4 eggs, the weight of 3 in fine wheatmeal, and the weight of 4 in castor sugar, any flavouring to taste. Beat the eggs, sift in the sugar and meal, stirring all the time, add the flavouring, and pour the mixture into one or two greased cake tins, only filling them half full. Bake in a moderate oven for about an hour, until a knitting needle comes out clean.
The juice of black currants makes excellent jelly in the ordinary way if we boil a pint of black currant juice with a pound of sugar till it sets; but a mould of black currant jelly suitable to be used as a sweet at dinner can be made by adding less sugar and thickening the juice with corn-flour, allowing about a tablespoonful to every pint, and pouring it into a mould or plain round basin. The mould can be ornamented as follows, and we will suppose a pudding-basin to be used for the purpose. We will suppose the mould of jelly to have been turned out on to a clean sheet of white paper. Pick some of the brighter green black-currant leaves off the tree, and place these round the base of the mould with the stalk of the leaf pushed underneath and the point of the leaf pointing outwards. Now choose a few very small bunches of black currants, wash these and dip them into very weak gum and water, and then dip them into white powdered sugar. They now look, when they are dry, as if they were crystallised or covered with hoar-frost. Place one of these little bunches, with the stalk stuck into the mould of jelly, about an inch from the bottom, so that each bunch rests on a green leaf. Cut a small stick of angelica and stick it into the top of the mould upright, and let a bunch of frosted black currants hang over the top. If we wish to make the mould of jelly very pretty as a supper dish, where there is a good top light, we can dip the green leaves into weak gum and water and then sprinkle over them some powdered glass.
6 oz. each of Allinson fine wheatmeal and white flour, 4-1/2 oz. of butter, 1 egg, a little cold water, 1-1/2 lbs. of apples, 1 heaped-up teaspoonful of cinnamon, and 3 oz. of castor sugar. Rub the butter into the meal and flour, beat up the egg and add it, and as much cold water as is required to make a smooth paste; roll out the greater part of it 1/4 inch thick, and line a flat buttered tin with it. Pare, core, and cut the apples into thin divisions, arrange them in close rows on the paste point down, leaving 1 inch of edge uncovered; sift the sugar and cinnamon over the apples; roll out thinly the rest of the paste, cover the apples with it, turn up the edges of the bottom crust over the edges of the top crust, make 2 incisions in the crust, and bake the cake until brown in a moderately hot oven; when cold sift castor sugar over it, slip the cake off the tin, cut into pieces, and serve.
1 bar of Allinson chocolate, 1/2 pint of milk, 1/2 teaspoonful of cornflour, 1/2 teaspoonful of vanilla essence. Melt the chocolate over the fire with 1 tablespoonful of water, add the milk, and stir well; when it boils add the cornflour and vanilla. Boil the sauce up, and serve.
Of all dishes used by vegetarians there are none more wholesome, more nourishing, or more useful as an article of everyday diet for breakfast than oatmeal porridge. When we remember that the Scotch, who, for both body and brain, rank perhaps first amongst civilised nations, almost live on this cheap and agreeable form of food, we should take particular pains in the preparation of a standing dish which is in itself a strong argument in favour of a vegetarian diet when we look at the results, both mentally and bodily, that have followed its use North of the Tweed. The following excellent recipe for the preparation of oatmeal porridge is taken from a book entitled, "A Year's Cookery," by Phyllis Browne (Cassell & Co.):--"When there are children in the family it is a good plan, whatever they may have for breakfast, to let them begin the meal either with oatmeal porridge or bread-and-milk. Porridge is wholesome and nourishing, and will help to make them strong and hearty. Even grown-up people frequently enjoy a small portion of porridge served with treacle and milk. Oatmeal is either 'coarse,' 'medium,' or 'fine.' Individual taste must determine which of these three varieties shall be chosen. Scotch people generally prefer the coarsest kind. The ordinary way of making porridge is the following--Put as much water as is likely to be required into a saucepan with a sprinkling of salt, and let the water boil. Half a pint of water will make a single plateful of porridge. Take a knife (a 'spurtle' is the proper utensil) in the right hand, and some Scotch, or coarse, oatmeal in the left hand, and sprinkle the meal in gradually, stirring it briskly all the time; if any lumps form draw them to the side of the pan and crush them out. When the porridge is sufficiently thick (the degree of thickness must be regulated by individual taste), draw the pan back a little, put on the lid, and let the contents simmer gently till wanted; if it can have two hours' simmering, all the better; but in hundreds of families in Scotland and the North of England it is served when it has boiled for ten minutes or a quarter of an hour; less oatmeal is required when it can boil a long time, because the simmering swells the oatmeal, and so makes it go twice as far. During the boiling the porridge must be stirred frequently to keep it from sticking to the saucepan and burning, but each time this is done the lid must be put on again. When it is done enough it should be poured into a basin or upon a plate, and served hot with sugar or treacle and milk or cream. The very best method that can be adopted for making porridge is to soak the coarse Scotch oatmeal in water for twelve hours, or more (if the porridge is wanted for breakfast it may be put into a pie-dish over night, and left till morning). As soon as the fire is lighted in the morning it should be placed on it, stirred occasionally, kept covered, and boiled as long as possible, although it may be served when it has boiled for twenty minutes. When thus prepared it will be almost like a delicate jelly, and acceptable to the most fastidious palate. The proportions for porridge made in this way are a heaped tablespoonful of coarse oatmeal to a pint of water. "It is scarcely necessary to give directions for making" BREAD AND MILK, for everyone knows how this should be done. It may be said that the preparation has a better appearance if the bread is cut very small before the boiling milk is poured on it, and also that the addition of a small pinch of salt takes away the insipidity. Rigid economists sometimes swell the bread with boiling water, then drain this off and pour milk in its place. This, however, is almost a pity, for milk is so very good for children; and though recklessness is seldom to be recommended, a mother might well be advised to be reckless about the amount of her milk bill, provided always that the quantity of milk be not wasted, and that the children have it."
This is a very nice method of serving cauliflower as a course by itself. The cauliflower or cauliflowers should first be boiled till thoroughly tender, very carefully drained, and then placed upright in a vegetable-dish with the flower part uppermost. The whole of the flower part should then be masked (i.e., covered over) with some thick white sauce. Allemande sauce or Dutch sauce will do. This is then sprinkled over with grated Parmesan cheese and the dish put in the oven for the top to brown. As soon as it begins to brown take it out of the oven and finish it off neatly with a salamander (a red-hot shovel will do), the same way you finish cheese-cakes made from curds.
1 lb. of Spanish onions, 1 lb. of English onions, 4 oz. of butter, 3 eggs, 1/2 pint of cream, pepper and salt to taste, 1/2 lb. of Allinson fine wheatmeal. Slice the onions, and stew them with 1-1/2 oz. of butter without browning them. When tender let the onions cool, mix with them the eggs, well beaten, and the cream, also the seasoning. Make a paste with the meal and the rest of the butter, line with it a baking-tin, keeping back a small quantity of the paste; pour the mixture of onions, eggs, and cream into the paste-lined tin, cut the rest of the paste into thin strips, and lay these crossways over the tart, forming diamond-shaped squares; bake the tart in a moderate oven until golden brown.
6 eggs, 2 oz. of Allinson fine wheatmeal, 2 oz. of butter, 2 oz. of castor sugar, the grated rind of 1/2 lemon, 1/2 pint of milk, 3 oz. of ratafias. Melt the butter in a saucepan, stir in the flour, mix well, and then add the milk, stirring all until the mixture is quite smooth and thick and comes away from the sides of the saucepan. Let it cool a little, then stir in the yolks of the eggs well beaten, the lemon rind, the sugar, and lastly, the whites of the eggs whipped to a stiff froth. Turn the mixture into a buttered pie-dish or cake tin, with alternate layers of ratafias. Bake from 1/2 an hour to 3/4 of an hour in a moderately hot oven, and serve immediately with stewed fruit.
Like most soups that are either sweet or sour, this is a German recipe. Put a piece of butter, the size of a large egg, into a saucepan. Let it melt, then mix it with a tablespoonful of flour, and stir smoothly until it is lightly browned. Add gradually two pints of water, a pound of black cherries, picked and washed, and a few cloves. Let these boil until the fruit is quite tender, then press the whole through a sieve. After straining, add a little port, if wine is allowed--but the soup will be very nice without this addition--half a teaspoonful of the kernels, blanched and bruised, a tablespoonful of sugar, and a few whole cherries. Let the soup boil again until the cherries are tender, and pour all into a tureen over toasted sippets, sponge-cakes, or macaroons.
Ices are too often regarded as expensive luxuries, and show how completely custom rules the majority of our housekeepers. There are many houses where the dinner may consist daily of soup, fish, entrees, joint, game, and wine, and yet, were we to suggest a course of ices, the worthy housekeeper would hesitate on the ground of extravagance. It is difficult to argue with persons whose definition of economy is what they have always been accustomed to since they were children, and whose definition of extravagance is anything new. The fact remains, however, that there is many a worthy signor who sells ices in the streets at a penny each, and manages to make a living out of the profit not only for himself, but for his signora as well. Under these circumstances, the manufacture of these "extravagances" is worthy of inquiry. Ices can be made at home very cheaply with an ice machine, which can now be obtained at a, comparatively speaking, small cost. With a machine there is absolutely no trouble, and directions will be given with each machine, so that any details here, which vary with the machine, will be useless. Ices can be made at home without a machine with a little trouble, and, to explain how to do this, it is necessary to explain the theory of ice-making, which is exceedingly simple. We will not allude to machines dependent on freezing-powders, but to those which rely for their cold simply on ice and salt mixed. We will suppose we want a lemon-water ice, i.e., we have made some very strong and sweet lemonade, and we want to freeze it. It is well known that water will freeze at a certain temperature, called freezing-point. By mixing chopped ice and salt and a very little water together, a far greater degree of cold can be immediately produced, viz., a thermometer would stand at 32 degrees below freezing-point were it to be plunged into this mixture. An ice machine is a metal pail placed in another pail much larger than itself. The "sweet lemonade" is placed in the middle pail, and chopped ice and salt placed outside it. The proportion of ice to salt should be double the weight of the former to the latter. It is now obvious that if we have filled two pails, the one with "the sweet lemonade," and the other with the ice and salt, very soon our lemonade will be a solid block of ice. To prevent this it must be constantly stirred, and, as the lemonade would of course freeze first against the sides of the pail, these sides must be constantly scraped. Inside the inner pail, consequently, there is a stirrer, which, by means of a handle, continually scrapes the side of the pail. It is obvious that if the stirrer is fixed, and the pail itself made to revolve, that is the same as if the pail were fixed and the stirrer made to revolve. To make lemon-water ice, therefore, place the lemonade in the inner pail, surrounded with chopped ice and salt, two parts of the former to one of the latter, turn the handle, and in a few minutes the ice is made. Now, suppose you have not got a machine, proceed as follows: Take an empty, clean, round coffee-tin (the larger the better). [We mention coffee-tin as the most probable one to be in the house, but any round tin will do.] Get a clean piece of wood, the same width as the inside diameter of the tin, only it must be a great deal longer. We will suppose the tin rather more than a foot deep and five inches in diameter. Our piece of wood, which should be clean and smooth, must be nearly five inches wide, say a quarter of an inch thick, and about two feet long. Next get a small tub, say nine inches deep, place the round tin in the middle, with the sweet lemonade inside; next place the piece of wood upright in the tin, so that the wood touches the bottom. Next surround the tin with chopped ice and salt up to the edge of the tub, fill it as high as you can, and then cover it round with a blanket, i.e., cover the ice and salt. Now get someone to hold the wooden board steady; take the tin in your two hands, and turn it round and round, first one way and then another. In a very short time you will find the tin to contain lemon-water ice. The following hints, rather than recipes, for making ices, i.e., for making the liquid, which must be frozen as directed above, are given, not because they are the best recipes, but because cream, which is the basis of all first-class ices, is often too expensive to be used constantly. Of course, real cream is far superior to any substitute.
