Chapter VI: Front Matter (6)

In reply I craved permission to see the batter mixed by the critical cook. Entering the kitchen in company with the mistress, we found Chloe in the act of breaking the five eggs directly into the flour, milk, etc., already mixed in a large bowl. Half a dozen strokes of the wooden spoon she held would have completed the manufacture of the raw material. Eggs are inveterate tell-tales, and they had given no uncertain warning in this case, had the mistress been on the alert.

Some eggs cannot be frothed. The colored “mammys” used to tell me that they were “bewitched,” when, with every sweep of the wisp they were depressed and dwindled before my wondering eyes. I have learned since that, whether this non-inflative state be the result of undue warmth of the dish into which the eggs are broken, or staleness of the ovates themselves, it is a hopeless task to attempt rehabilitation. Their demoralization is complete and fatal. The wise housewife will give up her cake or dessert for that day, unless she is willing to throw the obdurate eggs away, cleanse the bowl, wiping it perfectly dry, and let it cool before attacking another batch.

Nor will whites froth to stiffness if a single drop of the yolk has found its way into them. Regardless, as a leader of the cod-fish aristocracy, of the claims of early associations upon memory and respect, they sullenly assert the impossibility of rising in the world if they are to be clogged by that which lay so close to them before the shells were broken. All the beating of the patent egg-whip in impatient fingers will not suffice to make them see reason. The fact that there is ten-fold more nourishment and sweetness in one yolk than in a pint of their snowy nothingness; that it is, in truth, the life, without which an egg would be a nullity, has no more effect in changing their exclusive notions than have volumes of argument proving the solidity and vitality of the middle classes upon the gaseous brains of the _bon ton_. Humor their folly—for whites are useful, because ornamental, if rightly handled—by carefully taking out the offensive plebeian speck.

Our mothers whipped up yolks with a spoon, and the whites with a broad-bladed knife, or clean switches, peeled and dried. Miss Leslie’s “Complete Cookery” will tell you all about it. (And, by the way, if you doubt that fashions change in cookery as in all else, I commend to your perusal this ancient manual.) Then came a rush of patent egg-beaters, and a rush of purchasers as well, whose aching wrists and shoulders pleaded for relief from long hours of incessant “beating,” “whipping,” and “frothing.” There were wire spoons with wooden handles that broke off, and tin handles that turned the perspiring hand black; wire whirligigs that ran up and down upon a central shaft and spattered the eggs over the face and bust of the operator; cylindrical tin vessels with whirligigs fastened in the centre, almost as good fun for the children as a monkey on a stick, but which bound the housewife to place and circumstance, since her eggs, many or few, yolks and whites, must all be churned in that vessel—not an easy one to keep clean, on account of the fixture within it. There was altogether too much machinery for the end to be accomplished, and the white of a single egg was so hard to find in the bottom of a quart pail! After a few trials, the cook tossed the “bothering thing” into a dark corner of the closet, and improvised a better beater out of two silver forks, held dexterously together. Then, our enterprising “general furnishing” merchant overwhelmed us with a double compound back (and forward) action machine that was “warranted to whip up a stiff _méringue_ in a minute and a half.”

“I will not quite endorse that, ladies,” said the most important tradesman in a community of housekeepers and housekept. “But I will stake my reputation upon its doing this in two minutes.”

We all bought the prize. It looked cumbrous, and it _was_ expensive, but time is money, and we remembered that a large snow-custard must be beaten ninety minutes with an ordinary egg-whip, and cake-frosting, thirty. We paid, each of us, our dollar and a half, and carried home the time-and-muscle-saver in a box of its own, so big that we chose back streets in preference to fashionable promenades, on our return. Trembling with exultation, we rushed into the kitchen to display the treasure.

“Yes, mem! What might it be, mem?”

“Why, Katey! an egg-beater! and the greatest convenience ever manufactured!”

“Ah! and what a silly was meself, mem, to be thinking it was a coffee-mill, when I saw you a-screwin’ it on to the table!”

We screwed it “on to the table,” at a corner, for there was not room for it to revolve at sides and ends. Katey held a bowl with eggs in it at just the right elevation below; and by turning a crank we moved a many-cogged wheel which fitted into another wheel, which turned a whirligig at the bottom. Katey held the bowl steadily; we worked very fast at the windlass-handle, and in eight minutes the _méringue_ was ready.

“Well done!” cried housewives, one and all. “Great is the Grand duplex back (and forward) action Invention, for the amelioration of weary-wristed womankind! To be sure, it takes two people to work it, unless one can hold the bowl firmly between the knees in just the right place, but it is undeniably a wonderful improvement.”

I, with the rest, cried, “wonderful!” even when the bowl tipped over on the kitchen-floor, with the yolks of ten eggs in it; when I broke the screw by giving it one turn too many, and was blandly assured by the artificer in metals, to whom I took it for repairs, that “them cast-iron articles can’t never be mended, ma’am, without it is by buying of a new one;” even when the cogs of the wheels became rheumatic, and hitched groaningly at every round. But when one day, in full flight through a seething heap of icing, the steel strips of the triple whirligig that did the whipping, suddenly caught, the one upon the other, and came to a dead lock; when, as I would have released them by an energetic revolution of the wheel, they tore one another out by the roots,—I arose in deadly calm; undid the screw, set the bowl on the table, straightened my cramped spine, and sent to the nearest tin-shop for a shilling whisk.

Four years ago, without prevision that one of the blessings of my life was coming upon me, I paid a visit to _my_ “house-furnisher.” He had a new egg-beater for sale.

“_Vanitas vanitatum!_” said I, theatrically waving it from me, “I am cured!”

“It comes well recommended,” remarked he, quietly.

“But, as you say, so many of these things are humbugs! Will you oblige me by accepting this, giving it a fair trial, and letting me know just what it is? I will send it up with the rest of your articles.”

For three weeks—I blush to write it—THE DOVER hung untouched in my kitchen-closet, and I did daily penance for my sin of omission with the shilling whisk. At last I broke the latter, and with a slighting observation to the effect that “it might be better than none,” I took down my gift.

I beg you to believe that I am not in league with the patentee of my favorite. I do not know whether “Dover” stands for his name, that of the manufacturing company, or the place in which it was made. “Dover Egg-beater, Patented 1870,” is stamped upon the circumference of the iron wheel. I know nothing more of its antecedents. But if I could not get another I would not sell mine for fifty dollars—nor a hundred. Egg-whipping ceased to be a bugbear to me from the day of which I speak. Light, portable, rapid, easy, and comparatively noiseless, my pet implement works like a benevolent brownie. With it I turn out a _méringue_ in five minutes without staying my song or talk; make the formidable “snow-custard” in less than half an hour, with no after tremulousness of nerve or tendon. In its operation it is impartial, yolks thickening smoothly under it as easily as whites heighten into a compact snow-drift, that can be cut into blocks with a knife. Winter and summer, it has served me with invariable fidelity, and it is to all appearance, stanch as when it first passed into my reluctant hands. I hope the gentlemanly and benevolent donor will sell one thousand per annum for the remainder of his natural existence, and if length of days be a boon to be coveted, that the unknown patentee will live as many years as he has saved hours of labor to American housewives and cooks.

WHIPPED CREAM.

THIS enters so largely into the composition of many of our most elegant desserts, that the mode of preparing it deserves more than a passing mention. The impression in which I confess that I shared, for a long time, that a “whip” was a tedious, and sometimes well-nigh impossible performance, will soon be done away with if one becomes the possessor of a really good syllabub charm. That which I have used with great satisfaction for a couple of years is a very simple affair—a tin cylinder with a perforated bottom, and within it a dasher, similar to that of an ordinary churn, that plays through a hole in the top. It is best to churn the cream in a jar or pail, there being in these less waste from splashing. The churn is held about a quarter of an inch from the bottom, that the cream may pass freely below it. As the stiffened froth rises to the top of the cream, it should be removed to a wire sieve set over a dish. If you have no sieve, lay a piece of coarse lace or tarletane within a cullender, and put the “whip,” a few spoonfuls at a time, upon it. The cream that drips into the dish below should be returned to the pail and churned over. I regret that the name of the patentee appears nowhere upon the modest but excellent little machine that has supplied me with so many trifles and Charlotte Russes.

The grand desideratum in making a “whip,” is to have _real_ cream. It should also be perfectly sweet. The confectioner from whom I always procure mine advised me once to put the merest pinch of soda in the cream in warm weather, before beating it, a hint that has proved very useful to me. With this precaution, unless the cream be really on the verge of souring, you will never churn your “whip” to butter, of which lame and lamentable conclusion I had experience several times before I received the friendly suggestion.

Get good cream, then. It is better worth your while to pay half a dollar a quart for it than half the sum for the thinner, poorer liquid sold under the same name at the milk-stores. In the country, of course, the true article should be abundant, and in town, you can generally purchase small quantities at the confectioners. A pint well worked will yield enough “whip” for the dessert of a small family. It should be kept in a cold place until needed, and not kept long anywhere.

Whipped cream is a delightful addition to coffee. John will relish his after-dinner cup much better if you will mantle it with this snowy richness. Remember this when preparing your syllabub or trifle, and set aside a few spoonfuls before seasoning it.

Don’t be afraid of undertaking “fancy dishes.” Sally forth bravely into the region of delicate and difficult dainties, when you are considering family bills of fare, and you will not be dismayed when called to get up a handsome “company” entertainment. “Grandmother’s way” may suit Mesdames Dull and Bigott, but you, being accustomed to use your reasoning powers, should remember that our estimable maternal progenitors knew as little of locomotives and magnetic telegraphs as of canned fruits and gelatine.

And, _entre nous_, I for one, and my John for two, are getting so tired of the inevitable pie! He read aloud to me the other day, with great gusto, a clever editorial from the _Tribune_, showing with much ingenuity and force, that the weakness for pie was a national vice. I wish I had room here to reprint it. Whenever I have been compelled since to eat a triangle of “family pie-crust,” my usually excellent digestion has played me false.

“Pie and soda-water! That is a woman’s idea of a comfortable luncheon on a hot day in the city,” said a gentleman to me. “At a bit of rare, tender steak, and a mealy potato they would turn up their fastidious noses. Such gross food is only fit for a _man_.”

The school-girl, rising from a barely-tasted breakfast during which she has been saying over to herself the chronological table, or French verb, learned the night before,—“doesn’t care to take any luncheon with her to-day. Certainly, no bread-and-butter—and sandwiches are _hateful_! If you insist, mamma, just give me a piece of pie—mince-pie, if you have it, with a slice of fruitcake and a little cheese. I may feel hungry enough at noon to nibble at them.”

Papa, running in at eleven o’clock, to announce that he has had a business telegram which obliges him to take the next train to Boston or Chicago, “has not time to think of food, unless you can give me a bit of pie to eat while you are packing my valise.” He jumps from the cars at five P.M. to snatch another “bit of pie” from a station-restaurant, and swallows still a third, at midnight, bought from an itinerant vender of such comestibles, who swings himself on board when the “through Express” halts for wood and water. If his sick headache is not overpowering, he is adequate to the consumption of still a fourth leathery triangle when another stop is made at six A.M.

Pie is the _pièce de résistance_ in rural desserts, at luncheon and at tea, and the mighty army mustered to meet the attacks of pic-nics and water-parties in the course of the year is enough to drive a dyspeptic to suicide, when he reads the sum total of the rough computation.

“I always calculate to bake a dozen of a Saturday,” says the farmer’s helpmate, resigned to cheerfulness in the narrative. “In haying and harvesting I make as many as thirty and forty every week. Nothing pleases our folks so much when they come in hot and tired, as a bit of pie—it don’t make much difference what kind—apple, berry, squash, or damson—so long as it is _pie_!”

This is not exaggeration, and the same mania for the destructive sweet is as prevalent among the working-classes of the city. It is useless to preach to artisans and laborers of the indigestible qualities of such pastry as is made by their wives at home, and bought at cheap bakeries; to represent that baked apples, and in the season, ripe, fresh fruits of all kinds are more nutritious, and even cheaper, when the prices of flour, sugar, and “shortening” are reckoned up, to say nothing of the time spent in rolling out, basting and baking the tough skinned, and often sour-hearted favorites.

Jellies are scorned as “having no substance into them;” blanc-mange is emphatically “flummery,” and whipped cream I have heard described scornfully as “sweetened nothing.”

Do not understand my strictures upon pie-olatry to mean indiscriminate condemnation of pastry. A really fine mince-pie is a toothsome delicacy, and the like quality of pumpkin-pie a luscious treat. Christmas would hardly be Christmas without the one, and I would have the other grace every Thanksgiving feast until the end of time. But surely there is an “out of season,” as well as “in.”

“Your Toxes and your Chickses may draw out my two front double teeth, Mrs. Richards,” said Susan Nipper, “but that’s no reason why I need offer ’em the whole set!”

And when I recall the square inches of hard and slack-baked dyspepsia I have masticated—and swallowed—at the bidding of civility, and a natural soft-heartedness that would not let me grieve or shame hospitable entertainers, I can say it almost as snappishly as she.

Give John, then, and above all, the children, a respite from the traditional, conventional and national pie, and an opportunity to compare its solid merits with the graces of more fanciful desserts. I can safely promise that the health of the family will not suffer from the change.

FANCY DISHES FOR DESSERT.

JELLY ORANGES. +

12 fine deep-colored oranges.

1 package Coxe’s gelatine, dissolved in one cup cold water.

3 cups white sugar.

Juice of the oranges, and grated rind of three.

2 cups boiling water.

¼ teaspoonful cinnamon.

Soak the gelatine three hours in the cup of cold water. Cut from the top of each orange a round piece, leaving a hole just large enough to admit the bowl of a small spoon, or the handle of a larger. The smaller the orifice, the better your dish will look. Clean out every bit of the pulp very carefully, so as not to tear the edges of the hole. Scrape the inner skin from the sides with your fore-finger, and when the oranges are emptied lay them in cold water, while you make the jelly. Strain the juice and grated peel through coarse, thin muslin over the sugar, squeezing rather hard to get the coloring matter. Stir this until it is a thick syrup, and add the spice. Pour the boiling water upon the soaked gelatine; stir over the fire until well dissolved; add the juice and sugar, stir all together, and strain through a flannel bag into a pitcher, not shaking or squeezing it, lest it should be cloudy. Wipe off the outside of the oranges, set them close together in a dish, the open ends uppermost, and fill _very_ full with the warm jelly, as it will shrink in cooling. Set away in a cold place where there is no dust. Next day, cut each in half with a sharp penknife, taking care to sever the skin all around before cutting into the jelly. If neatly divided, the rich amber jelly will be a fair counterfeit of the orange pulp. Pile in a glass dish, with green leaves around, as you would the real fruit.

This is a beautiful and delicious dish, and easily made.

GLACÉ ORANGES.

Prepare precisely as in the preceding receipt, and after cutting the oranges in two, set them where they will freeze. In winter, a few hours out-of-doors will accomplish this. In summer pile them carefully within a freezer, and surround with ice and _rock salt_ for six hours; draining off the water, and replenishing with ice and salt twice during the time.

These are very refreshing in hot weather.

RIBBON JELLY AND CREAM. +

1 package Coxe’s gelatine, soaked in 2 cups of cold water.

2 cups white sugar.

1 pint _boiling_ water.

Juice and half the grated rind of 1 lemon.

1 cup pale wine.

¼ teaspoonful cinnamon.

Enough prepared cochineal or bright cranberry, or other fruit syrup to color half the jelly.

1 pint rich sweet cream whipped stiff with two table-spoonfuls powdered sugar, and a little vanilla.

Soak the jelly four hours. Add to it the sugar and seasoning, including the lemon; pour in the boiling water, and stir until entirely dissolved. Strain through a flannel bag, after adding the wine. Do not touch it while it is dripping. Divide the jelly, and color half of it pink, as above directed. Wet a mould, with a cylinder through the centre, in cold water, and put in the jelly, yellow and pink, in alternate layers, letting each get pretty firm before putting in the next, until all is used up. When you are ready to use it, wrap a hot wet cloth about the mould for a moment, and invert upon a dish. Have the cream whipped before you do this, and fill the open place in the middle with it, heaping it up well.

You can vary the coloring by making white and yellow blanc-mange out of one-quarter of the gelatine after it is soaked. Instead of water, pour a large cup of boiling milk over this. When dissolved, sweeten and beat into half of it the yolk of an egg. Heat over the fire in a vessel of boiling water for five minutes to cook the egg, stirring all the time. A stripe of the white or yellow blanc-mange sets off the wider “ribbons” of pink and amber very tastefully. Or you may make the base of chocolate blanc-mange, by stirring a great spoonful of grated sweet chocolate into the gelatine and boiling milk.

EASTER EGGS. (_Very pretty._) +

1 package Coxe’s gelatine, soaked four hours in one pint cold water.

2 heaping cups sugar.

3 large cups boiling milk.

2 table-spoonfuls grated chocolate—sweet, vanilla-flavored, if you can get it.

2 eggs, the yolks only.

A little prepared cochineal, or bright-red syrup.

Empty shells of 12 eggs, from which the contents have been drained through a hole in the small end.

Essence bitter-almond, grated lemon-peel, and rose-water for flavoring.

Put sugar and soaked gelatine into a bowl, and pour the boiling milk over them. Set over the fire in a farina-kettle, and stir until dissolved. Strain and divide into four parts. Leave one white; stir into another the beaten yolks; into a third the chocolate; into the fourth the pink or scarlet coloring. Season the chocolate with vanilla; the yellow with lemon; the white with rose-water, the red with bitter-almond. Heat the yellow over the fire long enough to cook the egg. Rinse out your egg-shells with cold water, and fill with the various mixtures, three shells of each. Set upright in a pan of meal or flour to keep them steady, and leave until next day. Then fill a glass bowl more than three-quarters full, with nice wine-jelly, broken into sparkling fragments. Break away the egg-shells, bit by bit, from the blanc-mange. If the insides of the shells have been properly rinsed and left wet, there will be no trouble about this. Pile the vari-colored “eggs” upon the bed of jelly, lay shred preserved orange-peel, or very finely shred candied citron about them, and surprise the children with them as an Easter-day dessert.

It is well to make this the day on which you bake cake, as the contents of the egg-shells will not then be wasted. By emptying them carefully, you can keep the whites and yolks separate.

This dish, which I invented to please my own little ones on the blessed Easter-day, is always welcomed by them with such delight, that I cannot refrain from recommending its manufacture to other mothers. It is by no means difficult or expensive. If you can get green spinach, you can have yet another color by using the juice.

TURRET CREAM. +

1 pint sweet, rich cream.

1 quart milk.

1 package Coxe’s gelatine.

1 heaping cup white sugar.

3 eggs, beaten light—whites and yolks separately.

½ pound crystallized fruit—cherries and peaches, or apricots.

Vanilla flavoring.

Juice of one lemon.

Soak the gelatine in a cup of the milk four hours. Scald the remainder of the milk, add the sugar; when this is dissolved, the soaked gelatine. Stir over the fire until almost boiling hot; strain and divide into two equal portions. Return one to the fire, and heat quickly. When it nears the boiling-point, stir in the beaten yolks. Let all cook together two minutes, and turn out into a bowl to cool. While it cools, churn the cream very stiff, and beat the whites of the eggs until they will stand alone. Divide the latter into two heaps. As the yellow gelatine begins to “form,” whip one-half of the whites into it, a little at a time. To the white gelatine add the rest of the whites in the same manner, alternately with the whipped cream. Season the yellow with vanilla, the white with the lemon-juice beaten in at the last. Wet the inside of a tall, fluted mould with water, and arrange in the bottom, close to the outside of the mould, a row of crystallized cherries. Then put in a layer of the white mixture; on this the apricots or peaches cut into strips; a layer of the yellow, another border of cherries, and so on, until your materials are used up. When firm, which will be in a few hours, even in summer, if set on the ice, wrap a cloth wrung out in hot water about the mould, and invert upon a flat dish.

Eat with sweet cream, or, if you like, with brandied fruit.

This is a beautiful dessert, and a handsome centre-piece for a supper-table. It is also a safe one, even in the hands of a novice, if these directions be followed exactly. Bitter-almond may be substituted for the lemon.

NAPLES SPONGE. +

6 eggs. Use the yolks for custard.

1 quart of milk.

2 _large_ cups sugar, and same quantity boiling water.

1 package gelatine soaked in 2 cups cold water.

Juice of a lemon and half the grated rind.

1 stale sponge-cake cut into smooth slices of uniform size.

2 glasses sherry.

Dissolve the soaked gelatine in the hot water. Add a cup of sugar and the lemon, and stir until the mixture is clear. Set aside in a shallow pan to cool. Meanwhile, make a custard of the milk, the yolks, and the other cup of sugar. Stir until it begins to thicken, when turn into a pitcher or pail, and put away until the “sponge” is ready for table. Whip the whites very stiff, and beat into them, a few spoonfuls at a time, the cooled gelatine. Spread the slices of cake, cut of a shape and size that will fit your mould, upon a flat dish, and wet them with the sherry. Rinse out a pudding or jelly mould with cold water, put a thick layer of the “sponge” in the bottom, pressing and smoothing it down, then one of cake, fitted in neatly; another of the sponge, proceeding in this order until all is used. The upper layer—the base when the sponge is turned out should be of cake.

Serve in a glass dish with some of the custard poured about the base, and send around more in a sauce-tureen or silver cream-pitcher.

Season the custard with vanilla.

AN ALMOND CHARLOTTE. +

1 quart milk.

1 pint rich cream—whipped stiff.

Whites of 3 eggs.

1 great cup white sugar—powdered.

1 pound sweet almonds, blanched and cold.

Rose-water and essence of bitter almond for flavoring.

1 stale sponge-cake sliced.

Icing for top of cake.

1 package gelatine soaked in a cupful of the milk. Heat the rest of the milk to boiling; put in the sugar and soaked gelatine. Heat again before adding the almond paste. This should be ready, before you begin the Charlotte. Blanch the almonds by putting them into _boiling_ water, skinning them, and letting them get cold and crisp. Pound in a mortar, dropping in rose-water, now and then, to prevent oiling. Stir this paste well into the hot milk; let it simmer with it two or three minutes; then strain through coarse muslin, squeezing hard to get out the strength. Flavor and set by until cold and a little stiff around the edges. Beat the whites of the eggs stiff and add the gelatine gradually—beating steadily—alternately with the whipped cream. Butter your mould, and line with slices of sponge-cake fitted closely together. Fill with the mixture, pressing it in firmly and evenly. In eight or ten hours, turn it out upon a dish, and ice as you would a cake, but on the top only. While the frosting is soft, ornament with fancy candies, laid on in any shape you may fancy.

_Or,_

You may simplify matters by reserving one large piece of cake—a slice cut the full width of the loaf; trimming it to fit the bottom of the mould, and only lining the sides of the latter. The Charlotte will turn out as well without the top (or bottom), and you can have it frosted and ornamented by the time you empty the mould. Lay it carefully on the top of the gelatine.

NARCISSUS BLANC-MANGE.

1 quart milk.

Less than a pint rich cream, whipped with a _little_ powdered sugar.

1 package Cooper’s gelatine, soaked in 2 cups of cold water.

Yolks of 4 eggs, beaten light.

2 cups white sugar.

Vanilla and rose-water for flavoring.

Heat the milk scalding hot, stir in the gelatine and sugar. When all are dissolved, beat in the yolks, and heat until they are cooked. Two minutes, after the custard becomes scalding hot, should suffice. Turn out into a broad dish to cool. When it stiffens around the edges, transfer it, a few spoonfuls at a time, to a bowl, and whip vigorously with your egg-beater. Flavor with rose-water. It should be like a yellow sponge before you put it into the mould. This should be an open one, _i.e._, with a cylinder in the centre. Rinse with cold water, and fill with the blanc-mange. It is best made the day before it is to be used. After turning it out upon a dish, fill the hollowed centre with whipped cream, flavored with vanilla and heaped up as high as it will stand. Pile more whipped cream about the base.

This dessert is named for the pretty yellow and white flower which came, with the earliest days of Spring, to the old-fashioned gardens.

TIPSY TRIFLE. +

1 quart milk.

5 eggs, whites and yolks beaten separately.

1 stale sponge-cake.

½ pound macaroons.

1 cup sugar.

Vanilla, or bitter-almond for flavoring.

1 cup sherry wine, and 1 cup jelly or jam.

Make a custard of the milk, sugar and yolks, adding the latter when the milk _almost_ boils, and stirring constantly until it begins to thicken. Flavor when cold. Slice your cake, and line the bottom of a glass dish with it. Wet with the wine, and cover with jam or jelly. A layer of macaroons over this must also be wet with sherry. Another layer of cake, moistened with wine and spread with jam; more macaroons, and so on, until the dish is three-quarters full. Pour the cold custard over all; beat the whites of the eggs stiff with a few spoonfuls of bright jelly, and heap smoothly on top. Drop a bit of red jelly here and there upon it.

STRAWBERRY TRIFLE. +

This is made substantially as above—but the macaroons and wine are omitted, and the sponge-cake wet with sweet cream. Layers of ripe strawberries (cut in two, if the fruit is large), sprinkled with powdered sugar, are substituted for the jam; strawberry-juice, well sweetened, is whipped into the _méringue_ on top, and this ornamented with ripe, scarlet berries.

This is very nice.

CRÉME DU THÉ. (_Good._)

1 pint rich cream, whipped light.

½ package gelatine, soaked in 1 cup of milk.

1 large cup of _strong_ mixed tea—the best quality.

1 cup white sugar.

Whites of 2 eggs.

Dissolve the soaked gelatine and sugar in the boiling tea, when you have strained the latter through fine muslin, and let it cool. Whip the cream and the whites of the eggs in separate vessels. When the gelatine is perfectly cold, beat it by degrees into the whites until it is a pretty firm froth. Then whip in the cream. Rinse a mould in cold water, fill it with the mixture, and set in a very cold place, or on ice, for eight or ten hours. Send around a pitcher of sweet cream with it.

CRÉME DU CAFÉ.

Is made precisely as is the _créme du thé_, but substituting a large cup of strong black coffee for the tea. It is even more popular than the tea-cream.

It is a good plan to make both at the same time, one package of gelatine serving for all, and give your guests their choice of tea or coffee. If set to form in custard-cups and turned out upon a flat dish in alternate rows, they make a handsome show. The darker color of the coffee will distinguish it from the tea.

A small pitcher of sweet cream should accompany them.

CRÉME DU CHOCOLAT. +

1 quart of milk.

1 pint of cream, whipped light.

½ package of gelatine, soaked in 1 cup of the milk.

2 eggs, yolks and whites beaten separately.

1 cup of sugar—powdered.

4 table-spoonfuls grated chocolate.

Vanilla to taste.

Scald the milk, and stir into it while still in the saucepan, the soaked gelatine and sugar. Heat up once, and when the gelatine is quite dissolved, strain. The chocolate should be wet up with cold water before it is put into the hot milk. Stir up thoroughly, return to the saucepan, and when smoking hot, add it gradually to the beaten yolks. Set back on the fire and boil very gently five minutes—not more, or the eggs may curdle. Turn into a broad pan to cool. Whip, when it begins to coagulate, gradually and thoroughly with the beaten whites, flavoring with vanilla. Lastly, beat in the whipped cream.

You can add this to your coffee and tea creams, and complete the assortment. Mould as you do them, but serve with brandied fruit, instead of cream. Most people are very fond of it.

CHOCOLATE BLANC-MANGE. +

1 quart of milk.

½ package gelatine, dissolved in 1 cup cold water.

1 cup sugar.

3 great spoonfuls grated chocolate.

Vanilla to taste.

Heat the milk; stir in sugar and soaked gelatine. Strain; add chocolate; boil ten minutes, stirring all the time. When nearly cold, beat for five minutes—hard with your “Dover” egg-beater, or until it begins to stiffen. Flavor; whip up once, and put into a wet mould. It will be firm in six or eight hours.

CHOCOLATE BLANC-MANGE AND CREAM.

Make the blanc-mange as directed in last receipt. Set it to form in a mould with a cylinder in centre. You can improvise one by stitching together a roll of stiff paper just the height of the pail or bowl in which you propose to mould your blanc-mange, and holding it firmly in the middle of this while you pour the mixture around it. The paper should be well buttered. Lay a book or other light weight on the cylinder to keep it erect. When the blanc-mange is turned out, slip out the paper, and fill the cavity with whipped cream, heaping some about the base. Specks of bright jelly enliven this dish if disposed tastefully upon the cream.

CHOCOLATE CUSTARDS (_baked_).

1 quart of good milk.

6 eggs—yolks and whites separated.

1 cup sugar.

4 great spoonfuls grated chocolate.

Vanilla flavoring.

Scald the milk; stir in the chocolate and simmer two minutes, to dissolve, and incorporate it well with the milk. Beat up the yolks with the sugar and put into the hot mixture. Stir for one minute before seasoning and pouring into the cups, which should be set ready in a pan of boiling water. They should be half submerged, that the water may not bubble over the tops. Cook slowly about twenty minutes, or until the custards are firm. When cold, whip the whites of the eggs to a _méringue_ with a very little powdered sugar—(most _méringues_ are too sweet) and pile some upon the top of each cup. Put a piece of red jelly on the _méringue_.

CHOCOLATE CUSTARDS (_boiled_).

1 quart of milk.

6 eggs—whites and yolks separately beaten.

1 cup of sugar.

4 large spoonfuls grated chocolate.

Vanilla to taste—a teaspoonful to the pint is a good rule.

Scald the milk; stir in sugar and chocolate. Boil gently five minutes, and add the yolks. Cook five minutes more, or until it begins to thicken up well, stirring all the time. When nearly cold beat in the flavoring, and whisk all briskly for a minute before pouring into the custard cups. Whip up the whites with a little powdered sugar, or what is better, half a cup of currant or cranberry jelly, and heap upon the custards.

ROCKWORK. +

1 quart of milk.

6 eggs.

1 cup powdered sugar.

Vanilla flavoring.

Sweeten the milk slightly and set it over the fire in a rather wide-mouthed saucepan. Beat the whites of the eggs to a very stiff froth with a table-spoonful or so of the sugar. When the milk boils, put in the froth, a table-spoonful at a time, turning each little heap as it is cooked on the lower side. Have only a few spoonfuls in at once, or they will run together. Take out the cooked froth care fully with a skimmer and lay on a sieve. When all are done, set in a cool place, while you make a custard of the yolks beaten up with the sugar and the boiling milk. Stir until it begins to thicken, and pour out to cool. Flavor when cold; fill a glass bowl with the custard and pile the “rocks” on the surface.

A pretty variation of floating island. Serve with sponge-cake.

AN AMBUSHED TRIFLE. +

A round stale sponge-cake.

1 pint milk.

1 teaspoonful corn-starch.

1 cup sweet jelly or jam. Crab-apple jelly is very nice.

3 eggs beaten light.

A pinch of salt.

Vanilla, lemon, or bitter almond flavoring.

2 table-spoonfuls powdered sugar.

Cut the top from the cake in one piece and lay it aside. Scoop out the inside of the cake, leaving side walls and a bottom about an inch thick. Coat these well with the jelly. Scald the milk; beat the eggs with the sugar, and stir into this when it is almost boiling. Crumb the cake you have scooped out very finely, and beat into the hot custard. Return to the fire and cook, stirring all the while until thick and smooth, when add the corn-starch, previously wet with cold milk. Cook a minute longer and take from the fire. When nearly cold, flavor and fill the cake with it. Cover the inside of the lid you have laid aside with jelly, fit neatly into its place; brush the whole cake with white of egg, sift powdered sugar thickly over it, and set in a cool, dry place until wanted.

A simple, delightful dessert.

ORANGE TRIFLE. +

1 pint cream, whipped stiff.

3 eggs—yolks only.

1 cup of powdered sugar.

½ package Coxe’s gelatine, soaked in a cup of cold water.

Juice of 2 sweet oranges.

Grated rind of 1 orange.

1 cup boiling water.

Stir the soaked gelatine in the boiling water. Mix the juice, rind and sugar together, and pour the hot liquid over them. Should the gelatine not dissolve readily, set all over the fire and stir until clear. Strain, and stir in the beaten yolks. Heat quickly within a vessel of boiling water, stirring constantly lest the yolks should curdle. If they should, strain again through coarse flannel. Set aside until perfectly cold and slightly stiff, when whip in the frothed cream. Wet a mould, fill, and set it on ice.

APPLE TRIFLE.

1 dozen tender pippins of fine flavor.

1 large cup of sugar, for custard—one—smaller—for apples.

1 scant quart rich milk.

4 eggs.

Juice and half the grated peel of 1 lemon.

1 pint of cream, whipped up with a little powdered sugar.

Slice the apples; put them in an earthenware or glass jar; cover lightly and set in a kettle of warm water. Bring to a boil, and cook gently until the apples are tender and clear. Beat to a pulp, sweeten with the smaller cup of sugar; add lemon-juice and rind, and put them into a glass dish. Make a custard of milk, sugar and eggs; boil until it thickens up well, and let it get perfectly cold. Cover the apple compote with it, spoonful by spoonful. The apple should be cold and stiff, or it may rise to the top of the custard. Lastly, pile the whipped cream over all.

LEMON TRIFLE. (_Delicious._)

2 lemons—juice of both and grated rind of one.

1 cup sherry.

1 large cup of sugar.

1 pint cream well sweetened and whipped stiff.

A little nutmeg.

Strain the lemon-juice over the sugar and grated peel, and let them lie together two hours before adding the wine and nutmeg. Strain again and whip gradually into the frothed cream. Serve in jelly-glasses and send around cake with it. It should be eaten soon after it is made.

QUEEN OF TRIFLES. +

½ lb. “lady fingers,” or square sponge-cakes.

½ lb. macaroons.

½ lb. sweet almonds blanched.

½ lb. crystallized fruit, chopped fine.

1 cup sweet jelly or jam.

1 glass of brandy.

1 glass of best sherry.

Rose-water.

1 pint of cream, whipped.

1 pint of rich milk for custard.

4 eggs, whites and yolks separated.

1 table-spoonful corn-starch.

1 small cup sugar for custard.

A little powdered sugar for whipped cream.

Vanilla flavoring for custard.

Put sponge-cakes at the bottom of a large glass dish; wet with brandy, and cover thinly with jelly. Strew the minced fruits thickly upon this. Next come the macaroons. Wet with the wine and cover thickly with jelly. Set the dish in a cool place while you prepare the custard. This will give the cakes time to soak up the liquor.

Scald the milk; beat the yolks and sugar together and make a paste of the blanched almonds by pounding them in a Wedgewood mortar (or, in a stout bowl with a potato beetle), adding rose-water as you go on to prevent oiling. Stir this paste into the hot milk, and, a minute later, the yolks and sugar. Cook, stirring constantly, for three minutes more, when put in the corn-starch, wet up with cold milk. Let all thicken well and smoothly; take from the fire, beat up to break possible lumps, and turn out to cool.

Whip the cream, and sweeten to taste. Whisk the whites of the eggs stiff and mix thoroughly with the whipped cream. When the custard is perfectly cold, cover the cakes in the glass dish with it, and heap the cream on top.

There is no better trifle than this.

APPLE SNOW. (_No. 1._) +

6 fine pippins.

2 cups powdered sugar.

1 lemon—juice and half the grated peel.

1 pint of milk for custard.

4 eggs.

Make a good custard of the milk, one cup of sugar and the yolks. Bake the apples, cores, skins and all, in a covered dish with a little water in the bottom to prevent burning. The apples should be so tender that a straw will pierce them. Take off the skins and scrape out the pulp. Mix in the sugar and lemon. Whip the whites of the eggs light, and beat in the pulp by degrees until very white and firm. Put the custard, when cold, into the bottom of a glass bowl and pile the snow upon it.

APPLE SNOW. (_No. 2._) +

½ lb. macaroons.

1 cup good custard.

4 fine pippins (raw).

Whites of 4 eggs.

½ cup powdered sugar.

Put the macaroons in the bottom of a glass dish, and cover with the custard before you make the snow. Whisk the eggs and sugar to a _méringue_ before paring the apples. Peel and grate each directly into the frothed egg and sugar, and whip in quickly before touching the next. The pulp will better preserve its color if thus coated before the air can affect it. It is well for one person to hold the egg-beater and work in the apple while an assistant grates it. Pile upon the soaked macaroons and set on ice until wanted. It should be eaten soon after it is made.

ORANGE SNOW.

4 large, sweet oranges. Juice of all and grated peel of one.

Juice and half the grated peel of 1 lemon.

1 package of gelatine, soaked in cup of cold water.

Whites of 4 eggs, whipped stiff.

1 cup—a large one—of powdered sugar.

1 pint boiling water.

Mix the juice and peel of the fruit with the soaked gelatine; add the sugar; stir all up well and let them alone for an hour. Then pour on the boiling water, and stir until clear. Strain through a coarse cloth, pressing and wringing it hard. When quite cold, whip into the frothed whites gradually, until thick and white. Put into a wet mould for eight hours.

LEMON SNOW. +

3 lemons—if large—4 if small. Grated peel of two.

4 eggs—the whites only—whipped to standing froth.

1 package of gelatine soaked in 1 cup cold water.

1 pint _boiling_ water.

1 glass sherry or white wine—a large glass.

½ teaspoonful nutmeg.

2 cups powdered sugar.

Add to the soaked gelatine the juice of all the lemons, and peel of two, the sugar and spice, and let them stand together one hour. Then pour the boiling water over them. Stir until dissolved, and strain into a wide bowl. When nearly cold, add the wine. When quite cold, begin to whip the mixture gradually into the frothed egg, and beat until thick, white and smooth. Wet a mould in cold water and set the snow aside in it until firm.

If you like, you can pour a rich custard about the base after dishing it.

RICE SNOW.

5 table-spoonfuls rice flour.

1 quart of milk.

4 eggs—the whites only—whipped light.

1 large spoonful of butter.

1 cup powdered sugar.

A pinch of cinnamon and same of nutmeg.

Vanilla or other extract for flavoring.

A little salt.

Wet up the flour with cold water and add to the milk when the latter is scalding hot. Boil until it begins to thicken; put in the sugar and spice; simmer five minutes, stirring constantly, and turn into a bowl before beating in the butter. Let it get cold before flavoring it. Whip, a spoonful at a time, into the beaten eggs. Set to form in a wet mould.

Send sweet cream around with it.

This is delicate and wholesome fare for invalids. If you wish to have it especially nice, add half a pint of cream, whipped light and beaten in at the last.

SUMMER SNOW. (_Extremely fine._)

1 package Coxe’s gelatine, soaked in 1 cup cold water.

2 cups powdered sugar.

Juice and peel of 1 lemon.

Half a pine-apple, cut in small pieces.

2 cups boiling water.

1 glass best brandy.

2 glasses best sherry or white wine.

A little nutmeg.

4 eggs—the whites only—whipped.

Mix into the soaked gelatine the sugar, lemon, pine-apple, and nutmeg. Let them stand together two hours, when you have bruised the fruit with the back of a silver or wooden spoon and stirred all thoroughly. Pour over them, at the end of that time, the boiling water, and stir until the gelatine is dissolved. Strain through coarse flannel, squeezing and wringing hard. When almost cold, put in the wine and brandy. Cover until quite cold. Whip in, by degrees, into the beaten whites. It ought to be whisked half an hour, even if you use the “Dover.” Bury in the ice to “form,” having wet the mould with cold water.

This is most refreshing and delicious.

SYLLABUB. +

1 quart rich cream.

4 eggs—the whites only.

1 glass white wine.

2 _small_ cups powdered sugar.

Flavor to taste.

Whip half the sugar into the cream—the rest with the eggs. Mix these and add wine and flavoring at the last.

VELVET CREAM. +

1 pint best cream whipped very stiff.

½ package Coxe’s gelatine, soaked in 1 cup cold water.

3 glasses white wine.

Juice of 1 large lemon.

Bitter almond flavoring.

1 cup powdered sugar.

Put sugar, lemon, soaked gelatine and wine into a bowl, cover closely to keep in the flavor of the wine and let them stand together one hour. Stir up well, and set the bowl (or jar), still covered, into a saucepan of boiling water for fifteen minutes, or until the gelatine is dissolved and the mixture clear. Strain, and let it cool before flavoring. Beat gradually into the whipped cream. Wet a mould, fill and set directly upon the ice until wanted.

MACAROON BASKET.

1 lb. macaroons—almond or cocoanut, or “kisses.”

1 large cup white sugar.

1 table-spoonful dry gum arabic.

½ cup of water—_boiling_.

Dissolve the gum arabic in the hot water thoroughly; then stir in the sugar. Boil gently until very thick. Set it, while using it, in a pan of boiling water to keep hot. Take a round tin pail (a fluted mould will not do so well), butter thickly on bottom and sides, dip the edges only of each macaroon in the hot candy and lay them in close rows on the bottom until it is covered. Let them get perfectly dry, and be sure they adhere firmly to one another before you begin the lower row of the sides. Build up your wall, one row at a time, letting each harden before adding another. When the basket is done and firm, lift carefully from the mould; make a loop-handle at each end with four or five macaroons, stuck together; set on a flat dish and heap with whipped cream. Sprinkle comfits over the cream, or ornament with red jelly.

With a little care and practice any deft housewife can build this basket. A mould of _stiff_ white paper, lightly stitched together and well buttered, has several advantages above one of tin. You can make it of any shape you like, and remove it without risk of breaking the basket, by clipping the threads that hold it together.

JELLY CUSTARDS.

1 quart milk.

6 eggs—whites and yolks.

1 cup sugar.

Flavoring to taste.

Some red and yellow jelly—raspberry is good for one, orange jelly for the other.

Make a custard of the eggs, milk and sugar; boil gently until it thickens well. Flavor when cold; fill your custard-glasses two-thirds full and heap up with the two kinds of jelly—the red upon some, the yellow on others.

APPLE JELLY. (_Nice._)

1 dozen well-flavored pippins.

2 cups powdered sugar.

Juice of 2 lemons—grated peel of one.

½ package Coxe’s gelatine soaked in 1 cup of cold water.

Pare, core and slice the apples, throwing each piece into cold water as it is cut, to preserve the color. Pack them in a glass or stoneware jar with just cold water enough to cover them; put on the top, _loosely_, that the steam may escape; set in a pot of warm water and bring to a boil. Cook until the apples are broken to pieces. Have ready in a bowl, the soaked gelatine, sugar, lemon-juice and peel. Strain the apple pulp scalding hot, over them; stir until the gelatine is dissolved; strain again—this time through a flannel bag, without shaking or squeezing it; wet a mould with cold water and set in a cold place until firm.

This is very nice formed in an open mould (one with a cylinder in the centre), and with the cavity filled and heaped with whipped cream or syllabub.

PEACH JELLY.

Is made as you would apple, and with a few peach-kernels broken up and boiled with the fruit.

STRAWBERRY JELLY. +

1 quart strawberries.

1 _large_ cup white sugar.

Juice of 1 lemon.

⅔ package Coxe’s gelatine soaked in 1 cup cold water.

1 pint boiling water.

Mash the strawberries to a pulp and strain them through coarse muslin. Mix the sugar and lemon-juice with the soaked gelatine; stir up well and pour over them the boiling water. Stir until clear. Strain through flannel bag; add the strawberry juice; strain again, without shaking or pressing the bag; wet a mould with cylinder in centre, in cold water; fill it and set in ice to form.

Turn out upon a cold dish; fill with whipped cream, made quite sweet with powdered sugar, and served at once.

It is very fine.

RASPBERRY AND CURRANT JELLY.

1 quart currants.

1 quart red or Antwerp raspberries.

2 cups white sugar.

1 package gelatine soaked in 1 cup cold water.

1 cup boiling water.

Whipped cream—made very sweet—for centre.

Crush the fruit in a stoneware jar with a wooden beetle, and strain out every drop of the juice that will come away. Stir the sugar and soaked gelatine together; pour the boiling water over them; when clear, strain into the fruit-juice. Strain again through flannel bag; wet an “open” mould; fill with the jelly, and bury in ice to form.

Turn out upon a very cold dish; fill the centre with the cream.

LEMON JELLY. +

6 lemons—juice of all, and grated peel of two.

2 _large_ cups sugar.

1 package Coxe’s gelatine, soaked in 2 cups cold water.

2 glasses pale sherry or white wine.

1 pint boiling water.

Stir sugar, lemon-juice, peel, and soaked gelatine together, and cover for an hour. Pour the boiling water over them; stir until the gelatine is quite melted; strain; add the wine; strain again through close flannel bag, and pour into a wet mould.

ORANGE JELLY. +

6 large deep-colored oranges—juice of all.

Grated peel of one.

2 lemons, juice of both, and peel of one.

1 glass _best_ brandy.

1 package gelatine, soaked in 2 cups of water.

1 pint boiling water.

2 cups sugar.

Make as you would lemon jelly.