wafers
Cream a cup of butter with two cups of sugar, work in two beaten eggs,
a small cup of cold water and the grated rind and the juice of a large
lemon. Add flour to make the dough stiff enough to roll out; roll very
thin, cut into rounds and bake. Orange wafers may be made in the same
way.
Vanilla wafers
Cream a cup of butter with two cups of sugar, add three well-beaten
eggs and vanilla to taste. Stir in just enough flour to make a soft
dough that can be rolled. Roll very thin, cut into rounds, and bake.
Peanut wafers
Cream together four tablespoonfuls of butter and a half-cup of sugar.
When this mixture is soft and creamy add the well-whipped yolks of two
eggs, four tablespoonfuls of milk, a cup of roasted and ground peanuts,
and enough flour to make a good dough. Roll into a thin sheet, cut into
rounds and bake.
STEWED FRUIT, PRESERVES, FRUIT JELLIES, MARMALADES, ETCETERA
STEWED FRUIT