Are made in the above manner, except that to a quart of milk you must have twelve yolks of eggs, and no whites. You may devote to this purpose the yolks that are left when you have used the whites for cocoa-nut or almond puddings, or for lady cake or maccaroons.
Beat eight eggs very light, omitting the whites of four. Mix them gradually with a quart of cold milk and a quarter of a pound of sugar. Put the mixture into a saucepan with a bunch of peach leaves, or a handful of broken up peach-kernels or bitter almonds; the yellow peel of a lemon, and a handful of broken cinnamon; or you may boil in it a vanilla bean. Set it on hot coals, and simmer it slowly, stirring it all the time. As soon as it comes to a boil, take it immediately off the fire, or it will curdle and be lumpy. Then strain it: add a table-spoonful of rose-water, and put it into glass cups. You may lay in the bottom of each cup a maccaroon soaked in wine. Grate nutmeg over the top, and send it to table cold. Eat it with tarts or sweetmeats.
Boil some rice in milk till it is quite dry; then put it into small tea-cups, (pressing it down hard,) and when it is cold and has taken the shape of the cups, turn it out into a deep dish, and pour a boiled custard round it. Lay on the top of each lump of rice a piece of preserved quince or peach, or a piece of fruit jelly. In boiling the rice, you may mix with it raisins or currants; if so, omit the sweetmeats on the top. Ground rice is best.
Another way of boiling custard is to put the mixture into a pitcher, set it in a vessel of boiling water, place it on hot coals or in a stove, and let it boil slowly, stirring it all the time.
Make a boiled custard as in the preceding receipts; and when it is done and quite cold, put it into a deep glass dish. Beat to a stiff froth the four whites of eggs that have been omitted in the custard, adding eight or ten drops of oil of lemon. Drop the froth in balls on the top of the dish of custard, heaping and forming them with a spoon into a regular size and shape. Do not let them touch each other. You may lay a fresh rose leaf on the top of every one.
Pare, core, and quarter a dozen large juicy pippins. Strew among them the yellow peel of a large lemon grated very fine; and stew them till tender, in a very small portion of water. When done, mash them smooth with the back of a spoon; (you must have a pint and a half of the stewed apple;) mix a quarter of a pound of sugar with them, and set them away till cold. Beat six eggs very light, and stir them gradually into a quart of rich milk, alternately with the stewed apple. Put the mixture into cups, or into a deep dish, and bake it about twenty minutes. Send it to table cold, with nutmeg grated over the top.
Take four large ripe lemons, and roll them under your hand on the table to increase the juice. Then squeeze them into a bowl, and mix with the juice a very small tea-cup full of cold water. Use none of the peel. Add gradually sufficient sugar to make it very sweet. Beat twelve eggs till quite light, and then stir the lemon juice gradually into them, beating very hard at the last. Put the mixture into cups, and bake it ten minutes. When done, grate nutmeg over the top of each, and set them among ice, or in a very cold place.
These custards being made without milk, can be prepared at a short notice; they will be found very fine.
Orange custards may be made in the same manner.
Top and tail two quarts of green gooseberries. Stew them in a very little water; stirring and mashing them frequently. When they have stewed till entirely to pieces, take them out, and with a wooden spoon press the pulp through a cullender. Stir in (while the pulp is hot) a table-spoonful of butter, and sufficient sugar to make it very sweet. Beat six eggs very light. Simmer the gooseberry pulp over a gentle fire, and gradually stir the beaten eggs into it. When it comes to a boil, take it off immediately, stir it very hard, and set it out to cool. Serve it up cold in glasses or custard cups, grating some nutmeg over each.
Scald and blanch half a pound of shelled sweet almonds, and three ounces of shelled bitter almonds; throwing them as you do them into a large bowl of cold water. Then pound them one at a time in a mortar; pouring in frequently a little rose water to prevent their oiling, and becoming dark-coloured and heavy. Melt a quarter of a pound of loaf-sugar in a quart of cream or rich milk, and stir in by degrees the pounded almonds. Beat ten eggs very light, and stir them gradually into the mixture; adding a powdered nutmeg, and a tea-spoonful of powdered mace and cinnamon mixed. Then put the whole into a pitcher, and place it in a kettle or pan of boiling water, the water coming up to the lower part of the neck of the pitcher. Set it over hot coals, and let it boil (stirring it all the time) till it is quite thick, but not till it curdles. Then take the pitcher out of the water; pour the custard into a large bowl, and stir it till it cools. Put it into glass cups, and send it to table cold. Sweeten some cream or white of egg. Beat it to stiff froth and pile it on the top of the custards.
To a pound of grated cocoa-nut allow a pint of unskimmed milk, and six ounces of white sugar. Beat very light the yolks of six eggs. Stir them gradually into the milk, alternately with the cocoa-nut and sugar. Put the mixture into a pitcher; set it in a vessel of boiling water; place it on hot coals, and simmer it till it is very smooth and thick; stirring it all the time. As soon as it comes to a hard boil, take it off the fire; pour it into a large bowl, and set it out to cool. When cold, put it into glass cups. Beat to a stiff froth the white of egg that was left, and pile it on the custards.
Grate as much cocoa-nut as will weigh a pound. Mix half a pound of powdered white sugar with the milk of the cocoa-nut, or with a pint of cream; adding two table-spoonfuls of rose water. Then stir in gradually a pint of rich milk. Beat to a stiff froth the whites of eight eggs, and stir them into the milk and sugar, a little at a time, alternately with the grated cocoa-nut: add a tea-spoonful of powdered nutmeg and cinnamon. Then put the mixture into cups, and bake them twenty minutes in a Dutch oven half filled with boiling water. When cold, grate loaf-sugar over them.
Scrape fine a quarter of a pound of chocolate, and pour on it a pint of boiling water. Cover it, and let it stand by the fire till it has dissolved, stirring it twice. Beat eight eggs very light, omitting the whites of two. Stir them by degrees into a quart of cream or rich milk, alternately with the melted chocolate, and three table-spoonfuls of powdered white sugar. Put the mixture into cups, and bake it about ten minutes. Send them to table cold, with sweetened cream, or white of egg beaten to a stiff froth, and heaped on the top of each custard. No chocolate is so good as Baker's prepared cocoa.
These must be made in china custard cups. Put four maccaroons into each cup, and pour on them three spoonfuls of white wine. Mix together a pint of cream, and a pint of milk; and boil them with a large stick of cinnamon broken up, and a small bunch of peach leaves or a handful of broken bitter almonds. Then strain the milk; stir in a quarter of a pound of white sugar, and set it away to cool. Beat very light eight eggs, (omitting the whites of four,) and stir them gradually into the cream and milk when quite cold. Fill your cups with the mixture, (leaving the maccaroons at the bottom,) and set them in a Dutch oven or iron baking pan, which must be half full of boiling water. Heat the oven-lid first, by standing it up before a hot fire; then put it on, spreading coals over the top. Place sufficient coals under the oven, and bake the custards about ten minutes. When cold, heap beaten white of egg on the top of each. These custards are very fine.
Or into nine; and roll it in that number of times.
[E]Your pudding and dumpling cloths should be squares of coarse thick linen, hemmed, and with tape strings sewed to them. After using, they should be washed, dried, and ironed; and kept in one of the kitchen drawers, that they may be always ready when wanted.
[F]Pare off very thin the yellow rind of four large lemons, and lay it in the bottom of a deep dish. Squeeze the juice of the lemons into a large bowl containing a pint of white wine, and sweeten it with half a pound of powdered loaf-sugar. Then, by degrees, mix in a quart of cream. Pour the whole into the dish in which you have laid the lemon-peel, and let the mixture stand untouched for three hours. Then beat it with rods to a stiff froth, (first taking out the lemon-peel,) and having put into each of your glasses a table-spoonful or more of fruit jelly, heap the syllabub upon it so as to stand up high at the top. This syllabub, if it can be kept in a cold place, may be made the day before you want to use it.
Mix half a pound of white sugar with a pint of fine sweet cider, or of white wine; and grate in a nutmeg. Prepare them in a large bowl, just before milking time. Then let it be taken to the cow, and have about three pints milked into it; stirring it occasionally with a spoon. Let it be eaten before the froth subsides. If you use cider, a little brandy will improve it.
Place half a pound of maccaroons or Naples biscuits at the bottom of a large glass bowl. Pour on them as much white wine as will cover and dissolve them. Make a rich custard, flavoured with bitter almonds or peach leaves: and pour it when cold on the maccaroons; the custard may be either baked or boiled. Then add a layer of marmalade or jam. Take a quart of cream, mix with it a quarter of a pound of sugar, and half a pint of white wine, and whip it with rods to a stiff froth; laying the froth (as you proceed) on an inverted sieve, with a dish under it to catch the cream that drips through; which must be saved and whipped over again. Instead of rods you may use a little tin churn. Pile the frothed cream upon the marmalade in a high pyramid. To ornament it,—take preserved water-melon rind that has been cut into leaves or flowers; split them nicely to make them thinner and lighter; place a circle or wreath of them round the heap of frothed cream, interspersing them with spots of stiff red currant jelly. Stick on the top of the pyramid a sprig of real flowers.
Take a quart of rich cream, and divide it in half. Sweeten one pint of it with loaf-sugar, and stir into it sufficient currant jelly to colour it of a fine pink. Put it into a glass bowl, and place in the centre a pile of sliced almond-sponge cake, or of lady cake; every slice spread thickly with raspberry jam or marmalade, and laid evenly one on another. Have ready the other pint of cream, flavoured with the juice of two lemons, and beaten with rods to a stiff froth. Heap it all over the pile of cake, so as entirely to cover it. Both creams must be made very sweet.
Take a dozen of the square or oblong sponge-cakes that are commonly called Naples biscuits. They should be quite fresh. Spread over each a thick layer of raspberry jam, and place them in the bottom and round the sides of a glass bowl. Take the whites of six eggs, and mix with them six table-spoonfuls of raspberry or currant jelly. Beat the egg and jelly with rods till very light, and then fill up the bowl with it. For this purpose, cream (if you can conveniently procure it) is still better than white of egg.
You may make a charlotte with any sort of jam, marmalade, or fruit jelly. It can be prepared at a short notice, and is very generally liked. You may use ripe strawberries, washed and sweetened.
Stone a quart of ripe plums; first stew, and then sweeten them. Cut slices of bread and butter, and lay them in the bottom and round the sides of a large bowl or deep dish. Pour in the plums boiling hot, cover the bowl, and set it away to cool gradually. When quite cold, send it to table, and eat it with cream.
Mix together a jill of rich milk, a large wine glass of rose water, and four ounces of white sugar. Add to it the beaten yolks of two eggs. Stir the mixture into a quart of the best cream; set it over hot coals, and let it just come to a boil, stirring it all the time. Then take it off, pour it into a glass bowl, and set it away to get cold. Eat it with fresh strawberries, raspberries, or with any sort of sweetmeats.
Beat well together a quart of thick cream and the yolks of eight eggs. Then gradually beat in half a pound of powdered loaf-sugar, and the grated rind of three large lemons. Put the mixture into a porcelain skillet, and set it on hot coals till it comes to a boil; then take it off, and stir it till nearly cold. Squeeze the juice of the lemons into a bowl; pour the cream upon it, and continue to stir it till quite cold. You may serve it up in a glass bowl, in glass cups, or in jelly glasses. Eat it with tarts or sweetmeats.
Beat very light six eggs, omitting the whites of two. Have ready a pint of orange juice, and stir it gradually into the beaten egg, alternately with a pound of powdered loaf-sugar. Put into a porcelain skillet the yellow rind of one orange, pared very thin; pour the mixture upon it, and set it over a slow fire. Simmer it steadily, stirring it all the time; but when nearly ready to boil, take it off, remove the orange-peel, and put the mixture into glasses to get cold.
Take a piece of rennet about three inches square, and wash it in two or three cold waters to get off the salt; wipe it dry, and fasten a string to one corner of it. Have ready in a deep dish or pan, a quart of unskimmed milk that has been warmed but not boiled. Put the rennet into it, leaving the string hanging out over the side, that you may know where to find it. Cover the pan, and set it by the fire-side or in some other warm place. When the milk becomes a firm mass of curd, and the whey looks clear and greenish, remove the rennet as gently as possible, pulling it out by the string; and set the pan in ice, or in a very cold place. Send to table with it a small pitcher of white wine, sugar and nutmeg mixed together; or a bowl of sweetened cream, with nutmeg grated over it.
You may keep rennet in white wine; cutting it in small pieces, and putting it into a glass jar with wine enough to cover it well. Either the wine or the rennet will be found good for turning milk; but do not put in both together, or the curd will become so hard and tough as to be uneatable.
Rennets properly prepared and dried, are sold constantly in the Philadelphia markets. The cost is trifling; and it is well to have one always in the house, in case of being wanted to make whey for sick persons. They will keep a year or more.
Have ready two quarts of very rich thick cream, and take out a pint. Stir gradually into the pint, a pound of the best loaf-sugar powdered fine; and the grated rind and the juice of four ripe lemons of the largest size, or of five or six smaller ones. If you cannot procure the fruit, you may flavour the cream with essence or oil of lemon; a tea-spoonful or more, according to its strength. The strongest and best essence of lemon is the white or whitish; when tinged with green, it is comparatively weak, having been diluted with water; if quite green, a large tea-spoonful will not communicate as much flavour as five or six drops of the white. After you have mixed the pint of cream with the sugar and lemon, beat it gradually and hard into the remaining cream, that is, the three pints. Cover it, and let it stand to infuse from half an hour to an hour. Then taste it, and if you think it necessary, stir in a little more lemon juice or a little more sugar. Strain it into the freezer through a fine strainer, (a tin one with small close holes is best,) to get rid of the grated lemon-peel, which if left in would prevent the cream from being smooth. Cover the freezer, and stand it in the ice cream tub, which should be filled with a mixture, in equal quantities, of coarse salt, and ice broken up as small as possible, that it may lie close and compact round the freezer, and thus add to its coldness. Snow, when it can be procured, is still better than ice to mix with the salt. It should be packed closely into the tub, and pressed down hard. While the cream is freezing, keep it always in motion, whirling the freezer round by the handle, and opening the lid frequently to stir and beat the cream, and to scrape it down from the sides with a long-handled tin spoon. Take care that no salt gets in, or the cream will be spoiled. When it is entirely frozen, take it out of the freezer and put it into your mould; set it again in the tub, (which must be filled with fresh ice and salt,) and leave it undisturbed till you want it for immediate use. This second freezing, however, should not continue longer than an hour, or the cream will become inconveniently and unpleasantly hard, and have much of the flavour frozen out of it. Place the mould in the ice tub, with the head downwards, and cover the tub with pieces of old carpet while the second freezing is going on. When it has arrived at the proper consistence, and it is time to serve it up, dip a cloth in cold water, and wash it round the mould for a few moments, to loosen the cream and make it come out easily; setting the mould on a glass or china dish. If a pyramid or obelisk mould, lift it carefully off the top. If the mould or form represents doves, dolphins, lap-dogs, fruit baskets, &c. it will open down the middle, and must be taken off in that manner. Serve it up immediately lest it begin to melt. Send round sponge-cake with it, and wine or cordials immediately after.
If you have no moulds, but intend serving it up in a large bowl or in glasses, it must still be frozen twice over; otherwise it can have no smoothness, delicacy, or consistence, but will be rough and coarse, and feel in the mouth like broken icicles. The second freezing (if you have no mould) must be done in the freezer, which should be washed out, and set again in the tub with fresh ice and salt. Cover it closely and let the cream stand in it untouched, but not less than two hours. When you put it into glasses, heap it high on the top.
Begin to make ice cream about four or five hours before it is wanted for use. If you commence it too early, it may probably be injured by having to remain too long in the second freezing, as it must not be turned out till a few moments before it is served up. In damp weather it requires a longer time to freeze.
If cream is scarce, mix with it an equal quantity of rich milk, and then add, for each quart, two table-spoonfuls of powdered arrow-root rubbed smooth in a little cold milk. Orange ice cream is made in the same manner as lemon.
Take two quarts of ripe strawberries; hull them, and put them into a deep dish, strewing among them half a pound of powdered loaf-sugar. Cover them, and let them stand an hour or two. Then mash them through a sieve till you have pressed out all the juice, and stir into it half a pound more of powdered sugar, or enough to make it very sweet, and like a thick syrup. Then mix it by degrees with two quarts of rich cream, beating it in very hard. Put it into a freezer, and proceed as in the foregoing receipt. In two hours, remove it to a mould, or take it out and return it again to the freezer with fresh salt and ice, that it may be frozen a second time. In one hour more, it should be ready to turn out.
Is made according to the preceding receipt.
To each quart of cream allow a large ripe pine-apple, and a pound of powdered loaf-sugar. Pare the pine-apple, slice it very thin, and mince it small. Lay it in a deep dish and strew the sugar among it. Cover the dish, and let the pine-apple lie in the sugar for two or three hours. Then strain it through a sieve, mashing and pressing out all the juice. Stir the juice gradually into the cream, beating it hard. Put it into the freezer, and let it be twice frozen before it is served up.
Take a large vanilla bean, and boil it slowly in half a pint of milk till all the flavour is drawn out, which you may know by tasting it. Then mix into the milk half a pound of powdered loaf-sugar, and stir it very hard into a quart of rich cream. Put it into the freezer, and proceed as directed in the receipt for Lemon Ice Cream; freezing it twice.
Take six ounces of bitter almonds, (sweet ones will not do,) blanch them, and pound them in a mortar, adding by degrees a little rose water. Then boil them gently in a pint of cream till you find that it is highly flavoured with them. Then pour the cream into a bowl, stir in a pound of powdered loaf-sugar, cover it, and set it away to cool gradually; when it is cold, strain it, and then stir it gradually and hard into three pints of cream. Put it into the freezer, and proceed as directed in the first ice cream receipt. Freeze it twice. It will be found very fine.
Send round always with ice cream, sponge cake or Savoy biscuits. Afterwards wine, and cordials, or liqueurs as they are now generally called.
Take a pint and a half of orange juice, and mix it with half a pint of clear or filtered water. Stir in half a pound of powdered loaf-sugar. Pare very thin the yellow rind of six deep-coloured oranges, cut in pieces, and lay it at the bottom of a bowl or tureen. Pour the orange juice and sugar upon it; cover it, and let it infuse an hour. Then strain the liquid into a freezer, and proceed as for ice cream. When it is frozen, put it into a mould, (it will look best in the form of a pine-apple,) and freeze it a second time. Serve it in glass cups, with any sort of very nice sweet cakes.
May be made in the above manner, but with a larger proportion of sugar.
The juice of pine-apples, strawberries, raspberries, currants and cherries, may be prepared and frozen according to the above receipts. They will freeze in a shorter time than if mixed with cream, but are very inferior in richness.
Put into a pan an ounce of isinglass; (in warm weather you must take an ounce and a quarter;) pour on as much rose water as will cover the isinglass, and set it on hot coals to dissolve.[G] Blanch a quarter of a pound of shelled almonds, (half sweet and half bitter,) and beat them to a paste in a mortar, (one at a time,) moistening them all the while with a little rose water. Stir the almonds by degrees into a quart of cream, alternately with half a pound of powdered white sugar; add a large tea-spoonful of beaten mace. Put in the melted isinglass, and stir the whole very hard. Then put it into a porcelain skillet, and let it boil fast for a quarter of an hour. Then strain it into a pitcher, and pour it into your moulds, which must first be wetted with cold water. Let it stand in a cool place undisturbed, till it has entirely congealed, which will be in about five hours. Then wrap a cloth dipped in hot water round the moulds, loosen the blanc-mange round the edges with a knife, and turn it out into glass dishes. It is best to make it the day before it is wanted.
Instead of using a figure-mould, you may set it to congeal in tea-cups or wine glasses.
Blanc-mange may be coloured green by mixing with the cream a little juice of spinage; cochineal which has been infused in a little brandy for half an hour, will colour it red; and saffron will give it a bright yellow tinge.
This is made of a sea-weed resembling moss, that is found in large quantities on some parts of our coast, and is to be purchased in the cities at most of the druggists. Carrageen costs but little, and is considered extremely salutary for persons of delicate constitutions. Its glutinous nature when boiled, renders it very suitable for blanc-mange.
From a quart of rich unskimmed milk take half a pint. Add to the half pint two ounces of bitter almonds, blanched and pounded; half a nutmeg; and a large stick of cinnamon, broken up; also eight or nine blades of mace. Set it in a closed pan over hot coals, and boil it half an hour. In the mean time, wash through two or three cold waters half a handful of carrageen, (if you put in too much it will communicate an unpleasant taste to the blanc-mange,) and add it to the pint and a half of cold milk. Then when it is sufficiently flavoured, stir in the boiled milk, adding gradually half a pound of powdered sugar, and mix the whole very well. Set it over the fire, and keep it boiling hard five minutes from the time it has come to a boil. Then strain it into a pitcher; wet your moulds or cups with cold water, put the blanc-mange into them, and leave it undisturbed till it congeals.
After washing the sea-weed, you must drain it well, and shake the water from the sprigs. You may flavour the mixture (after it is boiled and strained) with rose-water or peach-water, stirred in at the last.
Take a tea-cup full of arrow root, put it into a large bowl, and dissolve it in a little cold water. When it is melted, pour off the water, and let the arrow root remain undisturbed. Boil in half a pint of unskimmed milk, (made very sweet with white sugar,) a beaten nutmeg, and eight or nine blades of mace, mixed with the juice and grated peel of a lemon. When it has boiled long enough to be highly flavoured, strain it into a pint and a half of very rich milk or cream, and add a quarter of a pound of sugar. Boil the whole for ten minutes; then strain it, boiling hot, over the arrow root. Stir it well and frequently till cold; then put it into moulds and let it set to congeal.
Put two ounces of isinglass into a pint of water, and boil it till it has dissolved. Then strain it into a porcelain skillet, and add to it half a pint of white wine; the grated peel and juice of two large deep-coloured oranges; half a pound of loaf-sugar; and the yolks only of eight eggs that have been well beaten. Mix the whole thoroughly; place it on hot coals and simmer it, stirring it all the time till it boils hard. Then take it off directly, strain it, and put it into moulds to congeal.
The best calves' feet for jelly are those that have had the hair removed by scalding, but are not skinned; the skin containing a great deal of glutinous matter. In Philadelphia, unskinned calves' feet are generally to be met with in the lower or Jersey market.
Boil a set of feet in four quarts of cold water; (if the feet have been skinned allow but three quarts;) they should boil slowly till the liquid is reduced to two quarts or one half the original quantity, and the meat has dropped in rags from the bone. Then strain the liquid; measure and set it away in a large earthen pan to get cold; and let it rest till next morning. Then if you do not find it a firm cake of jelly, boil it over again with an ounce of isinglass, and again set it away till cold and congealed. Remove the sediment from the bottom of the cake of jelly, and carefully scrape off all the fat. The smallest bit of fat will eventually render it dull and cloudy. Press some clean blotting paper all over it to absorb what little grease may yet remain. Then cut the cake of jelly into pieces, and put it into a porcelain kettle to melt over the fire. To each quart allow a pound of broken up loaf-sugar, a pint of Madeira wine, and a large glass of brandy; three large sticks of the best Ceylon cinnamon broken up, (if common cinnamon, use four sticks,) the grated peel and juice of four large lemons; and lastly, the whites of four eggs strained, but not beaten. In breaking the eggs, take care to separate them so nicely that none of the yellow gets into the white; as the smallest portion of yolk of egg will prevent the jelly from being perfectly clear. Mix all the ingredients well together, and put them to the jelly in the kettle. Set it on the fire, and boil it hard for twenty minutes, but do not stir it. Then throw in a tea-cup of cold water, and boil it five minutes longer; then take the kettle off the fire, and set it aside, keeping it closely covered for half an hour; this will improve its clearness. Take a large white flannel jelly-bag; suspend it by the strings to a wooden frame made for such purposes, or to the legs of a table. Pour in the mixture boiling hot, and when it is all in, close up the mouth of the bag that none of the flavour may evaporate. Hang it over a deep white dish or bowl, and let it drip slowly, but on no account squeeze the bag, as that will certainly make the jelly dull and cloudy. If it is not clear the first time, empty the bag, wash it, put in the jelly that has dripped into the dish, and pass it through again. Repeat this till it is clear. You may put it into moulds to congeal, setting them in a cold place. When it is quite firm, wrap a cloth that has been dipped in hot water, round the moulds to make the jelly turn out easily. But it will look much better, and the taste will be more lively, if you break it up after it has congealed, and put it into a glass bowl, or heap it in jelly glasses. Unless it is broken, its sparkling clearness shows to little advantage.
After the clear jelly has done dripping, you may return the ingredients to the kettle, and warm them over again for about five minutes. Then put them into the bag (which you may now squeeze hard) till all the liquid is pressed out of it into a second dish or bowl. This last jelly cannot, of course, be clear, but it will taste very well, and may be eaten in the family.
A pound of the best raisins picked and washed, and boiled with the other ingredients, is thought by many persons greatly to improve the richness and flavour of calves' feet jelly. They must be put in whole, and can be afterwards used for a pudding.
Similar jelly may be made of pigs' or sheep's feet: but it is not so nice and delicate as that of calves.
By boiling two sets, or eight calves' feet in five quarts of water, you may be sure of having the jelly very firm. In damp weather it is sometimes very difficult to get it to congeal if you use but one set of feet; there is the same risk if the weather is hot. In winter it may be made several days before it is to be eaten. In summer it will keep in ice for two days; perhaps longer.
Take four quarts of new cream; it must be of the richest quality, and have no milk mixed with it. Put it into a preserving kettle, and simmer it gently over the fire; carefully taking off whatever scum may rise to the top, till nothing more appears. Then stir, gradually, into it four pounds of double-refined loaf-sugar that has been finely powdered and sifted. Let the cream and sugar boil briskly together half an hour; skimming it, if necessary, and afterwards stirring it as long as it continues on the fire. Put it into small bottles; and when it is cold, cork it, and secure the corks with melted rosin. This cream, if properly prepared, will keep perfectly good during a long sea voyage.
Put two pints of cream into two bowls. With one bowl mix six ounces of powdered loaf-sugar, the juice of two large lemons, and two glasses of white wine. Then add the other pint of cream, and stir the whole very hard. Boil two ounces of isinglass with four small tea-cups full of water, till it is reduced to one half. Then stir the isinglass lukewarm into the other ingredients, and put them into a glass dish to congeal.
Melt six ounces of scraped chocolate and four ounces of white sugar in one pint of boiling milk. Stir in an ounce of dissolved isinglass. When the whole has boiled, pour it into a mould.
Take twenty grains of cochineal, and fifteen grains of cream of tartar finely powdered; add to them a piece of alum the size of a cherry stone, and boil them with a jill of soft water, in an earthen vessel, slowly, for half an hour. Then strain it through muslin, and keep it tightly corked in a phial.
Take two cents' worth of cochineal. Lay it on a flat plate, and bruise it with the blade of a knife. Put it into half a tea-cup of alcohol. Let it stand a quarter of an hour, and then filter it through fine muslin.
Take a little saffron, put it into an earthen vessel with a very small quantity of cold soft water, and let it steep till the colour of the infusion is a bright yellow. Then strain it. The yellow seeds of lilies will answer nearly the same purpose.
Take fresh spinach or beet leaves, and pound them in a marble mortar. If you want it for immediate use, take off the green froth as it rises, and mix it with the article you intend to colour. If you wish to keep it a few days, take the juice when you have pressed out a tea-cup full, and adding to it a piece of alum the size of a pea, give it a boil in a saucepan.
Blanch some almonds, soak them in cold water, and then pound them to a smooth paste in a marble mortar; adding at intervals a little rose water.
Thick cream will communicate a white colour.
These preparations may be used for jellies, ice creams, blanc-mange, syllabubs, icing for cakes; and for various articles of confectionary.
You may make the stock for blanc-mange without isinglass, by boiling four calves' feet in two quarts of water till reduced one half, and till the meat is entirely to rags. Strain it, and set it away till next day. Then clear it from the fat and sediment; cut it into pieces, and boil it with the cream and the other ingredients. When you take it from the fire, and strain it into the pitcher, keep stirring it till it gets cold.
[G]Unless you are provided with proper and convenient utensils and materials, the difficulty of preparing cakes will be great, and in most instances a failure; involving disappointment, waste of time, and useless expense. Accuracy in proportioning the ingredients is indispensable; and therefore scales and weights, and a set of tin measures (at least from a quart down to a jill) are of the utmost importance. A large sieve for flour is also necessary; and smaller ones for sugar and spice. There should be a marble mortar, or one of lignum vitæ, (the hardest of all wood;) those of iron (however well tinned) are apt to discolour the articles pounded in them. Spice may be ground in a mill kept exclusively for that purpose. Every kitchen should be provided with spice-boxes. You should have a large grater for lemon, cocoa-nut, &c., and a small one for nutmeg. Butter and sugar cannot be stirred together conveniently without a spaddle or spattle, which is a round stick flattened at one end; and a deep earthen pan with sides nearly straight. For beating eggs, you should have hickory rods or a wire whip, and broad shallow earthen pans. Neither the eggs, nor the butter and sugar should be beaten in tin, as the coldness of the metal will prevent them from becoming light.
For baking large cakes, the pans (whether of block tin or earthen) should have straight sides; if the sides slope inward, there will be much difficulty in icing the cake. Pans with a hollow tube going up from the centre, are supposed to diffuse the heat more equally through the middle of the cake. Buns and some other cakes should be baked in square shallow pans of block tin or iron. Little tins for queen cakes, &c. are most convenient when of a round or oval shape. All baking pans, whether large or small, should be well greased with fresh butter before the mixture is put into them, and should be filled but little more than half. You should have at least two dozen little tins, that a second supply may be ready for the oven the moment the first is taken out. You will also want tin cutters for cakes that are rolled out in dough.
All the utensils should be cleaned and put away as soon as they are done with. They should be all kept together, and, if possible, not used for any other purposes.[H]
As it is always desirable that cake-making should be commenced at an early hour, it is well on the day previous to ascertain if all the materials are in the house; that there may be no unnecessary delay from sending or waiting for them in the morning. Wastefulness is to be avoided in every thing; but it is utterly impossible that cakes can be good (or indeed any thing else) without a liberal allowance of good materials. Cakes are frequently rendered hard, heavy, and uneatable by a misplaced economy in eggs and butter; or tasteless and insipid for want of their due seasoning of spice, lemon, &c.
Use no flour but the best superfine; if the flour is of inferior quality, the cakes will be heavy, ill-coloured, and unfit to eat. Even the best flour should always be sifted. No butter that is not fresh and good, should ever be put into cakes; for it will give them a disagreeable taste which can never be disguised by the other ingredients. Even when of excellent quality, the butter will be improved by washing it in cold water, and squeezing and pressing it. Except for gingerbread, use only white sugar, (for the finest cakes the best loaf,) and have it pulverized by pounding it in a mortar, or crushing it on the pasteboard with the rolling-pin. It should then be sifted. In mixing butter and sugar, sift the sugar into a deep pan, cut up the butter in it, set it in a warm place to soften, and then stir it very hard with the spaddle, till it becomes quite light, and of the consistence of cream. In preparing eggs, break them one at a time, into a saucer, that, in case there should be a bad one among them, it may not spoil the others. Put them into a broad shallow pan, and beat them with rods or with a wire whisk, not merely till they froth, but long afterwards, till the froth subsides, and they become thick and smooth like boiled custard. White of egg by itself may be beaten with small rods, or with a three-pronged fork, or a broad knife. It is a very easy process, and should be continued till the liquid is all converted into a stiff froth so firm that it will not drop from the rods when held up. In damp weather it is sometimes difficult to get the froth stiff.
The first thing to be done in making cake, is to weigh or measure all the ingredients. Next sift the flour, powder the sugar, pound or grind the spice, and prepare the fruit; afterwards mix and stir the butter and sugar, and lastly beat the eggs; as, if allowed to stand any time, they will fall and become heavy. When all the ingredients are mixed together, they should be stirred very hard at the last; and (unless there is yeast in the cake) the sooner it is put into the oven the better. While baking, no air should be admitted to it, except for a moment, now and then, when it is necessary to examine if it is baking properly. For baking cakes, the best guide is practice and experience; so much depending on the state of the fire, that it is impossible to lay down any infallible rules. If you bake in a Dutch oven, let the lid be first heated by standing it up before the fire; and cover the inside of the bottom with sand or ashes, to temper the heat. For the same purpose, when you bake in a stove, place bricks under the pans. Sheets of iron without sides will be found very useful for baking small flat cakes. For cakes of this description, the fire should be brisk; if baked slowly, they will spread, lose their shape, and run into each other. For all cakes, the heat should be regular and even; if one part of the oven is cooler than another, the cake will bake imperfectly, and have heavy streaks through it. Gingerbread (on account of the molasses) is more apt to scorch and burn than any other cake; therefore it should be baked with a moderate fire.
It is safest, when practicable, to send all large cakes to a professional baker's; provided they can be put immediately into the oven, as standing will spoil them. If you bake them at home, you will find that they are generally done when they cease to make a simmering noise; and when on probing them to the bottom with a twig from a broom, or with the blade of the knife, it comes out quite clean. The fire should then be withdrawn, and the cake allowed to get cold in the oven. Small cakes should be laid to cool on an inverted sieve. It may be recommended to novices in the art of baking, to do every thing in little tins or in very shallow pans; there being then less risk than with a large thick cake. In mixing batter that is to be baked in small cakes, use a less proportion of flour.
Small cakes should be kept closely covered in stone jars. For large ones, you should have broad stone pans with close lids, or else tin boxes. All cakes that are made with yeast, should be eaten quite fresh; so also should sponge cake. Some sorts may be kept a week; black cake much longer.
Prepare two pounds of currants by picking them clean, washing and draining them through a cullender, and then spreading them out on a large dish to dry before the fire or in the sun, placing the dish in a slanting position. Pick and stone two pounds of the best raisins, and cut them in half. Dredge the currants (when they are dry) and the raisins thickly with flour to prevent them from sinking in the cake. Grind or powder as much cinnamon as will make a large gravy-spoonful when done; also a table-spoonful of mace and four nutmegs; sift these spices, and mix them all together in a cup. Mix together two large glasses of white wine, one of brandy and one of rose water, and cut a pound of citron into large slips. Sift a pound of flour into one pan, and a pound of powdered loaf-sugar into another. Cut up among the sugar a pound of the best fresh butter, and stir them to a cream. Beat twelve eggs till perfectly thick and smooth, and stir them gradually into the butter and sugar, alternately with the flour. Then add by degrees, the fruit, spice and liquor, and stir the whole very hard at the last. Then put the mixture into a well-buttered tin pan with straight or perpendicular sides. Put it immediately into a moderate oven, and bake it at least six hours. When done, take it out and set it on an inverted sieve to cool gradually. Ice it next morning; first dredging the outside all over with flour, and then wiping it with a towel. This will make the icing stick.