Marion Harland's Cookery for Beginners / A Series of Familiar Lessons for Young Housekeepers

Cream butter and sugar; add milk and beat hard before putting in the whites of the eggs. Stir in flavoring and, lightly and quickly, the prepared flour. Bake in small tins.

Frosting for Cake.

Put the whites into a cold bowl and add the sugar at once, stirring it in thoroughly. Then whip with your egg-beater until the mixture is stiff and white, adding lemon-juice as you go on. Spread thickly over the cake, and set in the sun, or in a warm room to dry.

White Lemon Cake.

Make “white cup-cake,” bake in jelly cake-tins and let it get cold. Prepare a frosting as above directed, but use the juice of two lemons and the grated peel of one. Spread this mixture between the cakes and on the top.

Sponge Cake.

Do not attempt this until you have had some practice in the management of ovens, and let your first trial be with what are sometimes termed “snow-balls,”—that is, small sponge cakes, frosted. Put six eggs into a scale and ascertain their weight exactly. Allow for the sponge cake the weight of the eggs in sugar, and half their weight in flour. Grate the yellow peel from a lemon and squeeze the juice upon it. Let it stand ten minutes, and strain through coarse muslin, pressing out every drop.

Beat the yolks of the eggs very light and then the sugar into them; the lemon-juice; the whites, which should have been whipped to a standing froth;—finally, stir in the sifted flour swiftly and lightly. Bake in a steady oven from twenty-five to thirty minutes, glancing at them now and then, to make sure they are not scorching, and covering with white paper as they harden on top.

This is an easy, and if implicitly obeyed, a sure receipt.

Nice Gingerbread.

Put butter, molasses, sugar and spice in a bowl, set in a pan of hot water and stir with a wooden spoon until they are like brown cream. Take from the water and add the milk. Beat yolks and whites together until light in another bowl, and turn the brown mixture gradually in upon them, keeping the egg-beater going briskly.

When well-mixed, add the soda, at last, the flour. Beat hard three minutes, and bake in well-buttered pans.

Sugar Cookies.

Cream butter and sugar, beat in the whipped eggs and spice; add a handful at a time the flour, working it in until the dough is stiff enough to roll out. Flour your hands well and sprinkle flour over a pastry-board. Make a ball of the dough, and lay it on the board. Rub your rolling-pin also with flour and roll out the dough into a sheet about a quarter of an inch thick.

Cut into round cakes; sift granulated sugar over each and bake quickly.

Ginger Snaps.

Stir molasses, sugar and butter together in a bowl set in hot water, until very light. Mix in spices and flour, and roll out as directed in last receipt, but in a thinner sheet. Cut into small cakes and bake quickly.

All cakes in the composition of which molasses is used, are more apt to burn than others. Watch your ginger snaps well, but opening the oven as little as may be.

These spicy and toothsome cakes are better the second day than the first, and keep well for a week or more.

14
JELLIES, CREAMS AND OTHER FANCY DISHES FOR TEA AND LUNCHEON OR SUPPER-PARTIES.

THE pleasing custom in many families is to make the daughters responsible for “fancy cookery.” Mamma turns naturally, when company is expected, to her young allies for the manufacture of cake, jellies, blanc-mange, etc., and for the arrangement of fruit and flowers, and seldom cavils at the manner in which they do the work.

The difference in the appointment of feasts in houses where there are girls growing up and grown, and in those where there are none, is so marked that I need not call attention to it.

Lemon or Orange Jelly.

Soak the gelatine two hours; add lemon juice, grated peel, sugar and spice, and leave for one hour. Pour on the boiling water, stir until dissolved, and strain through double flannel. Do not shake or squeeze, but let the jelly filter clearly through it into a bowl or pitcher set beneath. Wet moulds in cold water and set aside to cool and harden.

Ribbon Jelly.

Take one third currant jelly, one third lemon jelly, and as much plain blanc-mange. (See Desserts.)

When all are cold and begin to form, wet a mould, pour in about a fourth of the red jelly and set on the ice to harden; keep the rest in a warm room, or near the fire. So soon as the jelly is firm in the bottom of the mould, add carefully some of the white blanc-mange, and return the mould to the ice. When this will bear the weight of more jelly, add a little of the lemon, and when this forms, another line of white.

Proceed in this order, dividing the red from the yellow by white, until the jellies are used up. Leave the mould on ice until you are ready to turn the jelly out.

A pretty dish, and easily managed if one will have patience to wait after putting in each layer until it is firm enough not to be disturbed or muddied by the next supply.

Buttercup Jelly.

Heat the milk to scalding in a farina-kettle and stir in the soaked gelatine until the latter is dissolved, and strain through a coarse cloth. Beat the yolks of the eggs light, add the sugar and pour the boiling mixture gradually upon it, stirring all the time.

Return to the farina-kettle and stir three minutes, or until it begins to thicken. Let it cool before you flavor it. Whip the white of one egg stiff, and when the yellow jelly coagulates around the edges, set the bowl containing the frothed white in cracked ice or in ice-water and beat the jelly into it, spoonful by spoonful, with the egg-whip, until it is all in and your sponge thick and smooth. Wet a mould and set it on the ice to form. Lay about the base when you dish it.

Whipped Cream.

I have been assured by those who have made the experiment, that excellent whipped cream can be produced, and very quickly, by the use of our incomparable Dover Egg-beater. I have never tried this, but my pupils may, if they have not a syllabub-churn.

Put a pint of rich, sweet cream in a pail or other wide-mouthed vessel with straight sides, and set in ice while you whip or churn it.

As the frothing cream rises to the top, remove it carefully with a spoon and lay it in a perfectly clean and cold colander, or on a hair sieve, set over a bowl. If any cream drips from it return to the vessel in which it is whipped to be beaten over again. When no more froth rises, whip a tablespoonful of powdered sugar into the white syllabub in the colander, and it is ready for use.

Swan’s Down Cream.

Just before you are ready to send the dish to table, beat whipped cream, frothed whites, sugar and flavoring together in a bowl set deep in cracked ice. Heap in a glass dish and leave in the ice until it is to be eaten.

Send sponge cake around with it.

Jellied Oranges.

Cut a small round piece from the blossom end of each of six or eight oranges, and scoop out the pulp very carefully, so as not to widen the hole, or tear the inside of the fruit. Use your fingers and a small teaspoon for this purpose until the oranges are empty and clean.

Lay them then in very cold water while you prepare with the pulp and juice you have taken out, and the grated peel of another orange, half the quantity of orange-jelly called for by the receipt for lemon jelly. When it is quite cold, fill the orange-skins with it, and set in a cold place to harden.

In serving them, cut the oranges cross-wise with a sharp knife and arrange in a glass dish, the open sides upward. A few orange, lemon, or japonica leaves to line the edges of the dish, will give a pretty effect.

Ambrosia.

Peel fine, sweet oranges, and cut into small pieces, extracting the seeds. Put a layer in a glass dish and sprinkle well with sugar. In this scatter a thick coating of grated cocoanut, strewing this also with powdered sugar. Over the cocoanut lay thin slices of bananas, peeled and cut crosswise. Fill the dish in this order, the top being covered with banana.

A nice dessert for Sundays and warm afternoons when one dreads the heat of the stove.

How to make Coffee and Tea.

If you wish to have really strong coffee, allow a cup of freshly-ground coffee to a quart of boiling water. Put the coffee in a bowl and wet with half a cup of cold water. Stir in the white and shell of a raw egg, and turn into a clean, newly-scalded coffee-boiler. Shut down the top and shake hard up and down half a dozen times before pouring in the boiling water. Set where it will boil hard, but not run over, for twenty minutes, draw to the side of the range and check the boil suddenly by pouring in a third of a cup of cold water. Let it stand three minutes to settle, and pour off gently into the pot which is to be set on the table.

Scald the milk to be drunk with coffee, unless you can serve really rich cream with it.

Tea.

First rule. The water should boil.

Second rule. The water in which the tea is steeped, must be boiling.

Third rule. The water used for filling the pot must be boiling.

I speak within bounds when I say that I could tell on the fingers of my two hands the tables at which I have drunk really good, hot, fresh tea. Sometimes it is made with boiling water, then allowed to simmer on the range or hob until the decoction is rank, reedy and bitter. Sometimes too little tea is put in, and the beverage, while hot enough, is but faintly colored and flavored.

Oftenest of all, the tea is made with unboiled water, or with water that did boil once, but is now flat and many degrees below the point of ebullition.

Scald the china, or silver, or tin teapot from which the beverage is to flow directly into the cups; put in an even teaspoonful of tea for each person who is to partake of it, pour in a half-cup of boiling water and cover the pot with a cozy or napkin for five minutes. Then, fill up with boiling water from the kettle and take to the table. Fill the cups within three minutes or so and you have the fresh aroma of the delicious herb.

INDEX.

PINE CONES. 12mo, illustrated, 1.00.

“Pine Cones sketches the adventures of a dozen wide-awake boys and girls in the woods, along the streams and over the mountains. It is good, wholesome reading that will make boys nobler and girls gentler. It has nothing of the over-goody flavor, but they are simply honest, live, healthy young folks, with warm blood in their veins and good impulses in their hearts, and are out for a good time. It will make old blood run warmer and revive old times to hear them whoop and see them scamper. No man or woman has a right to grow too old to enjoy seeing the young enjoy the spring days of life. It is a breezy, joyous, entertaining book, and we commend it to our young readers.”—Chicago Inter-Ocean.

SILVER RAGS, 12mo, illustrated, 1.00.

“Silver Rags is a continuation of Pine Cones and is quite as delightful reading as its predecessor. The story describes a jolly vacation in Maine, and the sayings and doings of the city boys and girls are varied by short stories, supposed to be told by a good-natured ‘Uncle Will.’”—The Watchman, Boston.

“Mr. Willis Boyd Allen is one of our finest writers of juvenile fiction. There is an open frankness in Mr. Allen’s characters which render them quite as novel as they are interesting, and his simplicity of style makes the whole story as fresh and breezy as the pine woods themselves.”—Boston Herald.

THE NORTHERN CROSS. 12mo, illustrated, 1.00.

“The Northern Cross, a story of the Boston Latin School by Willis Boyd Allen, is a capital book for boys. Beginning with a drill upon Boston Common, the book continues with many incidents of school life. There are recitations, with their successes and failures, drills and exhibitions. Over all is Dr. Francis Gardner, the stern, eccentric, warm-hearted Head Master, whom once to meet was to remember forever! The idea of the Northern Cross for young crusaders gives an imaginary tinge to the healthy realism.”—Boston Journal.

“Mr. Willis Boyd Allen appeals to a large audience when he tells a story of the Boston Latin School in the last year of Master Gardner’s life. And even to those who never had the privilege of studying there the story is pleasant and lively.”—Boston Post.

KELP: A Story of the Isle of Shoals. 12mo, illustrated, 1.00.

This is the latest of the Pine Cone Series and introduces the same characters. Their adventures are now on a lonely little island, one of the Shoals, where they camp out and have a glorious time not unmarked by certain perilous episodes which heighten the interest of the story. It is really the best of a series of which all are delightful reading for young people.

“It is a healthful, clean, bright book, which will make the blood course healthfully through the veins of young readers.”—Chicago Inter-Ocean.

PHILOSOPHIÆ QUÆSTOR; or, Days at Concord. 12mo, 60 cents.

In this unique book, Mrs. Julia R. Anagnos, one of the accomplished daughters of Julia Ward Howe, presents, under cover of a pleasing narrative, a sketch of the Emerson session of the Concord School of Philosophy. It has for its frontispiece an excellent picture of the building occupied by this renowned school.

“The seeker of philosophical truth, who is described as the shadowy figure of a young girl, is throughout very expressive of desire and appreciation. The impressions she receives are those to which such a condition are most sensitive—the higher and more refined ones—and the responsive thoughts concern the nature and character of what is heard or felt. Mrs. Anagnos has written a prose poem, in which the last two sessions of the Concord School of Philosophy, which include that in memory of Emerson, and its lecturers excite her feelings and inspire her thought. It is sung in lofty strains that resemble those of the sacred woods and fount, and themselves are communicative of their spirit. It will be welcomed as an appropriate souvenir.”—Boston Globe.

KNOWLEDGE IS POWER, 12mo, 1.50. (3)

“The author discusses in a clear and masterly way the relation between capital and labor, the duties of employer and employed, and the great advantage to each that a thorough knowledge of their work gives, and urges a broader culture for all classes.”—St. Joseph Gazette.

NED HARWOOD’S VISIT TO JERUSALEM. 4to, boards, illustrated, 1.25. Library Edition, 12mo, cloth, 1.25.

The travellers were in no hurry. They spent much time in the places associated with Christ’s ministry and in the former homes of the patriarchs and prophets. The book is of especial value to Sunday-school teachers and scholars, because of the light it throws upon many difficult Scripture passages by its vivid descriptions. The manuscript was approved by Rev. Selah Merrill, D. D., for many years U. S. Consul at Jerusalem. The strictest accuracy has thus been secured without impairing the interest of the story. Cover in colors from original design.

“The pictures of buildings and scenery are worth the price of the book.”—Woman’s Journal.

“It tells about just the things that would interest a boy in the Holy Land.”—Union Signal.

RUSTY LINCHPIN and LUBOFF ARCHIPOVNA.

Translated from the Russian by M. M. S. and J. L. E. 12mo, 1.25.

“Here are two exquisite idyls of Russian rural life. Innocent and ingenuous, ignorant of the falsity and fever of fashionable life, they have the freshness and simplicity of a good child. The local coloring adds to their bright cheerfulness, and the honest, kindly characters move us to a devout thankfulness.”—Christian Union, N. Y.

“They bring us very close to that strange civilization which has lately become so fascinating to Western readers, and help us to realize how truly the aims and the emotions of common life are the same under all garbs and in all lands.”—Chicago Dial.

“Of a number of works of fiction translated from the Russian within a year or two, no book, as a whole, is so purely reflective of Russian domestic life, or so sweet in tone as ‘The Rusty Linchpin.’”—Boston Globe.

“Seeking his materials for the most part in the common paths of life—often in the humblest—he gives an importance to everything and sheds a grace over all.”—Thomas Noon Talfourd.

A DISSERTATION UPON ROAST PIG. Small quarto, illustrated, 1.00.

A separate issue of the humorous masterpiece of Lamb, “the frolic and the gentle.” Printed on heavy paper, in clear, large type, characteristically illustrated by L. J. Bridgman.

“A little holiday book, the outside of which is in admirable harmony with what it contains. The dissertation is one of those charming literary trifles, whose lightness and brightness will always keep it popular.”—Boston Transcript.

SIX MONTHS AT MRS. PRIOR’S. Illustrated. 12mo, 1.00 (4)

“A widow, with scanty means, makes a home happy for a group of children. The mother’s love holds them, her thrift cares for them, her firmness restrains, and her Christian words and life win them to noble aims and living. The influence of the Christian household is widely felt, and the quiet transforming leaven works in many homes.”—The United Presbyterian.

12 vols., 12mo.

It is the charm of Dr. Adams’ style that truth, fitted by its profoundness to the most thoughtful hearers, is made clear to the most illiterate. Few men have adorned the American pulpit with a broader reach in adaptation to different classes of mind.

• Cross in the Cell, 1.00.
• Christ a Friend, 1.00.
• Agnes and the Little Key, 1.00.
• Evenings with the Doctrines, 1.00.
• Under the Mizzenmast, 1.25.
• At Eventide, 1.25.
• Bertha, 1.00.
• Friends of Christ, 1.00.
• Endless Punishment, 1.00.
• Communion Sabbath, 1.25.
• Catherine, 1.00.
• Broadcast, 1.00.

POST-LAUREATE IDYLS AND OTHER POEMS. 16mo, cloth, gilt top, 1.00; vegetable parchment, 1.50.

The Post-Laureate Idyls are ten parodies of Tennyson’s “Idyls of the King” whose themes are taken from Mother Goose Melodies. The Other Poems are “A Tale of Tuscany,” “The Legend of the Golden Lotus,” fifteen lyrics and eight sonnets.

“The dexterity and cleverness with which Mr. Adams has made the old rhymes serve his turn is amazing. The humor is delicate and unfailing throughout, while the verse is smooth and flowing, with graceful and liquid cadence. Mr. Adams is too truly a poet, however, to deal in pure burlesque, and there runs through all the pleasantry of these pages a touch of sadness, like the echo of the pain of the lays they travesty. They could not be better done. The lyrics and sonnets which end the volume are marked by sweetness and delicacy.”—Arlo Bates in Boston Courier.

“He is a poet of high aims and conscientious execution.”—New York Nation.

“Post-Laureate Idyls and Other Poems is a book of genuine poetic spirit and almost flawless workmanship.”—Boston Advertiser.

“Witty, quaint, charming ... the best things I can think of in the line of respectful parody.”—Mrs. Louise Chandler Moulton.

“There are dozens of passages which would impose upon the sharpest members of any Tennysonian club, so like they are to the style and expression of the master.”—Boston Transcript.