up, and boil about half an hour. Add salt, butter or cream, and sugar.
Adding green corn cut from the cob is a good variety. Some use pounded
or grated stale bread-crumbs to thicken. Some slice without peeling,
broil on a gridiron, and then season with pepper, salt, and butter.
Some peel, slice, and put in layers, with seasoning and bread-crumbs
between, and bake in an oven. If eaten raw, the skins should be
removed by a knife, as scalding lessens flavor and crispness. Ice
improves them much. The acid is so sharp that many are injured by
eating too many.
=Cucumbers.=—Peel and slice into cold water, and in half an hour drain
and season with salt, pepper, and vinegar. Some slice them quarter of
an inch thick into boiling water, enough to cover them, and in fifteen
minutes drain through a colander, and season with butter, salt,
pepper, and vinegar.
=Cabbage and Cauliflower.=—Take off the outer leaves and look for
any insects to be removed, and let it stand in cold water awhile. It
should be cut twice transversely through the hardest part, that all
may cook alike. It is more delicate if boiled awhile in one water,
then changed to another boiling hot water, in the same or another
vessel. If you are cooking corned beef, use for the second water some
of the meat liquor, and it improves the flavor. Drain it through a
colander. Some chop the cabbage before serving, and add butter, salt,
pepper, and vinegar. Others omit the vinegar, and add two beaten eggs
and a little milk, then bake it like a pudding. This is the favorite
mode in some families. Cauliflower is to be treated like cabbage.
=Asparagus.=—The best way to cook it is to cut it into inch pieces,
leave out the hardest parts, boil in salted water, drain with a
colander, and add pepper, salt, melted butter or cream, when taken up.
Some beat up eggs and add to this; stir till hardened a little, and
then serve.
=Macaroni.=—Break into inch pieces and put into salted boiling water,
and stew till soft—say twenty minutes. Drain it and put it in layers
in a pudding-dish, with grated cheese between each layer. Add a little
salted milk or cream, and bake about half an hour. Many can not eat
this with cheese. In this case it is better to pour cold soup or gravy
upon it, and bake without cheese.
=Various Ways of cooking Eggs.=—Put eggs into boiling water from three
to five minutes, according to taste. A hard-boiled egg is perfectly
healthy if well masticated. Another way is to put them in a bowl or an
egg-boiler, and pour on boiling water for two or three minutes, then
pour off the water and add boiling water, and in five or six minutes
the eggs will be cooked enough.
To make a _plain omelet_, beat the yelks of six eggs, add a cup of
milk, season with salt and pepper, and then stir in the whites cut to
a stiff froth. Cook in a frying-pan or griddle, with as little butter
or fat as possible. Let it cook about ten minutes, and then take up
with a spad, or lay a hot dish over and turn the omelet on to it. This
is improved by mixing in chopped ham or fowl. Some put sugar in, but
it is more apt to burn.
A _bread omelet_ is made as above, with bread-crumbs added, and is
very good.
An _apple omelet_ is made as above, with mashed apple-sauce added, and
this also is very good. Jelly may be used instead of apple.
CHAPTER XIII.
FAMILY BREAD.
The most important article of food is good family bread, and the most
healthful kind of bread is that made of coarse flour and raised with
yeast. All that is written against the healthfulness of yeast is owing
to sheer ignorance, as the most learned physicians and chemists will
affirm.
Certain recent writers on hygiene are ultra and indiscriminating in
regard to the use of unbolted flour. The simple facts about it are
these: Every kernel of wheat contains nutriment for different parts
of the body, and in about the right proportions. Thus, the outside
part contains that which nourishes the bones, teeth, hair, nails,
and the muscles. The germ, or eye, contains what nourishes the brain
and nerves; and the central part (of which fine flour is chiefly
made) consists of that which forms fat, and furnishes fuel to produce
animal heat, while in gentle combustion it unites with oxygen in the
capillaries. When first ground, the flour contains all the ingredients
as in the kernel. The first bolting alters the proportions but very
little, forming what is called _middlings_. The second bolting
increases the carbonaceous proportion, making _fine_ flour. The third
bolting makes the superfine flour, and removes nearly all except the
carbonaceous portion, which is fitted only to form fat and generate
animal heat. No animal could live on superfine flour alone but for a
short time, as has been proved by experiments on dogs.
But meats, vegetables, fruit, eggs, milk, and several other articles
in family diet contain the same elements as wheat, though in different
proportions; so that it is only an _exclusive_ use of fine flour that
is positively dangerous. Still there is no doubt that a large portion
of young children using white bread for common food, especially if
butter, sugar, and molasses are added, have their teeth, bones, and
muscles not properly nourished. And it is a most unwise, uneconomical,
and unhealthful practice to use flour deprived of its most important
elements because it is white and is fashionable. It would be much
cheaper, as well as more healthful, to use the _middlings_, instead
of fine or superfine flour. It would be still better to use unbolted
flour, except where delicate stomachs can not bear it, and in that case
the middlings would serve nearly as well for nutrition and give no
trouble.
Some suppose that bread wet with milk is better than if wet with water,
in the making. Many experienced housekeepers say that a little butter
or lard in warm water makes bread that looks and tastes exactly like
that wet with milk, and that it does not spoil so soon.
Experienced housekeepers say also that bread, _if thoroughly kneaded_,
may be put in the pans, and then baked as soon as light enough, without
the second or third kneading, which is often practiced. This saves care
and trouble, especially in training new cooks, who thus have only one
chance to make mistakes, instead of two or three.
It is not well to use yeast powders instead of yeast, because it is a
daily taking of medicinal articles not needed, and often injurious.
Cream tartar is supertartrate of potash, and soda is a supercarbonate
of soda. These two, when united in dough, form tartrate of potash,
tartrate of soda, and carbonate of soda; while some one of the three
tends to act chemically and injuriously on the digestive fluids.
Professor Hosford’s method is objectionable for the same reason,
especially when his medical articles are mixed with flour; for
thus poor flour is sold more readily than in ordinary cases. These
statements the best-informed medical men and chemists will verify.
Flour loses its sweetness by keeping, and this is the reason why sugar
is put in the recipes for bread. The best kind of flour, when new and
fresh ground, has eight per cent. of sugar; and when such flour is
used, the sugar may be omitted.
Some people make bread by mixing it so that it can be stirred with a
spoon. But the nicest kind of bread can be made only with a good deal
of kneading.
RECIPES FOR YEAST AND BREAD.
The best yeast is brewers’ or distillery, as this raises bread much
sooner than home-brewed. The following is the best kind of home-made
yeast, and will keep good two or three weeks:
=Hop and Potato Yeast.=—Pare and slice five large potatoes, and boil
them in one quart of water with a large handful of common hops (or a
square inch of pressed hops), tied in a muslin rag. When soft, take
out the hops and press the potatoes through a colander, and add a
small cup of white sugar, a tea-spoonful of ginger, two tea-spoonfuls
of salt, and two tea-cups of common yeast, or half as much distillery.
Add the yeast when the rest is only blood-warm. White sugar keeps
better than brown, and the salt and ginger help to preserve the yeast.
Do not boil in iron or use an iron spoon, as it colors the yeast. Keep
yeast in a stone or earthenware jar, with a plate fitting well to the
rim. This is better than a jug, as easier to fill and to cleanse.
Scald the jar before making new yeast.
The rule for _quantity_ is, one table-spoonful of brewers’ or
distillery yeast to every quart of flour; or twice as much home-made
yeast.
=Potato Yeast= is made by the above rule, omitting the hops. It can be
used in large quantities without giving a bitter taste, and so raises
bread sooner. But it has to be renewed much oftener than hop yeast,
and the bread loses the flavor of hop yeast.
=Hard Yeast= is made with home-brewed yeast (not brewers’ or
distillery), thickened with Indian meal and fine flour in equal parts,
and then made into cakes an inch thick and three inches by two in
size, dried in the wind but not in the sun. Keep them tied in a bag
in a dry, cool place, where they will not freeze. One cake soaked in
a pint of warm water (not hot) is enough for four quarts of flour.
It is a good plan to work in mashed potatoes into this yeast, and
let it rise well before using it. This makes the nicest bread. Some
housekeepers say pour boiling water on one third of the flour, and
then mix the rest in immediately, and it has the same effect as using
potatoes.
When there is no yeast to start with, it can be made with one pint
of new milk, one tea-spoonful of fine salt, and a table-spoonful of
flour. When it is worked, use twice as much as common yeast. This is
called Milk Yeast or Salt Risings, and bread made of it is poor, and
soon spoils.
When yeast ceases to look foamy, and becomes watery, with sediment at
the bottom, it must be renewed. When good, the smell is pungent, but
not sour. If sour, nothing can restore it.
=Bread of Fine Flour.=—Take four quarts of sifted flour, one quart of
lukewarm water, in which are dissolved two tea-spoonfuls of salt, two
tea-spoonfuls of sugar, a table-spoonful of melted butter, and one
cup of yeast. Mix and knead _very thoroughly_, and have it as soft as
can be molded, using as little flour as possible. Make it into small
loaves, put it in buttered pans, prick it with a fork, and when light
enough to crack on the top, bake it. Nothing but experience will show
when bread is just at the right point of lightness.
If bread rises too long, it becomes sour. This is discovered by
making a sudden opening and applying the nose, and the sourness
will be noticed as different from the odor of proper lightness.
Practice is needed in this. If bread is light too soon for the oven,
knead it awhile, and set it in a cool place. Sour bread can be
remedied somewhat by working in soda dissolved in water—about half a
tea-spoonful for each quart of flour. Many spoil bread by too much
flour, others by not kneading enough, and others by allowing it to
rise too much.
The goodness of bread depends on the quality of the flour. Some
flour will not make good bread in any way. New and good flour has a
yellowish tinge, and when pressed in the hand is adhesive. Poor flour
is dry, and will not retain form when pressed. Poor flour is bad
economy, for it does not make as nutritious bread as does good flour.
Bread made with milk sometimes causes indigestion to invalids and to
children with weak digestion.
Take loaves out of the pans, and set them sidewise, and not flat, on a
table. Wrapping in a cloth makes the bread clammy.
Bread is better in small loaves. Let your pans be of tin (or better,
of iron), eight inches long, three inches high, three inches wide at
the bottom, and flaring so as to be four inches wide at the top. This
size makes more tender crust, and cuts more neatly than larger loaves.
Oil the pans with a swab and sweet butter or lard. They should be well
washed and dried, or black and rancid oil will gather.
All these kinds of bread can be baked in biscuit-form; and, by adding
water and eggs, made into griddle-cakes. Bread having potatoes in it
keeps moist longest, but turns sour soonest.
=Bread of Middlings or Unbolted Flour.=—Take four quarts of coarse
flour, one quart of warm water, one cup of yeast, two tea-spoonfuls
of salt, one spoonful of melted lard or butter, two cups of sugar or
molasses, and half a tea-spoonful of soda. Mix thoroughly, and bake in
pans the same as the bread of fine flour. It is better to be kneaded
rather than made soft with a spoon.
=Bread raised with Water only.=—Many persons like bread made either of
fine or coarse flour, and raised with water only. Success in making
this kind depends on the proper quantity of water, quick beating, the
heating of very small pans, and very quick baking. There are cast-iron
patties made for this purpose, and also small, coarse earthen cups.
The following is the rule, but it must be modified by trying:
_Recipe._—To one quart of unbolted flour put about one quart, or a
little less, of hot water. Beat it very quickly, put it in hot pans,
and bake in a hot oven. White flour may be used in place of coarse,
and the quantity ascertained by trial. When right, there is after
baking little except a crust, which is sweet and crisp.
=Rye and Indian Bread.=—The Boston or Eastern Brown Bread is made
thus: One quart of rye, one quart of corn-meal, one cup of molasses,
half a cup of distillery yeast, or twice as much home-brewed; one
tea-spoonful of soda, and one tea-spoonful of salt. Wet with hot water
till it is stiff as can be stirred with a spoon. This is put in a
large brown pan and baked four or five hours. It is good toasted, and
improved by adding boiled squash.
=Third Bread.=—This is made with equal parts of rye, corn-meal, and
unbolted flour. To one quart of warm water add one tea-spoonful of
salt, half a cup of distillery or twice as much home-brewed yeast, and
half a cup of molasses, and thicken with equal parts of these three
kinds of flour. It is very good for a variety.
=Rye Bread.=—Take a quart of warm water, a tea-spoonful of salt, half
a cup of molasses, and a cup of home-brewed yeast, or half as much of
distillery. Add flour till you can knead it, and do it very thoroughly.
=Oat-meal Bread.=—Oat-meal is sometimes bitter from want of care in
preparing. When good, it makes excellent and healthful bread.
Take one pint of boiling water, one great-spoonful of sweet lard or
butter, two great-spoonfuls of sugar; melt them together, and thicken
with two-thirds Oat-meal and one-third fine flour. When blood-warm,
add half a cup of home-brewed yeast and two well-beaten eggs. Mold
into small cakes, and bake on buttered tins, or make two loaves.
=Pumpkin Bread and Apple Bread.=—These are very good for a variety.
Stew and strain pumpkins or apples, and then work in either corn-meal
or unbolted flour, or both. To each quart of the fruit add two
table-spoonfuls of sugar, a pinch of salt, and a cup of home-brewed
yeast. If the apples are quite sour, add more sugar. Make it as stiff
as can be stirred with a spoon, and bake in patties or small loaves.
Children like it for a change.
=Corn-Meal Bread.=—Always scald corn-meal. Melt two table-spoonfuls of
butter or sweet lard in one quart of hot water; add a tea-spoonful of
salt and a tea-cup of sugar. Thicken with corn-meal, and one-third as
much fine flour, or unbolted flour, or middlings. Two well-beaten eggs
improve it. Make it as stiff as can be easily stirred with a spoon,
or, as some would advise, knead it like bread of white flour.
If raised with yeast, put in a tea-cup of home-brewed yeast, or half
as much of distillery. If raised with powders, mix two tea-spoonfuls
of cream tartar _thoroughly_ with the meal, and one tea-spoonful of
soda in the water.
=Sweet Rolls of Corn-Meal.=—Mix half corn-meal and half fine or
unbolted flour; add a little salt, and then wet it up with sweetened
water, raise it with yeast, and bake in small patties or cups in a
very quick oven.
=Soda Biscuit.=—In one quart of flour mix _very thoroughly_ two
tea-spoonfuls of cream tartar, and a tea-spoonful of salt. Dissolve in
a pint of warm water one tea-spoonful of soda and one table-spoonful
of melted butter or lard. _Mix quickly_; add flour till you can roll,
but let it be as soft as possible. Bake in a quick oven, and as soon
as possible after mixing.
=Yeast Biscuit.=—Take a pint of raised dough of fine flour: pick it in
small pieces; add one well-beaten egg, two great-spoonfuls of butter
or lard, and two great-spoonfuls of sugar. Work thoroughly for ten
minutes; add flour to roll, and then cut in round cakes and bake on
tins, or mold into biscuits. Let them stand till light, and then bake
in a quick oven.
If you have no dough raised, make biscuit as you would bread, except
adding more shortening.
=Potato Biscuit.=—Boil and press through a colander twelve _mealy_
potatoes; any others are not good. While warm, add one cup of butter,
one tea-spoonful of salt, four great-spoonfuls of sugar, and half
a cup of yeast. Mix in white or coarse flour till it can be well
kneaded. Mold into small cakes; let them stand till light, and bake in
a quick oven. These are the best kind, especially if made of coarse
flour.
=Buns.=—These are best made by the rule for potato biscuit, adding
twice as much sugar. When done, rub over a mixture of half milk and
half molasses, and it improves looks and taste.
CHAPTER XIV.
BREAKFAST AND SUPPER.
What shall we have for breakfast to-morrow? is the constant question
of trial to a housekeeper, and it is the aim of the present chapter to
meet this want by presenting a good and successive variety of articles
healthful, economical, and easily prepared.
Some of the best housekeepers have taken this method: they provide a
good supply of the following articles, to be used in succession—rice,
corn-meal, rye flour, wheat grits, unbolted wheat, cracked wheat, pearl
wheat, oat grits, Oat-meal, and hominy, with which they make a new
article for every day in the week. Some one of these is selected for
either a dinner vegetable or dessert, or for a dish at tea, and the
remainder used for the next morning’s breakfast.
The following will indicate the methods:
=Corn-Meal.=—Take four large cups of corn-meal, and scald it. In _all_
cases, scald corn-meal before using it. Add half a cup of fine flour,
three table-spoonfuls of sugar or molasses, one tea-spoonful of soda,
and one of salt. Make a batter, and boil an hour or more, stirring
often; or, better, cook in a tin pail set in boiling water. Use it as
mush, with butter, sugar, and milk for supper. Next morning, thin it
with hot water: add two or three eggs, and bake either as muffins or
griddle-cakes.
=Hominy.=—Soak and then boil a quart of hominy with two heaping
tea-spoonfuls of salt. Use it for dinner as a vegetable, or for supper
with sugar and milk or cream. Next morning use the remainder, soaked
in water or milk, with two eggs and a salt-spoonful of salt. Bake as
muffins or griddle-cakes, or cut in slices, dipped in flour and fried.
Farina may be used in the same way.
=Rice.=—Pick over one pint of rice; add two tea-spoonfuls of salt
and three quarts of _boiling_ water. Then boil fifteen minutes; then
uncover; let it steam fifteen minutes. This to be used for a vegetable
at dinner, or for a tea-dish, with butter and sugar. At night, soak
the remainder in as much milk or water, and next morning add as much
fine or unbolted flour as there was rice, three eggs, a tea-spoonful
of salt, and half a tea-spoonful of soda. Thin with water or milk, and
bake as muffins or griddle-cakes.
=The most economical Breakfast Dish=, (healthful also).—Keep a jar for
remnants of bread, both coarse and fine, for potatoes, remnants of
hominy, rice, grits, cracked wheat, Oat-meal, and all other articles
used on table. Add all remnants of milk, whether sour or sweet, and
water enough to soak all, so as to be soft, but not thin. When enough
is collected, add enough water to make a batter for griddle-cakes, and
put in enough soda to sweeten it. Add two spoonfuls of sugar, and half
a tea-spoonful of salt, and two eggs for each quart, and you make an
excellent dish of material, most of it usually wasted. Thicken it a
little with fine flour, and it makes fine waffles.
=Biscuits of sour Milk and white or unbolted Flour.=—One pint unbolted
flour.
One spoonful of sugar.
One tea-spoonful of salt.
Melt a spoonful of butter in a little of the sour milk; then mix all,
and just before setting in the oven, add very _quickly_ and very
_thoroughly_ a tea-spoonful of soda dissolved in half a tea-cup of
water. This should be done last and quickly, so that the carbonic
acid gas produced by the union of the soda and the acid of the milk
(lactic) may not escape. Use half a tea-cup of fine flour when molding
into biscuits.
=Pearl Wheat or Cracked Wheat.=—Boil one pint in a pail set in
boiling water till quite soft, but so as not to lose its form. Add a
tea-spoonful of sugar, and as much salt; also water, when needed. It
must boil a long time. Eat a part for supper, with sugar and cream,
and next morning add two eggs, a great-spoonful of sugar, and fine
flour enough to make it suitable for muffin-rings or drop-cakes.
=Rye and Corn-Meal.=—Put into a pint and a half of boiling water one
tea-spoonful of salt, two great-spoonfuls of sugar, two well-beaten
eggs, three great-spoonfuls of corn-meal or unbolted wheat.
Thicken with rye flour, and then add two well-beaten eggs. Bake in
muffin-rings or as drop-cakes.
=Oat-meal.=—Take one pint of boiling water, and pour it on to one pint
of Oat-meal. Add a great-spoonful of butter, half a tea-spoonful of
salt, and two great-spoonfuls of sugar. Stir fast and thoroughly; then
add two well-beaten eggs, and boil twenty minutes. To be eaten as mush
for supper; and next morning thin it, and bake in muffin-rings.
Several of the above articles are good with only salt and water; and
many persons would like them better with the butter, sugar, and eggs
omitted.
=Wheat Muffins.=—One pint of milk, and two eggs.
One table-spoonful of yeast, and a salt-spoonful of salt. One
table-spoonful of butter.
Mix these ingredients with sufficient flour to make a thick batter.
Let it rise four or five hours, and bake in muffin-rings. This can
be made of unbolted flour or grits, adding two great-spoonfuls of
molasses, and it is very fine. Make it so thick that a table-spoon
will stand erect in it.
=Sally Lunn, improved.=—Seven tea-cups of unbolted flour, or fine
flour.
One pint of water.
Half a cup of melted butter, and half a cup of sugar.
One pinch of salt.
Three well-beaten eggs.
Two table-spoonfuls of brewers’ yeast, or twice as much of home-brewed.
Pour into square buttered pans, and let it rise two or three hours
with brewers’ yeast; with home-brewed, five hours are required. It is
still better baked in patties.
=Cream Griddle-Cakes.=—One pint of thick cream.
One tea-spoonful of salt.
One table-spoonful of sugar.
Three well-beaten eggs.
Make a thin batter of unbolted or of fine flour, and bake on a griddle.
=Royal Crumpets.=—Three tea-cups of raised dough.
Two table-spoonfuls of melted butter.
Half a tea-cup of white sugar, mixed with three well-beaten eggs.
Bake in two buttered pans for half an hour.
=Muffins of fine Flour or unbolted Flour.=—One pint of milk or water.
One pinch of salt.
Two well-beaten eggs.
One table-spoonful of yeast.
Make a thick batter of fine flour or unbolted flour, and let it rise
four or five hours. Bake in muffin-rings.
=Unbolted Flour Waffles.=—One pint of unbolted flour.
One pint of sour milk, or buttermilk, or water.
Half a tea-spoonful of soda, or more if needed, to sweeten the milk.
Three well-beaten eggs.
Two table-spoonfuls of sugar.
=Drop-Cakes of fine Wheat or of Rye.=—One pint of milk or water.
One pinch of salt.
Two table-spoonfuls of sugar.
Three well-beaten eggs.
Stir in rye, or fine or unbolted flour to a thick batter, and bake in
cups or patties half an hour.
=Sachem’s Head Corn-Cake.=—One quart of sifted corn-meal, scalded.
One tea-spoonful of salt.
Three pints of scalded sweet milk or water.
Half a tea-spoonful of soda in two great-spoonfuls of warm water.
Half a tea-cup of sugar.
Eight eggs, the whites beaten separately, and added the last thing.
Make the cakes an inch thick in buttered pans before baking, and,
if baked right, they will puff up to double the thickness, like
sponge-cake, and are very fine.
=Rice Waffles.=—One pint of milk. Half a tea-cup of solid boiled rice,
soaked three hours in the milk.
Two cups of wheat flour or rice flour.
Three well-beaten eggs. Bake in waffle-irons.
The rice must be salted enough when boiled.
=Another Rice Dish.=—One pint of rice, well cleaned.
Three quarts of cold water.
Three tea-spoonfuls of salt.
Boil it twenty minutes; then pour off the water, add milk or cream,
and let it boil ten minutes longer, till quite soft. Let it stand till
cold, and then cut it in slices and fry it on a griddle. It can also
be made into griddle-cakes or muffins by the preceding recipe.
=A good and easy Way to use cold Rice.=—Heat a pint of boiled rice in
milk; add two well-beaten eggs, a little salt, butter, and sugar; let
it boil up once, and then grate on nutmeg.
=Buckwheat-Cakes.=—One quart of buckwheat.
One tea-spoonful of salt.
Two table-spoonfuls of distillery yeast, or four of home-brewed.
Two table-spoonfuls of molasses.
Wet the flour with warm water, and then add the other articles. Keep
this warm through the night. If it sours, add half a tea-spoonful of
soda in warm water. These cakes have a handsomer brown if wet with
milk or part milk.
=Fine Cottage Cheese.=—Let the milk be turned by rennet, or by setting
it in a warm place. It must not be _heated_, as the oily parts will
then pass off, and the richness is lost. When fully turned, put in a
coarse linen bag, and hang it to drain several hours, till all the
whey is out. Then mash it fine, salt it to the taste, and thin it with
good cream, or add but little cream, and roll it into balls. When
thin, it is very fine with preserves or sugared fruit.
It also makes a fine pudding, by thinning it with milk, and adding
eggs and sugar, and spice to the taste, and baking it. Many persons
use milk when turned to _bonny-clabber_ for a dessert, putting on
sugar and spice. Children are fond of it.
CHAPTER XV.
PUDDINGS AND PIES.
Where sugar is made by slaves, the little children feed constantly
on it, and grow fat and healthy. But they are nearly naked, live
out-of-doors, exercise constantly, and have nothing to do but play.
Thus their lungs and skin gain the healthful and purifying action of
the air and the sun, and the excess of carbonaceous food is rendered
harmless. But for those whose skin never meets the sun, rarely meets
the air, and only now and then some water, a very different regimen is
needful. Sugar, molasses, butter, and fats are chiefly carbonaceous,
and therefore demand a large supply of oxygen through lungs and skin.
And yet our custom is to use fine flour, which is chiefly carbon;
butter and cream, chiefly carbon; sweet cakes, chiefly carbon;
sweetmeats and candy, chiefly carbon; and worst of all, pie-crusts,
chiefly carbon, and the most difficult of all food for digestion.
But the love for sweet food is common to all, and demands
gratification. All that is required is moderation and temperance. For
these reasons, a large supply is here provided of cakes and puddings,
which are not rich, and yet are as highly relished as richer food. As
pies are the most unhealthful of all food, some instruction and but few
recipes are given, lest, if entirely omitted, the book would not be
read so widely, and other more unhealthful ones be used.
The puddings here offered afford a great variety for desserts, are
made with far less labor than pies, and are both more economical and
more healthful. They also can be made more ornamental and attractive
in appearance, and equally good to the taste. It is hoped, therefore,
that the conscientious housekeeper will not tempt her family to eat
unhealthful food when such an abundance is offered that is at once
economical of labor, time, expense, and health. The first recipe for
pudding can be varied in many ways, and has the advantage which
heretofore has recommended pies, namely, that several can be made at
once, and kept on hand as equally good either cold or warmed over. It
is also economical and convenient, as not requiring eggs or milk.
=The Queen of all Puddings.=—Soak a tea-cup of tapioca and a
tea-spoonful of salt in three tumblerfuls of warm, not hot, water
for an hour or two, till softened. Take away the skins and cores of
apples without dividing them, put them in the dish with sugar in the
holes, and spice if the apples are without flavor: not otherwise. Add
a cup of water, and bake till the apples are softened, turning them
to prevent drying, and then pour over the tapioca, and bake _a long
time_, till all looks A BROWNISH YELLOW. Eat with a hard sauce. Do not
fail to bake a long time.
This can be extensively varied by mixing chopped apples, or quinces,
or oranges, or peaches, or any kind of berries with the tapioca; and
then sugar must be added according to the acid of the fruit, though
some would prefer it omitted when the sauce is used.
The beauty may be increased by a cover of sugar beaten into the
whites of eggs, and then turned to a yellow in the oven. Several such
puddings can be made at once, kept in a cool place, and when wanted
warmed over; many relish it better when very cold. Sago can be used
instead of tapioca. When no sago or tapioca are at hand, the following
recipe for flour pudding may be used, baking a long time.
=Flour Puddings.=—Take four table-spoonfuls of flour, half a
tea-spoonful of salt, a pint of water or milk, three eggs, and a
salt-spoonful of soda. Mix and beat very thoroughly, and bake as soon
as done, or it will not be light. It must bake till the middle is not
lower than the rest. Eat with liquid sauce. This can be cooked in a
covered tin pan set in boiling water. This is enough for a family of
five. Change the quantity according to the family.
This may be made richer by a spoonful of butter, more sugar, and some
flavoring.
It will be lighter not to beat the eggs separately. If a bag is used
to boil, rub flour or butter on the inside, to prevent sticking.
=Flour and Fruit Puddings.=—Add to the above, chopped apples or any
kind of berries. Chopped apples and quinces together are fine when
dried. When berries are used, a third more flour is needed for those
very juicy, and less for cherries. Put in fruit the last thing.
=Rusk and Milk.=—Keep all bits of bread, dry in the oven, and pound
them, putting half a salt-spoonful of salt to a pint. This eaten with
good milk is what is especially relished by children, and named “rusk
and milk.”
=Rusk Puddings.=—Mix equal quantities of rusk-crumbs with stewed fruit
or berries, then add a _very sweet_ custard, made with four or five
eggs to a quart of milk. Eaten with sweet sauce. This may be made
without fruit, and is good with sauce.
=Meat and Rusk Puddings.=—Chop any kind of cold meat with salt pork
or ham, season it well with butter, pepper, and salt, and add two or
three beaten eggs. Then make alternate layers of wet rusk-crumbs, with
milk or cold boiled hominy or rice, and bake half or three quarters of
an hour. Let the upper layer be crumbs, and cover with a plate while
baking, and, when nearly done, take it off to brown the top.
=A handsome and good Pudding easily made.=—Put a pint of scalded milk
(water will do as well) to a pint of bread-crumbs, and add the yelks
of four eggs, well beaten, a tea-cup of sugar, butter the size of an
egg, and the grated rind of one lemon. Bake, and, when cool, cover
with stewed fruit of any kind. Then beat the whites of the eggs into
five table-spoonfuls of powdered sugar and the juice of one lemon.
Cover the pudding with it, and set in the oven till it is a brownish
yellow. Puddings covered with sugar and eggs in this way are called
Meringue Puddings.
=Pan Dowdy.=—Put apples pared and sliced into a large pan, and put in
an abundance of molasses or sugar, and some spice if the apples have
little flavor; not otherwise. Cover with bread-dough, rolled thin, or
a potato pie-crust. Bake a long time, and then break the crust into
the fruit in small pieces. Children are very fond of this, especially
if well sweetened and baked a long time.
=Corn-Meal Pop-overs.=—Two tumblers of scalded corn-meal fresh ground,
three well-beaten eggs, a cup of milk or water, a tea-spoonful of
salt, and three of sugar, two spoonfuls of melted butter. Bake in hot
patties, and eat with sweet sauce.
=Best Apple-Pie.=—Take a deep dish, the size of a soup-plate, fill it
heaping with peeled tart apples, cored and quartered; pour over it one
tea-cup of molasses, and three great-spoonfuls of sugar, dredge over
this a considerable quantity of flour, enough to thicken the sirup a
good deal. Cover it with a crust made of cream, if you have it; if
not, common dough, with butter worked in, or plain pie-crust, lapping
the edge over the dish, and pinching it down tight, to keep the sirup
from running out. Bake about an hour and a half. Make several at once,
as they keep well.
=Rice Pudding.=—One tea-cup of rice.
One tea-cup of sugar.
One half tea-cup of butter.
One quart of milk.
Nutmeg, cinnamon, and salt to the taste.
Put the butter in melted, mix all in a pudding-dish, and bake it two
hours, stirring it frequently, until the rice is swollen. It is good
made without butter.
=Bread and Fruit Pudding=.—Butter a deep dish, and lay in slices of
bread and butter, wet with milk, and upon these sliced tart apples,
sweetened and spiced. Then lay on another layer of bread and butter
and apples, and continue thus till the dish is filled. Let the top
layer be bread and butter, and dip it in milk, turning the buttered
side down. Any other kind of fruit will answer as well. Put a plate on
the top, and bake two hours, then take it off and bake another hour.
=Boiled Fruit Pudding=.—Take light dough and work in a little butter,
roll it out into a very thin large layer, not a quarter of an inch
thick. Cover it thick with berries or stewed fruit, and put on sugar,
roll it up tight, double it once or twice, and fasten up the ends. Tie
it up in a bag, giving it room to swell. Eat it with butter, or sauce
not very sweet.
Blackberries, whortleberries, raspberries, apples, and peaches, all
make excellent puddings in the same way.
=English Curd Pudding.=—One quart of milk.
A bit of rennet to curdle it.
Press out the whey, and put into the curds three eggs, a nutmeg, and a
table-spoonful of brandy. Bake it like custard.
=Common Apple-Pie.=—Pare your apples, and cut them from the core. Line
your dishes with paste, and put in the apple; cover and bake until
the fruit is tender. Then take them from the oven, remove the upper
crust, and put in sugar and nutmeg, cinnamon or rose-water, to your
taste. A bit of sweet butter improves them. Also, to put in a little
orange-peel before they are baked, makes a pleasant variety. Common
apple-pies are very good, to stew, sweeten, and flavor the apple
before they are put into the oven. Many prefer the seasoning baked in.
All apple-pies are much nicer if the apple is grated and then seasoned.
=Plain Custard.=—Boil half a dozen peach-leaves, or the rind of a
lemon, or a vanilla bean in a quart of milk; when it is flavored, pour
into it a paste made by a table-spoonful of rice flour, or common
flour, wet up with two spoonfuls of cold milk and a half tea-spoonful
of salt, and stir it till it boils again. Then beat up four eggs and
put in, and sweeten it to your taste, and pour it out for pies or
pudding. More eggs make it a rich custard.
Bake as pudding, or boil in a tin pail set in boiling water, stirring
often, and pour into cups.
=Another Custard.=—Boil six peach-leaves, or a lemon-peel, in a quart
of milk, till it is flavored; cool it, add three spoonfuls of sugar, a
tea-spoonful of salt, and five eggs beaten to a froth. Put the custard
into a tin pail, set it in boiling water, and stir it till cooked
enough. Then turn it into cups; if preferred, it can be baked.
=Mush, or Hasty Pudding.=—Wet up the Indian-meal in cold water, till
there are no lumps, stir it gradually into boiling water which has a
little sugar and more salt added; boil till so thick that the stick
will stand in it. Boil slowly, and so as not to burn, stirring often.
Two or three hours’ boiling is needed. Pour it into a broad, deep
dish, let it grow cold, cut it into slices half an inch thick, flour
them, and fry them on a griddle with a little lard, or bake them in a
stove oven.
=Stale Bread Pudding=, (fine.)—Cut stale bread in thick slices, and
put it to soak for several hours in cold milk.
Then cook on a griddle, with some salt, and eat it with sugar, or
molasses, or a sweet sauce. To make it more delicate, take off the
crusts. It is still better to soak it in uncooked custard. Baker’s
bread is best.
=To prepare Rennet Wine.=—Put three inches square of calf’s rennet to
a pint of wine, and set it away for use. Three table-spoonfuls will
serve to curdle a quart of milk.
_Rennet Custard._—Put three table-spoonfuls of rennet wine to a quart
of milk, and add four or five great-spoonfuls of white sugar and a
salt-spoonful of salt. Flavor it with wine, or lemon, or rose-water.
It must be eaten in an hour, or it will turn to curds.
=Bird’snest Pudding.=—Pare tart, well-flavored apples, scoop out
the cores without dividing the apple, put them in a deep dish with
a small bit of mace, and a spoonful of sugar in the opening of each
apple. Pour in water enough to cook them. When soft, pour over them an
unbaked custard, so as just to cover them, and bake till the custard
is done.
=A Minute Pudding of Potato Starch.=—Take four heaped table-spoonfuls
of potato flour, three eggs, and a tea-spoonful of salt, and one quart
of milk. Boil the milk, reserving a little to moisten the flour. Stir
the flour to a paste, perfectly smooth, with the reserved milk, and
put it into the boiling milk. Add the eggs well beaten, let it boil
till very thick, which will be in two or three minutes, then pour into
a dish and serve with liquid sauce. After the milk boils, the pudding
must be stirred every moment till done.
=Tapioca Pudding.=—Soak eight table-spoonfuls of tapioca in a quart
of warm milk and tea-spoonful of sugar, till soft, then add two
table-spoonfuls of melted sweet lard or butter, five eggs well beaten,
spice, sugar, and wine to your taste. Bake in a buttered dish, without
any lining. Sago may be used in place of tapioca.
=Cocoa-Nut Pudding= (plain).—Take one quart of milk, five eggs, and
one cocoa-nut, grated. The eggs and sugar are beaten together, and
stirred into the milk when hot. Strain the milk and eggs, and add the
cocoa-nut, with nutmeg to the taste. Bake about twenty minutes like
puddings.
=New-England Squash or Pumpkin-Pie.=—Take a pumpkin or winter-squash,
cut in pieces, take off the rind and remove the seeds, and boil it
until tender, then rub it through a sieve. When cold, add to it milk
to thin it, and to each quart of milk five well-beaten eggs. Sugar,
cinnamon, and ginger to your taste. The quantity of milk must depend
upon the size and quality of the squash.
These pies require a moderate heat, and must be baked until the centre
is firm.
=Ripe Fruit Pies—Peach, Cherry, Plum, Currant, and Strawberry.=—Line
your dish with paste. After picking over and washing the fruit
carefully (peaches must be pared, and the rest picked from the stem),
place a layer of fruit and a layer of sugar in your dish, until it
is well filled, then cover it with paste, and trim the edge neatly,
and prick the cover. Fruit-pies require about an hour to bake in a
thoroughly-heated oven.
=Mock Cream.=—Beat three eggs well, and add three heaping
tea-spoonfuls of sifted flour. Stir it into a pint and a half of
boiling milk, add a salt-spoon of salt, and sugar to your taste.
Flavor with rose-water or essence of lemon.
This can be used for cream-cakes or pastry.
=A Pudding of Fruit and Bread Crumbs.=—Mix a pint of dried and pounded
bread-crumbs with an equal quantity of any kind of berries, or of
dried and chopped sour apples. Add three eggs, half a pint of milk,
three spoonfuls of fine flour, and half a tea-spoonful of salt. Bake
on a griddle or in an oven in muffin-rings, or, when made thinner, as
griddle-cakes. If dried fruit is used, more milk is needed than for
fresh berries.
This may also be boiled for a pudding. Flour the pudding-cloth and tie
tight, as it will not swell in cooking.
=Bread and Apple Dumplings.=—Mix half a pint of dried bread-crumbs and
half a pint of fine flour. Wet it with water and two eggs thick enough
to roll. Then put it around large apples peeled and cored whole, and
boil for dumplings in several small floured cloths, or put all into
one large floured cloth, tied tight, as they will not swell. Try with
a fork, and when the apples are soft, take up and serve with a sweet
sauce.
=An excellent Indian Pudding without Eggs.=—Take seven heaping
spoonfuls of scalded Indian meal, half a tea-spoonful of salt, two
spoonfuls of butter or sweet lard, a tea-cup of molasses, and two
tea-spoonfuls of ginger or cinnamon, to the taste. Pour into these a
quart of milk while boiling hot. Mix well and put in a buttered dish.
Just as you set in the oven, stir in a tea-cup of cold water, which
will produce the same effect as eggs. Bake three-quarters of an hour
in a dish that will not spread it out thin.
=Boiled Indian and Suet Pudding.=—Three pints of milk, ten heaping
table-spoonfuls of sifted Indian meal, a tumblerful of molasses,
two eggs. Scald the meal with the milk, add the molasses and a
tea-spoonful of salt. Put in the eggs when it is cool enough not to
scald them. Put in a table-spoonful of ginger. Tie the bag so that it
will be about two-thirds full of the pudding in order to give room to
swell. The longer it is boiled the better. Some like a little chopped
suet with the above.
=A Dessert of Rice and Fruit.=—Pick over and wash the rice, and boil
it fifteen minutes in water, with salt at the rate of a heaping
tea-spoonful to a quart. Rice is much improved by having the salt
put in while cooking. Pour out the water in fifteen minutes after it
begins to boil. Then pour in rich milk and boil till of a pudding
thickness. Then pour it into cups to harden, when it is to be turned
out inverted upon a platter in small mounds. Make an opening on the
top of each, and put in a pile of jelly or fruit. Lastly, pour over
all a custard made of three eggs, a pint of milk, and a tea-spoonful
of salt boiled in a tin pail set in boiling water. This looks very
prettily. Sweet cream with a little salt can be used instead of
custard. This can be modified by having the whole put in a bowl and
hardened, and then inverted and several openings made for the fruit.
=Another Dessert of Rice and Fruit.=—Boil the rice in salt and
water, a tea-spoonful to a quart of water. When cooked to a pudding
consistency, cool it, and then cut it in slices. Then put a thin layer
of rice at the bottom of a pudding-dish, cover it with a thin layer of
jelly or stewed fruit half an inch thick. Continue to add alternate
layers of rice and jelly or fruit, smooth it at top, grate on sugar,
and then cut the edges to show stripes of fruit and rice. Help it in
saucers, and have cream or a thin custard to pour on it. Make the
custard with two eggs, half a pint of milk, and half a tea-spoonful of
salt. Boil it in a pail set in boiling water.
=Dessert of cold Rice and stewed or grated Apple.=—Cut cold boiled
rice in slices, and then lay in a buttered pudding-dish alternate
layers of rice and grated or stewed apples. Add sugar and spice to
each layer of apples. Cover with the rice, smooth with a spoon dipped
in cold water or milk, and bake three-quarters of an hour if the
apples are raw. To be served with a sweet sauce.
=A rich Flour Pudding.=—Six eggs.
Three spoonfuls of flour.
One pint of milk.
A tea-spoonful of salt.
Beat the yelks well and mix them smoothly with the flour, then add the
milk. Lastly, whip the whites to a stiff froth; work them in, and bake
immediately.
To be eaten with a liquid sauce.
=Apple-Pie.=—Take fair apples; pare, core, and quarter them.
Take four table-spoonfuls of powdered sugar to a pie.
Put into a preserving-pan, with the sugar; water enough to make a thin
sirup; throw in a few blades of mace; boil the apple in the sirup
until tender, a little at a time, so as not to break the pieces. Take
them out with care, and lay them in soup-dishes.
When you have preserved apple enough for your number of pies, add
to the remainder of the sirup cinnamon and rose-water, or any other
spice, enough to flavor it well, and divide it among the pies. Make
a good paste, and line the rim of the dishes, and then cover them,
leaving the pies without an under crust. Bake them a light brown.
=Spiced Apple Tarts.=—Rub stewed or baked apples through a sieve;
sweeten them, and add powdered mace and cinnamon enough to flavor
them. If the apples are not very tart, squeeze in the juice of a
lemon. Some persons like the peel of the lemon grated into it. Line
soup-dishes with a light crust, double on the rim, and fill them and
bake them until the crust is done. Little bars of crust, a quarter of
an inch in width, crossed on the top of the tart before it is baked,
are ornamental.
=Baked Indian Pudding.=—Three pints of milk.
Ten heaping table-spoonfuls of Indian meal.
Three gills of molasses.
A piece of butter as large as a hen’s egg.
Scald the meal with the milk, and stir in the butter and molasses, and
bake four or five hours. Some add a little chopped suet in place of
the butter. This can be boiled.
=Apple Custard.=—Take half a dozen very tart apples, and take off
the skin and cores. Cook them till they begin to be soft, in half a
tea-cup of water. Then put them in a pudding-dish, and sugar them.
Then beat six eggs with four spoonfuls of sugar; mix it with three
pints of milk, and two tea-spoonfuls of salt; pour it over the apples,
and bake for about half an hour.
=Plain Macaroni or Vermicelli Puddings.=—Put two ounces of macaroni
or vermicelli into a pint of milk, and simmer until tender. Flavor it
by putting in two or three sticks of cinnamon while boiling, or some
other spice when done. Then beat up three eggs, mix in an ounce of
sugar, half a pint of milk, a tea-spoonful of salt, and a glass of
wine. Add these to the broken macaroni or vermicelli, and bake in a
slow oven.
=Green Corn Pudding.=—Twelve ears of corn, grated. Sweet-corn is best.
One pint and a half of milk. Four well-beaten eggs. One tea-cup and a
half of sugar.
Mix the above, and bake it three hours in a buttered dish. More sugar
is needed if common corn is used.
=Bread Pudding for Invalids or young Children.=—Grate half a pound
of stale bread; add a pinch of salt, and pour on a pint of hot milk,
and let it soak half an hour. Add two well-beaten eggs, put it in a
covered basin just large enough to hold it, tie it in a pudding-cloth,
and boil it half an hour; or put it in a buttered pan in an oven, and
bake it that time. Make a sauce of thin sweet cream, sweetened with
sugar, and flavored with rose-water or nutmeg.
=A good Pudding.=—Line a buttered dish with slices of wheat bread,
first dipped in milk. Fill the dish with sliced apple, and add sugar
and spice. Cover with slices of bread soaked in milk; cover close with
a plate, and bake three hours.
=Loaf Pudding.=—When bread is too stale, put a loaf in a pudding-bag
and boil it in salted water an hour and a half, and eat it with hard
pudding-sauce.
=A Lemon Pudding.=—Nine spoonfuls of grated apple, one grated lemon,
(peel and pulp,) one spoonful of butter, and three eggs. Mix and bake,
with or without a crust, about an hour. Cream improves it.
=Green Corn Patties=, (like oysters.)—Twelve ears of sweet-corn
grated. (Yellow corn will do, but not so well.)
One tea-spoonful of salt, and one of pepper.
One egg beaten into two table-spoonfuls of flour.
Mix, make into small cakes, and cook on a griddle.
=Cracker Plum Pudding=, (excellent.)—Make a very sweet custard, and
put into it a tea-spoonful of salt.
Take soda crackers, split them, and butter them very thick.
Put a layer of raisins on the bottom of a large pudding-dish, and then
a layer of crackers, and pour on a little of the custard when warm,
and after soaking a little, put on a thick layer of raisins, pressing
them into the crackers with a knife. Then put on another layer of
crackers, custard and fruit, and proceed thus till you have four
layers. Then pour over the whole enough custard to rise even with the
crackers. It is best made over night, so that the crackers may soak.
Bake from an hour and a half to two hours. During the first half-hour,
pour on, at three different times, a little of the custard, thinned
with milk, to prevent the top from being hard and dry. If it browns
fast, cover with paper.
Bread and butter pudding is made in a similar manner.
SAUCES FOR PUDDINGS.
=Liquid Sauce.=—Six table-spoonfuls of sugar. Ten table-spoonfuls of
water. Four table-spoonfuls of butter. Two table-spoonfuls of wine.
Nutmeg, or lemon, or orange-peel, or rose-water, to flavor.
Heat the water and sugar very hot. Stir in the butter till it is
melted, but be careful not to let it boil. Add the wine and nutmeg,
just before it is used.
=Hard Sauce.=—Two table-spoonfuls of butter.
Ten table-spoonfuls of sugar.
Work this till white, then add wine or grated lemon-peel, and spice to
your taste.
=Another Hard Sauce.=—Mix half as much butter as sugar, and heat it
fifteen minutes in a bowl set in hot water. Stir till it foams. Flavor
with wine or grated lemon-peel.
=A Healthful Pudding Sauce.=—Boil, in half a pint of water, some
orange or lemon-peel, or peach-leaves. Take them out and pour in a
thin paste, made with two spoonfuls of flour, and boil five minutes.
Then put in a pint of sugar, and let it boil. Then put in two
spoonfuls of butter, add a glass of wine, and take it up before it
boils.
=An excellent Sauce for any Kind of Pudding.=—Beat the yelks of three
eggs into sugar enough to make it quite sweet. Add a tea-cup of cream,
or milk, and a little butter, and the grated peel and juice of two
lemons. When lemons can not be had, use dried lemon-peel, and a little
tartaric acid. This is a good sauce for puddings, especially for the
Starch Minute Pudding. Good cider in place of wine is sometimes used.
PASTE FOR PUDDINGS AND PIES.
This is an article which, if the laws of health were obeyed, would be
banished from every table; for it unites the three evils—animal fat,
_cooked_ animal fat, and heavy bread. Nothing in the whole range of
cooking is more indigestible than rich pie-crust, especially when, as
bottom crust, it is made still worse by being soaked, or slack-baked.
Still, as this work does not profess to leave out unwholesome dishes,
but only to set forth an abundance of healthful ones, and the reasons
for preferring them, the best directions will be given for making the
best kinds of paste.
=Pie-Crusts without Fats.=—Good crusts for plain pies are made by
wetting up the crust with rich milk turned sour, and sweetened with
saleratus. Still better crusts are made of sour cream, sweetened with
saleratus.
Mealy potatoes boiled in salt water and mixed with the same quantity
of flour, and wet with sour milk sweetened with saleratus, make a good
crust.
Good light bread rolled thin makes a good crust for Pan-Dowdy, or
pan-pie, and also for the upper crust of fruit-pies, to be made
without bottom crusts.
=Pie-Crust made with Butter.=—Very plain paste is made by taking a
quarter of a pound of butter for every pound of flour. Still richer,
allow three quarters of a pound of butter to a pound of flour.
=Directions for making rich Pie-Crust.=—Take a quarter of the butter
to be used, rub it thoroughly into the flour, and wet it with _cold_
water to a stiff paste.
Next dredge the board thick with flour, cut up the remainder of the
butter into thin slices, lay them upon the flour, dredge flour over
thick, and then roll out the butter into thin sheets, and lay it aside.
Then roll out the paste thin, cover it with a sheet of this rolled
butter; dredge on more flour, fold it up and roll it out, and repeat
the process till all the butter is used up.
Paste should be made as quick and as cold as possible. Some use a
marble table in order to keep it cold. Roll _from_ you every time.
CHAPTER XVI.
CAKE.
The multiplication of recipes for cakes, pies, puddings, and desserts
is troublesome and needless, inasmuch as a little generalization will
reduce them to a comparatively small compass, and yet afford a large
variety.
Cake is of three classes, as raised either by eggs, or by yeast, or by
powders; and different proportions of flour, sugar, shortening, and
wetting make the variety, as it appears in what follows.
_General Directions_.
Sift flour, roll sugar, sift spices, and prepare fruit beforehand.
Break eggs that are to be whipped, one at a time, in a cup, and let
none of the yelk go in. Have them _cold_, and you will get on faster.
Excepting dough-cake, never use the hand in making cake, but a wooden
spoon, and in an earthen vessel.
The goodness of cake depends greatly on baking. If too hot at bottom,
set the pan on a brick; if too hot at top, cover with paper. If
top-crust is formed suddenly, it prevents what is below from rising
properly; and so, when the oven is very hot, cover with paper.
When fruit is used, sprinkle the fruit with a little flour to keep
it from sinking when baking. Some put fruit in in layers, one in the
middle and another near the top, as this spreads it evenly. Put in the
flour just before baking.
When using whites beaten to a froth separately, put in the last thing,
so that the bubbles of air which make the lightness may be retained
more perfectly. Bake as soon as the cake is ready.
Water is as good as milk for most cakes as well as for bread; a mixture
of new and stale milk injures the cake.
Streaks in cake are made either by imperfect mixing, or unequal
baking, or by sudden decrease of heat before the cake is done. Try when
cake is done, by inserting a splinter or straw; if it comes out clean,
the cake is done.
The best way to keep cake is in a tin box or stone jar.
Do not wrap cake or bread in a cloth.
In baking, move cake _gently_ if you change its place, or it will fall
in streaks. Cake is more nicely baked when the pan is lined with oiled
paper, especially in old pans, which often give a bad taste to the
bottom and sides of the cake.
CAKE RAISED WITH POWDERS.
Although it is unhealthful to use powders in bread for daily food, the
small quantity used for cake will do no harm.
The cake most easily made is raised with soda and cream tartar or other
baking powders, and many varieties can be made by the following recipes:
=One, Two, Three, Four Cake.=—Take one cup of butter, (half a cup is
better,) two cups of sugar, three cups of flour, and four eggs. Mix
butter, sugar, and yelks. Then add the flour very thoroughly, and
lastly the whites in a stiff froth. Bake immediately, and the cake
will be light, with nothing added. But it is equally light to omit
the eggs and work two tea-spoonfuls of cream tartar into the flour,
and then mix well first the butter and sugar, and then the flour.
When ready to bake, mix very thoroughly and quickly a tea-spoonful of
soda, or a bit of sal volatile dissolved in a cup of warm (not hot)
water. This makes two loaves. The following are varieties made by this
recipe, using raising either with eggs or powders:
=Chocolate-Cake.=—Bake the above in thin layers, only a little thicker
than carpeting. When nearly cool, spread over the cake a paste made of
equal parts of scraped chocolate and sugar wet with water. Place the
cake in layers one over another, frost the top, and then cut in oblong
pieces for the cake-basket.
=Jelly-Cake.=—Proceed as above, only using jelly instead of chocolate.
=Orange-Cake.=—Proceed as for jelly-cake, having flavored the cake
when making with a little grated orange-peel. The oranges must be
peeled, chopped fine, and sweetened.
=Almond and Cocoa-nut Cake.=—Blanch three ounces of almonds, (that is,
pour on boiling water and take off the skins.) Chop or pound them with
an equal quantity of sugar, make a thin paste with water, and use this
instead of the jelly. Cocoa-nut, chopped fine, can be used instead of
almonds. _Straw__berries_, _Peaches_, _Cranberries_, and _Quinces_,
and any other fruit, mashed or cooked, can be used in place of the
jelly, being first sweetened.
This cake can be made richer by adding spices and fruit before baking.
Cream can be used in place of butter. Chopped almonds, citron, or
cocoa-nut may be put in the cake for baking, making still another
variety.
CAKES RAISED WITH EGGS.
=Pound-Cake=, (very rich.)—One pound of flour, one pound of sugar,
half a pound of butter, nine eggs, a glass of brandy, one nutmeg, one
tea-spoonful of pounded cinnamon. Mix half the flour with the butter,
brandy, and spice; add the yelks of eggs beaten well into the sugar.
Beat the whites to a stiff froth, and add them in alternate spoonfuls
with the rest of the flour: then beat a long time, and bake as soon as
done.
=Plain Cake raised with Eggs.=—Take a pound or quart of flour, half
as much sugar, half as much butter as sugar, four or five eggs, one
nutmeg, and a tea-spoonful of cinnamon. Mix well the sugar, butter,
yelks, and spice; then the flour, and last the whites as stiff froth.
These two cakes are varied by adding citron, fruit, or other spices,
making them more or less rich.
=Fruit-Cake.=—This to be made either like pound-cake, with fruit
added; or like plain cake, raised with eggs or yeast, adding fruit.
_Walnut-meats_ or _Almonds_ may be chopped and put in the cake instead
of fruit, making another variety.
=Huckleberry-Cake.=—One quart of huckleberries, three cups of sugar,
three cups of flour, six eggs, one cup of sweet milk, and one
tea-spoonful of soda dissolved in a little hot water. Cream the butter
and sugar, and add the beaten yelks. Then add the milk, flour, and two
grated nutmegs. Then add the whites, whipped to a stiff froth, and the
berries, gently, so as not to mash them. An excellent cake.
Currants and other berries may be used in the same way. If very sour,
add more sugar. If doubtful of raising it enough, add a tea-spoonful
of soda; or, more surely, a bit of sal volatile the size of a
hickory-nut.
=Gold and Silver Cake.=—This makes a pretty variety when cut and
placed together in a cake-dish. For each, take one cup of sugar (for
the silver, white; and for the gold, brown), half a cup of butter,
half a cup of milk, two cups of flour, one tea-spoonful of cream
tartar, and half as much soda. For the one, use the yelk of three
eggs; and the white, as stiff froth, for the other. Mix the cream
tartar very thoroughly in the flour, and put in the soda last. Bake
immediately. This makes one loaf of each kind, in flat pans, and is to
be frosted. If more is wanted, double the quantity of each ingredient.
=Rich Sponge-Cake.=—Take twelve eggs, and the weight of ten in sugar,
and six in flour. Beat the sugar into the yelks, add the juice and
grated peel of one lemon, then the flour, and then the whites cut to a
stiff froth, and bake as soon as possible. Bake in brick-shaped pans,
and line them with buttered paper.
=Plain Sponge-Cake=, (easily made.)—Mix thoroughly two cups of sifted
flour and two cups of white sugar with one tea-spoonful of cream
tartar. Beat four eggs to a froth, not separating the whites, and add
some grated lemon-peel, or nutmeg, or rose-water. Just before baking,
add half a tea-spoonful of soda dissolved in three great-spoonfuls of
warm water. Beat quick, and set in the oven immediately.
GINGERBREAD, FRIED CAKES, COOKIES, AND OTHER CAKES.
=Aunt Esther’s Gingerbread.=—Take half a pint of molasses, a small cup
of soft butter, a gill and a half of water, a heaping tea-spoonful
of soda dissolved in a table-spoonful of hot water, and one even
table-spoonful of strong ginger, or two if weak. Rub butter and ginger
into the flour, add the water, soda, and molasses, and while doing it,
put in two table-spoonfuls of vinegar. Roll it in cards an inch thick,
and bake half an hour in a quick oven.
=Sponge Gingerbread.=—Add to the above two beaten eggs, and water to
make it thin as pound-cake, and bake as soon as well mixed.
=Ginger-Snaps and Seed-Cookies.=—One cup of butter, two cups of sugar
or molasses, one cup of water, one table-spoonful of ginger, one
heaping tea-spoonful of cinnamon and one of cloves, one tea-spoonful
of soda dissolved in a small cup of hot water. Mix and add flour for
a stiff dough, roll and cut in small round cakes. Omit the spices,
and put in four or five table-spoonfuls of caraway seeds, and you
have _seed-cakes_. Leave out all spice and seeds, and you have plain
cookies.
=Fried Cakes=.—For _Doughnuts_, use the recipe for Plain Sponge-Cake,
adding flour enough to roll. Or take Plain Cake raised with eggs, and
add flour enough to roll. Or take Dough-Cake, or Plain Loaf-Cake, and
thicken so as to roll. Roll about half an inch thick and cut into
oblong pieces. For _Crullers_, take plain cake raised with eggs, and
thicken stiff with flour; roll it thin, and cut into strips, and
form twisted cakes. More sugar and butter make it richer, but less
healthful.
Have plenty of lard, or, better, strained beef-fat, quite hot; try
with a small piece first, and, if right, there will be a bubbling.
Turn two or three times to cook all alike, break open one to try if
done, and when done, take up with a skimmer and drain well. If the fat
is too hot, it will brown too quick; if not hot enough, the fat will
soak into the cake. Remember that frying is the most unhealthful mode
of cooking food, and the one most likely to be done amiss.
CAKE RAISED WITH YEAST.
=Plain Loaf-Cake.=—Two pounds of dried and sifted flour, a pint of
warm water in which is melted a quarter of a pound of butter, half a
tea-spoonful of salt, three eggs without beating, and three quarters
of a pound of sugar, well mixed; and then add two nutmegs, two
tea-spoonfuls of cinnamon, and two gills of home-brewed or half as
much distillery yeast. When light, add two or three pounds of fruit,
and let it stand half an hour.
=Rich Loaf-Cake= is made like the above, only adding more butter and
sugar. The following are specimens of the diverse proportions: Four
pounds of flour, three of sugar, two of butter, a quart of water or
milk, ten unbeaten eggs, half a pint of wine, three nutmegs, three
tea-spoonfuls of cinnamon, and two cloves; two gills of distillery
yeast, or twice as much home-brewed. This is what in New-England would
be called Election or Commencement-Cake. Two or three risings used to
be practiced, but one is as good if the mixing is thorough.
=Dough-Cake.=—Three cups of raised dough, half a cup of butter, two
cups of sugar, two eggs, fruit and spice to the taste. When light,
bake in loaves. This can be made more or less sweet, and shortened by
lessening or increasing the quantity of dough. It must be mixed with
the hands.
=Icing for Cake.=—Put the whites of eggs into a dish, and for each
egg use about a quarter of a pound of sugar. Beat the whites, slowly
adding the sugar. This is better than beating the whites first, and
then adding sugar. A little lemon-juice or tartaric acid makes it
whiter and better. Spread the icing, after pouring it upon the centre,
with a knife dipped in water. If you can, dry in an open, sunny
window. Otherwise, harden it in the oven. It improves it by mixing,
when adding sugar, some almonds pounded to a thin paste.
CHAPTER XVII.
PRESERVES AND JELLIES.
_General Directions_.
Gather fruit when it is dry.
Long boiling hardens the fruit.
Pour boiling water over the sieves used, and wring out jelly-bags in
hot water the moment you are to use them.
Do not squeeze while straining through jelly-bags.
Let the pots and jars containing sweetmeats just made remain uncovered
three days.
For permanent covering, lay brandy papers over the top, cover them
tight, and seal them; or, what is best of all, soak a split bladder and
tie it tight over them. In drying, it will shrink so as to be perfectly
air-tight.
Keep them in a dry but not warm place.
A thick, leathery mold helps to preserve fruit, but when mold appears
in specks, the preserves must be scalded in a warm oven, or the jars
containing them are to be set into hot water, which must then boil till
the preserves are scalded.
Always keep watch of preserves which are not sealed, especially in warm
and damp weather. The only sure way to keep them without risk or care
is to make them with enough sugar and seal them or tie bladder covers
over.
The best kettle is iron lined with porcelain. If brass is used, it must
be bright, or acids will make a poison.
The chief art is to boil continuously, slowly, and gently, and take
up as soon as done; too long boiling makes the fruit hard and dark.
Jellies will not harden well if the boiling stops for some minutes.
Try jellies with a spoon, and as soon as they harden around the edge
quickly, they are done. In making, the sugar should be heated, and not
added till the juice boils.
Keep preserves in small glass jars, as frequent opening injures them.
=Canned Fruit.=—This is far more economical than to preserve in sugar.
Some can be canned without any sugar, and very nice sugar demands only
one fourth sugar to three fourths fruit. The best cans are glass with
metal tops. Those of Wilcox are the best known to the author. The
W. L. Imlay’s, of Philadelphia, are recommended as best of any.
_Directions._—Set the jars in a large boiler, and then fill it with
cold water and heat to boiling. Having filled the jars to within
an inch of the top with alternate layers of fruit and sugar, (in
proportion of one half or one fourth of a pound of sugar to a pound of
fruit, according as it is more or less acid,) set them in cold water.
As soon as the fruit has risen to the top of the jar, screw on the
cover and take from the water. Peaches and pears may be canned without
sugar.
=To clarify Sirup for Sweetmeats.=—For each pound of sugar allow half
a pint of water. For every three pounds of sugar allow the white of
one egg. Mix when cold, boil a few minutes, and skim it. Let it stand
ten minutes and skim it again, then strain it.
=Brandy Peaches.=—Prick the peaches with a needle, put them into a
kettle with cold water, heat the water, scald them until sufficiently
soft to be penetrated with a straw. Take half a pound of sugar to
every pound of peaches; make the sirup with the sugar, and while it is
a little warm mix two thirds as much of white brandy with it, put the
fruit into jars and pour the sirup over it. The late white clingstones
are the best to use.
=Peaches=, (not very rich.)—To six pounds of fruit put five of sugar.
Make the sirup. Boil the fruit in the sirup till it is clear. If the
fruit is ripe, half an hour will cook it sufficiently.
=Peaches=, (very elegant.)—First take out the stones, then pare them.
To every pound of peaches allow one third of a pound of sugar. Make a
thin sirup, boil the peaches in the sirup till tender, but not till
they break. Put them into a bowl and pour the sirup over them. Put
them in a dry, cool place, and let them stand two days. Then make a
new, rich sirup, allowing three quarters of a pound of sugar to one
of fruit. Drain the peaches from the first sirup, and boil them until
they are clear in the last sirup. The first sirup must not be added,
but may be used for any other purpose you please, as it is somewhat
bitter. The large white clingstones are the best.
=To preserve Quinces whole.=—Select the largest and fairest quinces,
(as the poorer ones will answer for jelly.) Take out the cores and
pare them. Boil the quinces in water till tender. Take them out
separately on a platter. To each pound of quince allow a pound of
sugar. Make the sirup, then boil the quinces in the sirup until clear.
=Quince Jelly.=—Rub the quinces with a cloth until perfectly smooth.
Remove the cores, cut them into small pieces, pack them tight in your
kettle, pour cold water on them until it is on a level with the
fruit, but not to cover it; boil till very soft, but not till they
break. Dip off all the liquor you can, then put the fruit into a sieve
and press it, and drain off all the remaining liquor. Then to a pint
of the liquor add a pound of sugar and boil it fifteen minutes. Pour
it, as soon as cool, into small jars or tumblers. Let it stand in the
sun a few days, till it begins to dry on the top. It will continue to
harden after it is put up.
=Calf’s-Foot Jelly.=—To four nicely cleaned calf’s feet put four
quarts of water; let it simmer gently till reduced to two quarts, then
strain it and let it stand all night. Then take off all the fat and
sediment, melt it, add the juice, and put in the peel of three lemons
and a pint of wine, the whites of four eggs, three sticks of cinnamon,
and sugar to your taste. Boil ten minutes, then skim out the spice and
lemon-peel and strain it.
The American gelatine, now very common, makes a good jelly, with far
less trouble; and in using it, you only need to dissolve it in hot
water, and then sweeten and flavor it.
=To preserve Apples.=—Take only tart and well-flavored apples; peel
and take out the cores without dividing them, and then parboil
them. Make the sirup with the apple water, allowing three quarters
of a pound of white sugar to every pound of apples, and boil some
lemon-peel and juice in the sirup. Pour the sirup, while boiling, upon
the apples, turn them gently while cooking, and only let the sirup
simmer, as hard boiling breaks the fruit. Take it out when the apple
is tender through. At the end of a week, boil them once more in the
sirup.
=Pears.=—Take out the cores, cut off the stems, and pare them. Boil
the pears in water till they are tender. Watch them that they do not
break. Lay them separately on a platter as you take them out. To each
pound of fruit take a pound of sugar. Make the sirup, and boil the
fruit in the sirup till clear.
=Pine-Apples=, (very fine.)—Pare and _grate_ the pine-apple. Take an
equal quantity of fruit and sugar. Boil them slowly in a saucepan for
half an hour.
=Purple Plums, No. 1.=—Make a rich sirup. Boil the plums in the sirup
very gently till they begin to crack open. Then take them from the
sirup into a jar, and pour the sirup over them. Let them stand a few
days, and then boil them a second time very gently.
=Purple Plums, No. 2.=—Take an equal weight of fruit and nice brown
sugar. Take a clean stone jar, put in a layer of fruit and a layer of
sugar till all is in. Cover them tightly with dough, or other tight
cover, and put them in a brick oven after you have baked in it. If
you bake in the morning, put the plums in the oven at evening, and
let them remain till the next morning. When you bake again, set them
in the oven as before. Uncover them and stir them carefully with a
spoon, and so as not to break them. Set them in the oven thus _the
third_ time, and they will be sufficiently cooked.
=White or Green Plums.=—Put each one into boiling water and rub off
the skin. Allow a pound of fruit to a pound of sugar. Make a sirup of
sugar and water. Boil the fruit in the sirup until clear—about twenty
minutes. Let the sirup be cold before you pour it over the fruit. They
can be preserved without taking off the skins by pricking them. Some
of the kernels of the stones boiled in give a pleasant flavor.
=Citron Melons.=—Two fresh lemons to a pound of melon. Let the sugar
be equal in weight to the lemon and melon. Take out the pulp of the
melon and cut it in thin slices, and boil it in fair water till
tender. Take it out and boil the lemon in the same water about twenty
minutes. Take out the lemon, add the sugar, and, if necessary, a
little more water. Let it boil. When clear, add the melon and let it
boil a few minutes.
=Strawberries.=—Look over them with care. Weigh a pound of sugar
to each pound of fruit. Put a layer of fruit on the bottom of the
preserving-kettle, then a layer of sugar, and so on till all is in
the pan. Boil them about fifteen minutes. Put them in bottles, hot,
and seal them. Then put them in a box and fill it in with dry sand.
The flavor of the fruit is preserved more perfectly by simply packing
the fruit and sugar in alternate layers, and sealing the jar, without
cooking; but the preserves do not look so well.
=Blackberry Jam.=—Allow three quarters of a pound of brown sugar to a
pound of fruit. Boil the fruit half an hour, then add the sugar and
boil all together ten minutes.
=To preserve Currants to eat with Meat.=—Strip them from the stem.
Boil them an hour, and then to a pound of the fruit add a pound of
brown sugar. Boil all together fifteen or twenty minutes.
=Cherries.=—Take out the stones. To a pound of fruit allow a pound of
sugar. Put a layer of fruit on the bottom of the preserving-kettle,
then a layer of sugar, and continue thus till all are put in. Boil
till clear. Put them in bottles hot and seal them. Keep them in dry
sand.
=Currants.=—Strip them from the stems. Allow a pound of sugar to a
pound of currants. Boil them together ten minutes. Take them from the
sirup and let the sirup boil twenty minutes, and pour it on the fruit.
Put them in small jars or tumblers, and let them stand in the sun a
few days.
=Raspberry Jam, No. 1.=—Allow a pound of sugar to a pound of fruit.
Press them with a spoon in an earthen dish. Add the sugar, and boil
all together fifteen minutes.
=Raspberry Jam, No. 2.=—Allow a pound of sugar to a pound of fruit.
Boil the fruit half an hour, or till the seeds are soft. Strain one
quarter of the fruit, and throw away the seeds. Add the sugar, and
boil the whole ten minutes. A little currant-juice gives it a pleasant
flavor, and when that is used, an equal quantity of sugar must be
added.
=Currant Jelly.=—Pick over the currants with care. Put them in a stone
jar, and set it into a kettle of boiling water. Let it boil till the
fruit is very soft. Strain it through a sieve. Then run the juice
through a jelly-bag. Put a pound of sugar to a pint of juice, and boil
it together five minutes. Set it in the sun a few days. If it stops
boiling, it is less likely to turn to jelly.
=Quince Marmalade.=—Rub the quinces with a cloth, cut them in
quarters. Put them on the fire with a little water, and stew them
till they are sufficiently tender to rub them through a sieve. When
strained, put a pound of sugar to a pound of the pulp. Set it on the
fire, and let it cook slowly. To ascertain when it is done, take out a
little and let it get cold, and if it cuts smoothly, it is done.
Crab-apple marmalade is made in the same way.
Crab-apple jelly is made like quince jelly.
Most other fruits are preserved so much like the preceding that it
is needless to give any more particular directions than to say that
a pound of sugar to a pound of fruit is the general rule for all
preserves that are to be kept through warm weather and a long time.
=Preserved Water-melon Rinds.=—This a fine article to keep well
without trouble for a long time. Peel the melon, and boil it in just
enough water to cover it till it is soft, trying with a fork. (If you
wish it green, put green vine-leaves above and below each layer, and
scatter powdered alum, less than half a tea-spoonful to each pound.)
Allow a pound of sugar to each pound of rind, and clarify it as
directed previously.
Simmer the rinds two hours in this sirup, and flavor it with
lemon-peel grated and tied in a bag. Then put the melon in a tureen,
and boil the sirup till it looks thick, and pour it over. Next day,
give the sirup another boiling, and put the juice of one lemon to each
quart of sirup. Take care not to make it bitter by too much of the
peel.
Citrons are preserved in the same manner. Both these keep through hot
weather with very little care in sealing and keeping.
=Preserved Pumpkin.=—Cut a thick yellow pumpkin, peeled, into strips
two inches wide and five or six long.
Take a pound of white sugar for each pound of fruit, and scatter it
over the fruit, and pour on two wine-glasses of lemon-juice for each
pound of pumpkin.
Next day, put the parings of one or two lemons with the fruit and
sugar, and boil the whole three quarters of an hour, or long enough to
make it tender and clear without breaking. Lay the pumpkin to cool,
strain the sirup, and then pour it on to the pumpkin.
If there is too much lemon-peel, it will be bitter.
CHAPTER XVIII.
DESSERTS AND EVENING PARTIES.
=Ice-Cream.=—One quart of milk. One and a half table-spoonfuls of
arrow-root. The grated peel of two lemons. One quart of thick cream.
Wet the arrow-root with a little cold milk, and add it to the quart of
milk when boiling hot; sweeten it very sweet with white sugar, put in
the grated lemon-peel, boil the whole, and strain it into the quart
of cream. When partly frozen, add the juice of the two lemons. Twice
this quantity is enough for thirty-five persons. Find the quantity of
sugar that suits you by measure, and then you can use this every time,
without tasting. Some add whites of eggs; others think it just as good
without. It must be made _very_ sweet, as it loses much by freezing.
If you have no apparatus for freezing, (which is _almost_
indispensable), put the cream into a tin pail with a very tight cover,
mix equal quantities of snow and blown salt, (not the coarse salt), or
of pounded ice and salt, in a tub, and put it as _high as the pail,
or freezer_; turn the pail or freezer half round and back again with
one hand, for half an hour, or longer, if you want it very nice. Three
quarters of an hour steadily will make it good enough. While doing
this, stop four or five times, and mix the frozen part with the rest,
the last time very thoroughly, and then the lemon-juice must be put
in. Then cover the freezer tight with snow and salt till it is wanted.
The mixture must be perfectly cool before being put in the freezer.
Renew the snow and salt while shaking, so as to have it kept tight
to the sides of the freezer. A hole in the tub holding the freezing
mixture, to let off the water, is a great advantage. In a tin pail it
would take much longer to freeze than in the freezer, probably nearly
twice as long. A long stick, like a coffee-stick, should be used in
scraping the ice from the sides. Iron spoons will be affected by the
lemon-juice, and give a bad taste.
In taking it out for use, first wipe off every particle of the
freezing mixture dry, then with a knife loosen the sides, then invert
the freezer upon the dish in which the ice is to be served, and apply
two towels wrung out of hot water to the bottom part, and the whole
will slide out in the shape of a cylinder. Freezers are now sold quite
cheap, and such as freeze in a short time.
=Strawberry Ice-Cream.=—Rub a pint of ripe strawberries through a
sieve, add a pint of cream, and four ounces of powdered sugar, and
freeze it. Other fruits may be used thus.
=Ice-Cream without Cream.=—A vanilla bean or a lemon rind is first
boiled in a quart of milk. Take out the bean or peel, and add the
yelks of four eggs, beaten well. Heat it scalding hot, but do not
boil it, stirring in white sugar till _very_ sweet. When cold, freeze
it.
=Fruit Ice-Cream.=—Make rich boiled custard, and mash into it the soft
ripe fruit, or the grated or cooked hard fruit, or grated pine-apples.
Rub all through a sieve, sweeten it very sweet, and freeze it. Quince,
apple, pear, peach, strawberry, and raspberry are all very good for
this purpose.
=A Cream for stewed Fruit.=—Boil two or three peach leaves, or a
vanilla bean, in a quart of cream, or milk, till flavored. Strain and
sweeten it, mix it with the yelks of four eggs, well beaten; then,
while heating it, add the whites cut to a froth. When it thickens take
it up. When cool, pour it over the fruit or preserves.
=Currant, Raspberry, or Strawberry Whisk.=—Put three gills of the
juice of the fruit to ten ounces of crushed sugar, add the juice of a
lemon, and a pint and a half of cream. Whisk it till quite thick, and
serve it in jelly-glasses or a glass dish.
=Lemonade Ice, and other Ices.=—To a quart of lemonade, add the whites
of six eggs, cut to a froth, and freeze it. The juices of any fruit,
sweetened and watered, may be prepared in the same way, and are very
fine.
=Charlotte Russe.=—One ounce of gelatine simmered in half a pint of
milk or water, four ounces of sugar beat into the yelks of four eggs,
and added to the gelatine when dissolved. Then add a pint of cream or
new milk. Lastly, add the whites beat to a stiff froth, and beat all
together. Line a mold with slices of sponge-cake and set it on ice,
and when the cream is a little thickened, fill the mold; let it stand
five or six hours, and then turn it into a dish.
=Flummery.=—Cut sponge-cake into thin slices, and line a deep dish.
Make it moist with white wine; make a rich custard, using only the
yelks of the eggs. When cool, turn it into the dish, and cut the
whites to a stiff froth, and put on the top.
=Chicken Salad.=—Cut the white meat of chickens into small bits the
size of peas. Chop the white parts of celery nearly as small.
Prepare a dressing thus: rub the yelks of hard-boiled eggs smooth, to
each yelk put half a tea-spoonful of liquid mustard, the same quantity
of salt, a table-spoonful of oil mixed in very slowly and thoroughly,
and half a wine-glass of vinegar. Mix the chicken and celery in a
large bowl, and pour over this dressing.
The dressing must not be put on till just before it is used. Bread and
butter and crackers are served with it.
=Wine Jelly.=—Two ounces of American isinglass or gelatine. One quart
of boiling water. A pint and a half of white wine. The whites of three
eggs.
Soak the gelatine in cold water half an hour. Then take it from the
water, and pour on the quart of boiling water. When cooled, add the
grated rind of one lemon, and the juice of two, and a pound and a half
of loaf-sugar. Then beat the whites of the eggs to a stiff froth, and
stir them in, and let the whole boil till the egg is well mixed, but
do not stir while it boils. Strain through a jelly-bag, and then add
the wine.
In cold weather, a pint more of water may be added. This jelly can be
colored by beet-juice, saffron, or indigo, for fancy dishes.
=An Apple Lemon Pudding.=—Six spoonfuls of grated, or of cooked and
strained, apple. Three lemons, pulp, rind, and juice, all grated. Half
a pound of melted butter. Sugar to the taste. Seven eggs well beaten.
Mix, and bake with or without paste. It can be made still plainer by
using nine spoonfuls of apple, one lemon, two thirds of a cup full of
butter, and three eggs.
=Wheat Flour Blanc-Mange.=—Wet up six table-spoonfuls of flour to a
thin paste with cold milk, and stir it into a pint of boiling milk.
Flavor with lemon-peel or peach-leaves boiled in the milk. Add a
pinch of salt, cool it in a mold, and eat with sweetened cream and
sweetmeats.
=Orange Marmalade.=—Take two lemons and a dozen oranges; grate the
yellow rinds of all the oranges but five, and set it aside. Make a
clear sirup of an equal weight of sugar. Clear the oranges of rind and
seeds, put them with the grated rinds into the sirup, and boil about
twenty minutes till it is a transparent mass.
=A simple Lemon Jelly=, (easily made.)—One ounce of gelatine. A pound
and a half of loaf-sugar. Three lemons, pulp, skin, and juice, grated.
Pour a quart of boiling water upon the isinglass, add the rest, mix
and strain it, then add a glass of wine, and pour it to cool in some
regular form. If the lemons are not fresh, add a little cream of
tartar or tartaric acid.
=Cranberry.=—Pour boiling water on them, and then you can easily
separate the good and the bad. Boil them in a very little water till
soft, then sweeten to your taste. If you wish a jelly, take a portion
and strain through a fine sieve.
=Apple Ice=, (very fine.)—Take finely-flavored apples, grate them
fine, and then make them _very_ sweet, and freeze them. It is very
delicious.
Pears, peaches, or quinces also are nice, either grated fine or stewed
and run through a sieve, then sweetened _very_ sweet, and frozen. The
flavor is much better preserved when grated than when cooked.
=Whip Syllabub.=—One pint of cream. Sifted white sugar to your taste.
Half a tumbler of white wine. The grated rind and juice of one lemon.
Beat all to a stiff froth.
=Apple Snow.=—Put six very tart apples in cold water over a slow
fire. When soft, take away the skins and cores and mix in a pint of
sifted white sugar; beat the whites of six eggs to a stiff froth, and
then add them to the apples and sugar. Put it in a dessert-dish and
ornament with myrtle and box.
=Iced Fruit.=—Take fine bunches of currants on the stalk, dip them in
well-beaten whites of eggs, lay them on a sieve and sift white sugar
over them, and set them in a warm place to dry.
=Ornamental Froth.=—The whites of four eggs in a stiff froth, put
into the sirup of preserved raspberries or strawberries, beaten well
together, and turned over ice-cream or blanc-mange. Make white froth
to combine with the colored in fanciful ways. It can be put on the top
of boiling milk, and hardened to keep its form.
=To clarify Isinglass.=—Dissolve an ounce of isinglass in a cup of
boiling water, take off the scum, and drain through a coarse cloth.
Jellies, candies, and blanc-mange should be done in brass and stirred
with silver.
=Blanc-Mange.=—Two and a half sheets of gelatine broken into one quart
of milk; put in a warm place and stir till it dissolves. An ounce and
a half of clarified isinglass stirred into the milk. Sugar to your
taste. A tea-spoonful of fine salt. Flavor with lemon, or orange, or
rose-water. Let it boil, stirring it well, then strain it into molds.
Three ounces of almonds pounded to a paste and added while boiling is
an improvement. Or filberts or hickory-nuts can be skinned and used
thus. It can be flavored by boiling in it a vanilla bean or a stick of
cinnamon. (Save the bean to use again.)
=Apple Jelly.=—Boil tart peeled apples in a little water till
glutinous; strain out the juice, and put a pound of white sugar to a
pint of the juice. Flavor to your taste, boil till a good jelly, and
then put it into molds.
=Orange Jelly.=—The juice of nine oranges and three lemons. The grated
rind of one lemon, and one orange, pared thin. Two quarts of water,
and four ounces of gelatine broken up and boiled in it to a jelly. Add
the above, and sweeten to your taste. Then add the whites of eight
eggs, well beaten to a stiff froth, and boil ten minutes; strain and
put into molds, first dipped in cold water. When perfectly cold, dip
the mold in warm water, and turn on to a glass dish.
=Floating Island.=—Beat the yelks of six eggs with the juice of four
lemons, sweeten it to your taste, and stir it into a quart of boiling
milk till it thickens, then pour it into a dish. Whip the whites of
the eggs to a stiff froth, and put it on the top of the cream.
=A Dish of Snow.=—Grate the white part of cocoa-nut, put it in a glass
dish, and serve with oranges sliced and sugared, or with currant or
cranberry jellies.
=To clarify Sugar.=—Take four pounds of sugar, and break it up. Whisk
the white of an egg, and put it with a tumblerful of water into a
preserving-pan, and add water gradually till you have two quarts,
stirring well. When there is a good frothing, throw in the sugar, boil
moderately, and skim it. If the sugar rises to run over, throw in a
little cold water, and then skim it, as it is then still. Repeat this,
and when no more scum rises, strain the sugar for use.
=Candied Fruits.=—Preserve the fruit, then dip it in sugar boiled to
candy thickness, and then dry it. Grapes and some other fruits may be
dipped in uncooked, and then dried, and they are fine.
=Another Way.=—Take it from the sirup, when preserved, dip it in
powdered sugar, and set it on a sieve in an oven to dry.
=To make an Ornamental Pyramid for a Table.=—Boil loaf-sugar as for
candy, and rub it over a stiff form made for the purpose, of stiff
paper or pasteboard, which must be well buttered. Set it on a table,
and begin at the bottom, and stick on to this frame with the sugar, a
row of macaroons, kisses, or other ornamental articles, and continue
till the whole is covered. When cold, draw out the pasteboard form,
and set the pyramid in the centre of the table with a small bit of
wax-candle burning with it, and it looks very beautifully.
CHAPTER XIX.
DRINKS AND ARTICLES FOR THE SICK AND YOUNG CHILDREN.
Drinks made of the juice of fruits and water are good for all who are
in health. Various preparations of cocoa-nuts are so also. Tea is
often made or adulterated with unhealthful articles. Coffee is usually
drank so strong as to injure children and grown persons of delicate
constitution. All alcoholic drinks are dangerous, because they are so
generally mixed with harmful matter, and because they so often lead
to excess, and then to ruin. The common-sense maxim is, when there is
danger, choose the safest course. The Christian maxim is, “We that are
strong ought to bear the infirmities of the weak, and not to please
ourselves.”
Obedience to these two maxims would save thousands of young children
and delicate persons from following the dangerous example of those
“that are strong.”
=To make Tea.=—The safest tea is the black, as less stimulating
than green; both excite the brain and nerves when strong. The chief
direction is to have water _boiling_ hot. First soak the tea in a very
little hot water, and then add boiling water.
=To make Coffee.=—Roast it slowly in a tight vessel, and so it can be
stirred often. To roast all equally a dark brown and have none burned,
is the main thing. Keep it in a tight box, or, better, grind it fresh
when used. Clear it by putting into it, when making, a fresh egg-shell
crushed, or the white of an egg, or a small bit of fish-skin. Some
filter, and some boil; and there are coffee-pots made for each method,
and some that require nothing put in to clear the coffee. The aroma
is retained just in proportion as the coffee is confined, both before
making and also while making.
=Fish-skin for Coffee.=—Take it from codfish before cooking; have it
nice and dry. Cut in inch squares, and take one for two quarts of
coffee.
=Cocoa.=—The cracked is best. Put two table-spoonfuls of it into three
pints of cold water. Boil an hour for first use, save the remnants and
boil it again, as it is very strong. Do this several times. For ground
cocoa use two table-spoonfuls to a quart, and boil half an hour. Boil
the milk by itself, and add it liberally when taken up. For the
_shells_ of cocoa, use a heaping tea-cupful for a quart of water. Put
them in over night and boil a long time.
=Cream for Coffee and Tea.=—Heat new milk, and let it stand till cool
and all the cream rises; this is the best way for common use. To every
pint of this add a pound and a quarter of loaf-sugar, and it will keep
good a month or more, if corked tight in glass.
=Chocolate.=—Put three table-spoonfuls when scraped to each pint, boil
half an hour, and add boiled milk when used.
=Delicious Milk-Lemonade.=—Half a pint of sherry wine and as much
lemon-juice, six ounces loaf-sugar, and a pint of water poured in when
boiling. Add not quite a pint of cold milk, and strain the whole.
=Strawberry and Raspberry Vinegar.=—Mix four pounds of the fruit with
three quarts of cider or wine vinegar, and let them stand three days.
Drain the vinegar through a jelly-bag and add four more pounds of
fruit, and in three days do the same. Then strain out the vinegar for
summer drinks, effervescing with soda or only with water.
=White Tea, and Boys’ Coffee for Children.=—Children never love tea
and coffee till they are trained to it. They always like these drinks.
Put two tea-spoonfuls of sugar to half a cup of hot water, and add as
much good milk. Or crumb toast or dry bread into a bowl with plenty of
sugar, and add half milk to half boiling water.
=Dangerous Use of Milk.=—Milk is not only drink, but rich food. It
therefore should not be used as drink with other food, as is water
or tea and coffee. Persons often cause bilious difficulties by
using milk in addition to ordinary food as the chief drink. It is
a well-established fact that some grown persons as well as young
children can not drink milk, and in some cases can not eat bread wet
with milk, without trouble from it.
=Simple Drinks.=—Pour boiling water on mashed cranberries, or grated
apples, or tamarinds, or mashed currants or raspberries, pour off the
water, sweeten, and in summer cool with ice.
Pour boiling water on to bread toasted quite brown, or on to pounded
parched corn, boil a minute, strain, and add sugar and cream, or milk.
=Simple Wine Whey.=—Mix equal quantities of milk and boiling water,
add wine and sweeten.
=Toast and Cider.=—Take one third brisk cider and two thirds cold
water, sweeten it, crumb in toasted bread, and grate on a little
nutmeg. Acid jelly will do when cider is not at hand.
=Panada.=—Toast two or three crackers, pour on boiling water and let
it simmer two or three minutes, add a well-beaten egg, sweeten and
flavor with nutmeg.
=Water-Gruel.=—Scald half a tumblerful of fresh ground corn-meal, add
a table-spoonful of flour made into a paste, boil twenty minutes or
more, and add salt, sugar, and nutmeg. Oat-meal gruel is excellent
made thus.
=Beef-Tea.=—Pepper and salt some good beef cut into small pieces, pour
on boiling water and steep half an hour. A better way is to put the
meat thus prepared into a bottle kept in boiling water for four or
five hours.
=Tomato Sirup.=—Put a pound of sugar to a quart of juice, bottle it,
and use for a beverage with water.
=Sassafras Jelly.=—Soak the pith of sassafras till a jelly, and add a
little sugar.
=Egg Tea, Egg Coffee, and Egg Milk.=—Beat the yelk of an egg in some
sugar and a little salt; add either cold tea or coffee or milk. Then
beat the whites to a stiff froth and add. Flavor the milk with wine.
Some do not like the taste of raw egg, and so the other articles may
first be made boiling hot before the white is put in.
=Oat-meal Gruel.=—Four table-spoonfuls of _grits_, (unbolted
Oat-meal,) a pinch of salt and a pint of boiling water. Skim, sweeten,
and flavor. Or make a thin batter of fine Oat-meal, and pour into
boiling water; then sweeten and flavor it.
=Pearl Barley-Water.=—Boil two and a half ounces of pearl barley ten
minutes in half a-pint of water, strain it, add a quart of boiling
water, boil it down to half the quantity, strain, sweeten, and flavor
with sliced lemon or nutmeg.
_Cream Tartar Beverage._—Put two even tea-spoonfuls cream tartar to a
pint of boiling water, sweeten and flavor with lemon-peel.
=Rennet Whey=, (good for a weak stomach after severe illness.)—Soak
rennet two inches square one hour, add half a gill of water and a
pinch of salt; then pour it into a pint of warm (not hot) milk. Let
it stand half an hour, then cut it, and after an hour drain off the
liquid. Let it stand awhile, and drain off more whey.