LEMON TAFFY.--Put into a porcelain-lined preserving kettle three pounds of the best loaf sugar, and pour on it a pint and a half of very clear water. When it has entirely dissolved, set it over the fire, and add a table spoonful of fine cider vinegar to a.s.sist in clearing it as it boils. Boil and skim it well, and when no more sc.u.m rises add the juice of four large lemons or oranges. Let it boil till it will boil no longer, stirring it well. When done transfer it to square tin pans, that have been made very clean and bright, and that are slightly greased with sweet oil. Set the taffy away to cool, first marking it with a knife, while soft. Mark it in straight lines the broad or crossway of the pans.
If marked lengthways, the pieces will be too long. When the taffy is cold, cut it according to the lines, in regular slips, like cocoa-nut candy. It is for a handsome supper party. Serve it up in gla.s.s dishes.
Orange taffy is made in the same manner. These candies should be kept in tin boxes.
_Cocoa-nut Candy_--Is made in the manner of taffy, using finely grated cocoa-nut, instead of lemon or orange.
CHARLOTTE RUSSE.--Split, cut up, and boil a large vanilla bean in half a pint of rich milk, till it is highly flavored, and reduced to one-half.
Then strain out the vanilla through a strainer so fine as to avoid all the seeds. Mix the strained milk with half a pint of rich cream. Beat five eggs till very smooth and thick. Strain them, and add them gradually to the cream when it is entirely cold, to make a rich custard.
Set this custard over the fire (stirring it all the time) till it simmers; but take it off before it comes to a boil, or it will curdle.
Set it on ice. Have ready in another sauce-pan an ounce of the best Russia isingla.s.s, boiled in half a pint of water, till it is all dissolved into a thick jelly. When both are cold, (but not hard) mix the custard and the isingla.s.s together, and add four table-spoonfuls of powdered loaf sugar. Then take a large lump of loaf sugar, and rub off on it the yellow rind of two large lemons. Sc.r.a.pe off the lemon-grate with a tea-spoon, and add it to the mixture, with the lump of sugar powdered and crushed fine. Mix together the strained juice of the lemons, and two gla.s.ses of madeira; dissolve in them the lemon-flavored sugar, and mix it with a pint of rich cream that has been whipped with a whisk to a strong froth. Add the whipped cream gradually to the custard, starring very hard at the time, and also after the whole is mixed. Then set it on ice.
Cover the bottom of a flat oval dish with a slice of almond sponge cake, cut to fit. Prepare a sufficient number of oblong slices of the cake, (all of the same size and shape) to go all round; with one extra slice, in case they should not quite hold out. Dip every one in a plate of beaten white of egg to make them adhere. Stand each of them up on one end, round the large oval slice that lies at the bottom. Make them follow each other evenly and neatly, (every one lapping a little way over its predecessor) till you have a handsome wall of slices, cemented all round by the white of egg. Fill it quite full with the custard mixture. Cover the top with another oval slice of cake, cemented with a little white of egg to the upper edge of the wall. Make a nice icing in the usual way, of powdered sugar beaten into frothed white of egg, and flavored with lemon, orange, or rose. Spread this icing thickly and smoothly over the cake that covers the top of the charlotte, and ornament it with a handsome pattern of sugar flowers. There is no charlotte russe superior to this.
_Another Charlotte Russe._--Have a very nice circular lady cake. It should be iced all over, and ornamented with sugar flowers. Take off the top nicely, and without breaking or defacing, and hollow out the inside, leaving the sides and bottom standing. The cake taken from the inside may be cut in regular pieces and used at tea, or for other purposes.
Make a very fine boiled custard, according to the preceding receipt.
Fill with it the empty cake, as if filling a mould. Then put on the lid, set the whole on ice, and when wanted serve it up on a gla.s.s or china dish.
A charlotte that requires no cooking may be very easily made by hollowing a nice circular almond sponge cake, and filling it with layers of small preserves, and piling on the top whipped cream finely flavored.
For the walls of a charlotte russe you may use the oblong sponge cakes, called Naples biscuits, or those denominated lady fingers, dipping them first in beaten white of egg, standing them on end, and arranging them so as to lap over each other in forming the wall. Arrange some of them handsomely to cover the top of the custard.
ICE CREAM.--Pewter freezers for ice cream are better than those of block tin; as in them the freezing goes on more gradually and thoroughly, and it does not melt so soon, besides being smoother when done. The ice tub should be large enough to allow ample s.p.a.ce all round (six inches, at least,) the freezer as it stands in the centre, and should have a plug at the bottom (beneath the freezer) for letting out the water that drips from the ice; that a large coa.r.s.e woolen cloth should be folded, and laid under it and around it. The ice should be broken up into small bits, and mixed with coa.r.s.e salt, in the proportion of a pound of salt to five pounds of ice. Fill the tub within three inches of the top; pounding and pressing down hard the mixed ice and salt. Have ready all the ingredients. To every quart of _real_ rich cream mix in a pint of milk, (not more) and half a pound of fine loaf sugar. The following are the most usual flavorings, all the fruit being made very sweet. Ripe strawberries or raspberries, mashed through a sieve till all the juice is extracted; ripe juicy freestone peaches, pared, and cut in half, the kernels being taken from the stones, are pounded, and mashed with the fruit through a cullender; all the juice that can be mashed out of a sliced pine-apple, the grated yellow rind and the juice of lemons or oranges, allowing two to each quart of cream, and mixing the juice with plenty of sugar before it is put to the cream. A handful of sh.e.l.led bitter almonds blanched, broken, and boiled by themselves in half a pint of milk till all the almond flavor is extracted, and then strain the bitter almond milk into the cream. For vanilla flavor, split and cut up a vanilla bean, boil it by itself in a half pint of milk, and when highly flavored, strain the vanilla milk into the cream. For chocolate ice cream, sc.r.a.pe down a quarter of a pound of Baker"s prepared cocoa, and melt it in just water enough to cover it; then sweeten and mix it gradually into a quart of rich milk, (boiling at the time) and then boil and stir it till strong and smooth. Ice cream is spoiled by the addition of eggs. Besides giving it a yellowish color, eggs convert it into mere frozen custard, particularly if instead of using real cream, it is made of milk thickened with arrow-root or flour. For company at least, ice cream should be made in the best and most liberal manner, or else do not attempt it. Mean ice cream is a very mean thing.
When all the ingredients are prepared and mixed, put the whole into the freezer, and set it in the ice tub; and having put on the lid tightly, take the freezer by the handle and turn it about very fast for five or six minutes. Then remove the lid carefully, and sc.r.a.pe down the cream from the sides with a spaddle or long-handled spoon. Repeat this frequently while it is freezing, taking care to keep the sides clear, stirring it well to the bottom, and keeping the tub well filled with salt and ice outside the freezer.
After the cream has been well frozen in the freezer, transfer it to moulds, pressing it in hard, so as to fill every part of the mould.
Then set the mould in a fresh tub of ice and salt, (using as before the proportion of a pound of salt to five pounds of ice) and let it remain undisturbed in the mould for an hour, not turning it out till it is time to serve it up to the company. Then wrap a cloth, dipped in warm water, round the outside of the moulds, open them, and turn out the frozen cream on gla.s.s or china dishes, and serve it up immediately.
Unless ice cream is very highly flavored at the beginning, its taste will be much weakened in the process of freezing.
The most usual form of ice cream moulds are pyramids, dolphins, doves, and baskets of fruit. We have seen ice cream in the shape of a curly lap-dog, and very well represented.
If you eat what is called strawberry ice cream looking of an exquisite rose-pink color, there is no strawberry about it, either in tint or taste. It is produced by alkanet or cochineal. Real strawberries do not color so beautifully; neither do raspberries, or any other sort of red fruit. But genuine fruit syrups may be employed for this purpose, having at least the true taste. To make strawberry or raspberry syrup, prepare first what is called simple syrup, by melting a pound of the best double-refined loaf sugar in half a pint of cold water; and when melted, boiling them together, and skimming it perfectly clean. Then stir in as much fruit juice (mashed and strained,) as will give it a fine tinge, and let it have one more boiling up.
_Vanilla Syrup._--Take six fine fresh vanilla beans. Split, and cut them in pieces. Sc.r.a.pe the seeds loose in the pods with your finger nail, and bruise and mash the sh.e.l.ls. All this will increase the vanilla flavor.
Put all you can get of the vanilla into a small quart of what is called by the druggist "absolute alcohol." Cork the bottle closely, and let the vanilla infuse in it a week. Then strain it through a very fine strainer that will not let out a single seed. Have ready half a dozen pint bottles of simple syrup. Put into every bottle of the simple syrup a portion of the strained infusion of vanilla. Cork it tightly and use it for vanilla flavoring in ice creams, custards, blancmange, &c.
_Orange or Lemon Syrups_--Are made by paring off the yellow rind very thin (after the fruit has been rolled under your hand on a table to increase the juice,) then boiling the rind till the water is highly flavored. Strain this water over the best loaf sugar, allowing two pounds of sugar to a pint of juice. The sugar being melted, mix it with the juice.
WATER ICES OR SHERBET.--Water ices are made of the juice of fruits, very well sweetened, mixed with a little water, and frozen in the manner of ice cream, to which they are by many persons preferred. They are all prepared nearly in the same manner, allowing a pint of juice to a pint of water, and a quarter of a pound of sugar. Mix it well, and then freeze it in the manner of ice cream, and serve it up in gla.s.s bowls.
For lemon and orange sherbet, first roll the fruit on a table under your hand; then take off a very thin paring of the yellow rind, and boil it slowly in a very little water, till all the flavor is extracted. Next, strain the flavored water into the cold water you intend to mix with the juice, and make it very sweet with loaf sugar. Squeeze the juice into it through a tin strainer to avoid the seeds. Stir the whole very hard, and transfer it to a freezer. Orange water-ice is considered the best, if well made. For pine-apple water-ice, pare, core, and slice fine _ripe_ apples very thin. Put them into a dish with thick layers of powdered loaf sugar; cover the dish, and let them lie several hours in the sugar.
Then press out all the juice you can, from the pine-apple; mix it with a little water, and freeze it. To two large pine-apples allow a half pound of sugar, which has been melted in a quart of boiling water. This looks very well frozen in a mould shaped like a pine-apple. _Orange_ sherbet may be frozen in a pine-apple mould. It can be made so rich with orange juice as to perfume the whole table.
_Roman Punch_--Is made of strong lemonade or orangeade, adding to every quart a pint of brandy or rum. Then freeze it, and serve in saucers or a large gla.s.s bowl. Put it into a porcelain kettle, and boil and skim it till the sc.u.m ceases to rise. When cold, bottle it, seal the corks and keep it in a cool place.
Syrup of strawberries, raspberries, currants and blackberries, is made in a similar manner.
FLOATING ISLAND.--For one common-sized floating island have a round thick jelly cake, lady cake, or almond sponge cake, that will weigh a pound and a half, or two pounds. Slice it downwards, almost to the bottom, but do not take the slices apart. Stand up the cake in the centre of a gla.s.s bowl or a deep dish. Have ready a pint and a half of rich cream, make it very sweet with sugar, and color it a fine green with a tea-cupful of the juice of pounded spinach, boiled five minutes by itself; strained, and made very sweet. Or for coloring pink you may use currant jelly, or the juice of preserved strawberries. Whip to a stiff froth another pint and a half of sweetened cream, and flavor it with a large gla.s.s of mixed wine and brandy. Pour round the cake, as it stands in the dish or bowl, the colored unfrothed cream, and pile the whipped white cream all over the cake, highest on the top.
FINE CAKES.
PLUM CAKE.--In making very fine plum cake first prepare the fruit and spice, and sift the flour (which must be the very best superfine,) into a large flat dish, and dry it before the fire. Use none but the very best fresh b.u.t.ter; if of inferior quality, the b.u.t.ter will taste through every thing, and spoil the cake. In fact, all the ingredients should be excellent, and liberally allowed. Take the best bloom or muscatel raisins, seeded and cut in half. Pick and wash the currants or plums through two waters, and dry them well. Powder the spice, and let it infuse over night in the wine and brandy. Cut the citron into slips, mix it with the raisins and currants, and dredge all the fruit very thickly, on both sides, with flour. This will prevent its sinking or clodding in the cake, while baking. Eggs should always be beaten till the frothing is over, and till they become thick and smooth, as thick as a good boiled custard, and quite smooth on the surface. If you can obtain hickory-rods as egg-beaters, there is nothing so good; but if you cannot get _them_, use the common egg-beaters, of thin fine wire. For stirring b.u.t.ter and sugar you should have a spaddle, which resembles a short mush-stick flattened at one end. Stir the b.u.t.ter and sugar in a deep earthen pan, and continue till it is light, thick, and creamy. Beat eggs always in a broad shallow earthen pan, and with a short quick stroke, keeping your right elbow close to your side, and moving only your wrist.
In this way you may beat for an hour without fatigue. But to stir b.u.t.ter and sugar is the hardest part of cake making. Have this done by a man servant. His strength will accomplish it in a short time--also, let him give the final stirring to the cake. If the ingredients are prepared as far as practicable on the preceding day, the cake may be in the oven by ten or eleven o"clock in the forenoon.
For a large plum cake allow one pound, (or a quart) of sifted flour; one pound of fresh b.u.t.ter cut up in a pound of powdered loaf sugar, in a deep pan; twelve eggs; two pounds of bloom raisins; two pounds of Zante currants; half a pound of citron, either cut into slips or chopped small; a table-spoonful of powdered mace and cinnamon, mixed; two grated nutmegs; a large wine-gla.s.s of madeira (or more), a wine-gla.s.s of French brandy, mixed together, and the spice steeped in it.
First stir the b.u.t.ter and sugar to a light cream, and add to them the spice and liquor. Then beat the eggs in a shallow pan till very thick and smooth, breaking them one at a time into a saucer to ascertain if there is a bad one among them. One stale egg will spoil the whole cake.
When the eggs are very light, stir them gradually into the large pan of b.u.t.ter and sugar in turn with the flour, that being the mixing pan.
Lastly, add the fruit and citron, a little at a time of each, and give the whole a hard stirring. If the fruit is well floured it will not sink, but it will be seen evenly dispersed all over the cake when baked.
Take a large straight-sided block tin pan, grease it inside with the same b.u.t.ter used for the cake, and put the mixture carefully into it.
Set it immediately into a well-heated oven, and keep up a steady heat while it is baking. When nearly done, the cake will shrink a little from the sides of the pan; and on probing it to the bottom with a sprig from a corn broom, or a splinter-skewer, the probe will come out clean.
Otherwise, keep the cake in the oven a little longer. If it cracks on the top, it is a proof of its being very light. When quite done, take it out. It will become hard if left to grow cold with the oven. Set it to cool on an inverted sieve.
ICING.--Allow to the white of each egg a quarter of a pound of the best loaf sugar, finely powdered; but if you find the mixture too thin, you must add still more sugar. Put the white of egg into a shallow pan, and beat it with small rods or a large silver fork, till it becomes a stiff froth, and stands alone without falling. Then beat in the powdered sugar, a tea-spoonful at a time. As you proceed, flavor it with lemon juice. This will render the icing whiter and smoother, also improving the taste. You may ice the cake as soon as it becomes lukewarm, without waiting till it is quite cold. Dredge it lightly with flour to absorb the grease from the outside; then wipe off the flour. With a broad knife put some icing on the middle of the cake, and then spread it down, thickly and evenly, all over the top and sides, smoothing it with another knife dipped in cold water. When this is quite dry, spread on a second coat of icing rather thinner than the first, and flavored with rose. Set it a few minutes in the oven to harden the icing, leaving the oven-door open; or place it beneath the stove. When the icing is quite dry, you may ornament it with sugar borders and flowers; having ready, for that purpose, some additional icing. By means of a syringe, (made for the purpose, and to be obtained at the best furnishing stores) you can decorate the surface of the cake very handsomely; but it requires taste, skill, and practice. You may first cover the cake with pink, brown, green, or other colored icing, and then take white icing to decorate it, forming the pattern by moving your hand skilfully and steadily over it, and pressing it out of the syringe as you go. An easier way is to ornament the cake (when the top-icing is nearly dry, but not quite,) with large strawberries or raspberries, or purple grapes placed very near each other, and arranged in circles or patterns. Be careful not to mash the berries.
_Warm Icing._--This is made in the usual proportion of the whites of four eggs, beaten to stiff froth, and a pound of finely powdered loaf sugar afterwards added to it, gradually. Then boil the egg and sugar in a porcelain kettle, and skim it till the sc.u.m ceases to rise. Take it off the fire, and stir into it sufficient orange juice, lemon juice, or rose-water, to flavor it highly. Flour your cake--wipe off the flour, put on the icing with a broad knife, and then smooth it with another knife dipped in cold water. For this icing the cake should be warm from the oven, and dried slowly and gradually afterwards. Warm icing is much liked. It is very light; rises thick and high in cooling, and has a fine gloss. Try it. The mixture called by the French a _meringue_, and used for macaroons, kisses, and other nice articles, is made in the same manner as icing for cakes, allowing a quarter of a pound of powdered loaf sugar to every beaten white of egg.
POUND CAKE.--One of Mrs. Goodfellow"s maxims was, "up-weight of flour, and down-weight of every thing else"--and she was right, as the excellence of her cakes sufficiently proved, during the thirty years that she taught her art in Philadelphia, with unexampled success.
Therefore, allow for a pound cake a rather small pound of sifted flour; a large pound of the best fresh b.u.t.ter, a large pound of powdered loaf sugar, ten eggs, or eleven if they are small; a large gla.s.s of mixed wine and brandy; a gla.s.s of rose-water; a grated nutmeg, and a heaped tea-spoonful of mixed spice, powdered mace, and cinnamon. Put the sugar into a _deep_ earthen pan, and cut up the b.u.t.ter among it. In cold weather place it near the fire a few minutes, till the b.u.t.ter softens.
Next, stir it very hard with a spaddle till the mixture becomes very light. Next, stir in, gradually, the spice, liquor, &c. Then beat the eggs in a shallow pan with rods or a whisk, till light, thick, and smooth. Add them gradually to the beaten batter and sugar, in turn with the flour; and give the whole a hard stirring at the last. Have the oven ready with a moderate heat. Transfer the mixture to a thick straight-sided tin pan well greased with the best fresh b.u.t.ter, and smooth the b.u.t.ter on the surface. Set it immediately into the oven, and bake it with a steady heat two hours and a half, or more. Probe it to the bottom with a twig from a corn broom. When it shrinks a little from the pan it is done. When taken out, set it to cool on an inverted sieve.
When you ice it, flavor the icing with lemon or rose.
It should be eaten fresh, as it soon becomes very dry.
Pound cake is not so much in use as formerly, particularly for weddings and large parties; lady cake and plum cake being now subst.i.tuted. A pound cake may be much improved by the addition of a pound of citron, sliced, chopped well, dredged with flour to prevent its sinking, and stirred gradually into the batter, in turn with the sifted flour and beaten egg.
QUEEN CAKE--Is made in the same manner as pound cake, only with a less proportion of flour, (fourteen ounces, or two ounces less than a pound) as it must be baked in little tins; and small cakes require less flour than large ones. Also, (besides a somewhat larger allowance of spice, liquor, &c.) add the juice and grated yellow rind of a lemon or two, and half a pound of sultana or seedless raisins, cut in half and dredged with flour. b.u.t.ter your small cake tins, and fill to the edge with the batter. They will not run over the edge if well made, and baked with a proper fire, but they will rise high and fine in the centre. Ice them when beginning to cool, flavoring the icing with lemon or rose. Queen cakes made _exactly_ as above are superlative.
ORANGE CAKES.--Make a mixture precisely as for queen cake, only omit the wine, brandy, and rose-water, and subst.i.tute the grated yellow rind and the juice of four large ripe oranges, stirred into the batter in turn with the egg and flour. Flavor the icing with orange juice.
LEMON CAKES--Are also made as above, subst.i.tuting for the oranges the grated rind and juice of three lemons. To give a full taste, less lemon is required than orange.
SPONGE CAKE.--Many persons suppose that sponge cake must be very easy to make, because there is no b.u.t.ter in it. On the contrary, the want of b.u.t.ter renders it difficult to get light. A really good sponge cake is a very different thing from those numerous tough leathery compositions that go by that name, and being flavored with nothing, are not worthy of eating _as cake_, and are neither palatable nor wholesome as diet, unless too fresh to have grown dry and hard. The best sponge cake we know of is made as follows, and even that should be eaten the day it is baked. Sift half a pound of flour, (arrow-root is still better,) in a shallow pan; beat twelve eggs till very thick, light, and smooth. You need not separate the yolks and whites, if you know the true way of adding the flour. Beat a pound of powdered loaf sugar, gradually, (a little at a time) into the beaten eggs, and add the juice and grated yellow rinds of two large lemons or oranges. Lastly stir in the flour or arrow root. It is all important that this should be done slowly and lightly, and without stirring down to the bottom of the pan. Hold the egg-beater perpendicularly or quite upright in one hand, and move it round on the surface of the beaten egg, while with the other hand you lightly and gradually sprinkle in the flour till all is in. If stirred in hard and fast it will render the cake porous and tough, and dry and hard when cold. Have ready either a large turban mould, or some small oblong or square tins. b.u.t.ter them nicely, transfer to them the cake mixture, grate powdered sugar profusely over the surface to give it a gloss like a very thin crust, and set it immediately into a brisk oven.