1 quart of milk.
3 eggs, well beaten.
4 table-spoonfuls sugar.
1 scant table-spoonful butter.
A little salt.
1 small cup bored rice.
Boil the rice, and while sti]l warm, drain, and stir
into the milk. Beat the eggs; rub butter and sugar
together, and add to them. Mix all up well, and bake
in buttered dish half an hour in a pretty quick oven.
Tapioca Custarp Puppia. >/
1 cup tapioca, soaked over night in cold water
enough to cover it.
1 quart of milk.
1 large cup powdered sugar.
5 egos.
Half the grated peel of one lemon.
A very little salt.
Make a custard of the yolks, sugar and milk. Warm
the milk slightly in a farina-kettle before mixing with
the other ingredients. Beat this custard into the
soaked tapioca; salt; whisk the whites of the eggs to
a standing froth, stir in swiftly and lightly; set the
pudding-dish (well buttered) into a pan of boiling
water, and bake, covered, in a moderate oven until the
custard is well “set.” Brown delicately by setting it
for a minute on the upper grating of a quicker oven.
This may be eaten warm or cold, with or without
sauce.
i
942 = =~—-s«- BREAKFAST, LUNCHEON AND TEA.
EneuisH Tapioca Puppia. >}
1 cup tapioca.
3 pints fresh milk.
D eggs.
2 table-spoonfuls butter.
1 cup sugar.
% pound raisins, seeded and cut in half.
Half the grated peel of 1 lemon. |
Soak the tapioca one hour in a pint of the milk;
pour into a glass, or stone-ware jar; set in a pot of
warm water and bring to a boil. When the tapioca is
soft all through, turn out to cool somewhat, while you
make the custard. Beat the eggs very light; rub
butter and sugar together; mix all with the tapioca,
the fruit last. Bake in buttered dish one hour.
Arrowroor Puppine. (Cold.)
3 even table-spoonfuls arrowroot.
2 table-spoonfuls of sugar.
1 table-spoonful of butter
3 cups rich new milk.
4 pound crystallized peaches, chopped fine.
Heat the milk scalding hot in a farina-kettle. Wet
the arrowroot with cold milk, and stir into this. When
it begins to thicken, add sugar and butter. Stir con-
stantly for fifteen minutes. Turn out into a bowl, and
when almost cold beat in the fruit. Wet a mould,
put in the mixture, and set in a cold place until
firm.
Hat with powdered sugar and cream.
PUDDINGS. 243
Arrowroot Pupprine. ( fot.)
3 even table-spoonfuls arrowroot,
1 quart new milk.
1 table-spoonful butter.
4 table-spoonfuls sugar.
4 egos, beaten light.
A little nutmeg.
Vanilla flavoring.
Scald the milk; wet the arrowroot with cold milk,
and pour the hot gradually upon it, stirring all the
time. Beat the eggs very light, rub butter and sugar
together; mix with the eggs; whisk hard for a minute
before pouring the milk in withthem. Flavor; put
into a buttered mould. The water should be nearly
boiling when it goes in, and boil steadily for one hour.
If you have a steamer, it is best cooked in that, the
heat reaching all parts of the covered mould at the
same time. Set in cold water a minute before turning
it out. Hat with brandy or wine sauce.
Saco Puppina. ef
1 small cup of sago, soaked over night in cold water.
1 quart of milk.
5 eggs.
4 table-spoonfuls of sugar.
A pinch of cinnamon, and same of nutmeg.
1 table-spoonful of butter.
In the morning put the soaked sago into a farina-
kettle, with one pint of milk; bring to a slow boil, and
keep it on the fire until it is tender and clear, and has
soaked up all the milk. Make a custard of the beaten
244 BREAKFAST, LUNCHEON AND TEA.
egos, the milk, the butter and sugar rubbed together,
the spice, and when the sago is nearly cold, beat it in.
Bake in a buttered dish. It should be done in litle
over half an hour..
You can boil the same mixture, if desired, in a
buttered mould. It will take more than an hour to
cook.
Eat cold or hot. If warm, with sauce. If cold,
with powdered sugar and cream. It is nice with a
meringue on top.
Atmonp Corn-Srarcu Pupprne. >
1 quart of milk.
4 table-spoonfuls corn-starch.
1 table-spoonful of butter.
Yolks of five eggs, whites of two.
+ pound sweet almonds—blanched.
Rose-water, and bitter almond.
2 cup powdered sugar.
Scald the milk; wet the corn-starch to smooth paste
with a little cold milk, and stir into the boiling. Cook
until it begins to thicken well. Take from the fire and
stir in the butter. Let it cool while you make the
almond paste and the custard. The almonds should
be blanched long enough beforehand to get perfectly
cold before you pound them to a paste, a few ata time,
in a bowl or Wedgewood mortar. Drop in rose-water,
now and then, to prevent them from oiling. Make a
custard of the yolks, the whites of two eggs, and the
sugar. Beat this gradually and thoroughly into the
corn-starch paste; flavor with bitter almond; finally
stir in the almond paste. Bake ina buttered dish about
PUDDINGS. 945
half an hour. When almost done cover with a mé-
ringue made of the whites reserved, and a very little
powdered sugar. Kat warm—not hot, with cream
and sugar. It is also good when it has been set on
the ice until very cold. In winter it is easy to freeze
it. Itis then delicious, eaten with rich cream or cus:
tard.
Corn-MeraL Fruit Puppia.
3 pints of milk.
1 heaping cup white Indian meal.
1 cup flour, |
4 egos, well beaten.
1 cup white sugar.
2 table-spoonfuls butter, melted.
4 pound raisins, seeded, and cut in two.
1 teaspoonful, heaping, of salt.
1 teaspoonful mixed cinnamon and mace.
1 teaspoonful soda, wet up with boiling water.
2 teaspoonfuls cream of tartar, sifted in the flour.
Scald a pint of the milk, and with it wet the meal.
Stir it up well, and let it get almost, or quite cold.
While cooling, beat in the flour wet with cold milk.
Beat all up hard and long. Make a custard of the re-
maining milk, the eggs and sugar. Beat gradually
into the cooled paste. When all are mixed into a
light batter, put in the butter, spice, the fruit, dredged
well with flour; last of all, the dissolved soda. Beat
up hard and quickly, bringing your spoon up from the
bottom of the dish, and full of batter at every stroke.
Pour into a buttered dish, and bake in a tolerably
quick, steady oven. It should be done in from half to
246 BREAKFAST, LUNCHEON AND THA.
three-quarters of an hour, if the heat be just right. I
it should brown too rapidly, cover with paper.
This is a very good pudding.
Corn-Mrat Puppine wirnour Hees. ef.
2 cups Indian meal.
1 cup flour.
2 table-spoonfuls sugar (or molasses).
3 cups sour mite ae thick, all the better.
1 great spoonful melted butter.
1 teaspoonful—a full one—of soda.
1 teaspoonful of salt.
4 teaspoonful cinnamon.
Put meal and flour together in a bowl, and mix
them up well with the salt. Make a hole in the mid-
dle, and pour in the milk, stirring the meal, etc., down
into it from the sides gradually. Beat until free from
lumps. Put in butter, spice and sugar—the soda, dis-
solved in hot water, at the last. Beat up well for five
minutes. Butter a tin mould with a cover; pour in
the batter and boil steadily for an hour and a half.
Eat hot with sweet sauce.
Hasry Pupprne. ef
1 heaping cup of Indian meal.
4 cup flour.
1 quart boiling water.
1 pint milk.
1 table-spoonful butter.
1 teaspoonful salt.
Wet up meal and flour with the milk and stir into
the boiling water. Boil hard half an hour, stirring al-
Cee ee ee
PUDDINGS. Q47
most constantly from the bottom. Put in salt and
butter, and simmer ten minutes longer. Turn into a
deep, uncovered dish, and eat with sugar and cream,
or sugar and butter with nutmeg.
Our children like it.
Ritcze-FLrour Hasry Puppine.
1 quart new milk.
3 table-spoonfuls rice-flour.
1 table-spoonful butter.
1 teaspoonful salt.
Seald the milk and stir into it the rice flour, wet up
with cold milk. Boil steadily, stirring all the while,
for half an hour. Add salt and butter; let the pud-
ding stand in hot water three minutes after you have
ceased to stir, and turn out into deep, open dish.
Eat with cream and sugar.
N. B. Always boil hasty puddings and custards in
a farina-kettle, or a pail set within a pot of hot water.
It is the only safe method.
Farina Popping. pe
Make according to last receipt, but boil three-quar-
ters of an hour, and, ten minutes before taking it up,
stir into it two eggs beaten light and thinned with
three table-spoonfuls of milk. Cook slowly, and stir
all the time, after these go in. To a quart of milk,
use at least four table-spoonfuls of farina.
A good dessert for children—and not to be despised
by their elders. '
248 BREAKFAST, LUNCHEON AND TRA.
Susiz’s Breap Puppina. ef
1 quart of milk.
4 egos—the whites of 3 more for méringue.
2 cups very fine, dry bread-crumbs.
1 table-spoonful melted butter.
1 teacupful sugar.
Juice and half the grated peel of 1 lemon.
Beat eggs, sugar and butter together. Soak the
crumbs in the milk and mix all well, beating very
hard and rapidly. Season, and bake in greased bak-
ing-dish. When almost done, cover with a méringue
made of the whites of three eggs and a little powdered
sugar.
Eat cold. It is very nice.
Frurr Breap Pupowe. (Very Fine.) -f
1 quart of milk.
1 cup of sugar.
3 large cups very fine bread-crumbs.
4 cup suet—powdered.
% pound raisins seeded and cut in two.
1 table-spoonful finely shred citron.
% pound sultana raisins, washed well and dried.
1 teaspoonful soda, dissolved in hot water.
2 teaspoonfuls cream of tartar, stirred into the dry
crumbs.
A little salt, nutmeg and cinnamon.
3 eggs beaten light.
Soak the bread-crumbs in the milk; next, beat in
the whipped eggs and sugar; the suet and spice.
Whip the batter very light before the fruit—-strictly
PUDDINGS. QAO
dredged with flour and well mixed—goes in. Put the
soda in last. Beat three minutes steadily, before put-
ting it into buttered mould. Boil two hours. Keep
the water boiling hard all the time. Eat with brandy-
sauce.
Breap AnD Raistn Pupprna.
1 quart milk.
Enough slices of baker’s bread—stale—to fill your
dish.
Butter to spread the bread.
4 eggs.
% cup of sugar.
~2 pound of raisins, seeded and each cut into three
pieces. |
Butter the bread, each slice of which should be an
inch thick, and entirely free from crust. Make a raw
custard of eggs, sugar and milk. Butter a pudding-
dish and put a layer of sliced bread at the bottom,
fitted closely together and cut to fit the dish. Pour a
little custard upon this, strew the cut raisins evenly
over it; and lay in more buttered bread. Proceed in
this order until the dish is full. The uppermost layer
should be bread well buttered and soaked in the cus-
tard. Cover the dish closely, set in a baking pan
nearly full of hot water, and bake an hour. When
done, uncover, and brown lightly.
O7,
You can spread with a méringue, just before taking
from the oven.
Eat hot, with sauce.
*
250 BREAKFAST, LUNCHEON AND TEA.
Cuerry Breap Pouppine.
Is very good made as above, substituting nice dried
cherries—without stones—for the raisins.
Both of these are more palatable than one would
imagine from reading the receipts; are far more easily
made, less expensive, and more digestible than the
pie, “ without which father wouldn’t think he could
divers
Witutn’s Favorirs. ( Very good.)
1 loaf stale baker’s bread. French bread, if you can
get it. It must be white and light.
4 cup suet, powdered.
4+ pound citron, chopped very fine.
-4 pound sweet almonds blanched and shaved thin.
5 large pippins, pared, cored and chopped.
1 cup cream and same of milk.
A little salt, stirred into the cream.
1 cup of powdered sugar.
Cut the bread into slices an inch thick, and pare off
the crust. Cover the bottom of a buttered mould
(with plain sides) with these, trimming them to fit
the mould and to lie closely together. Soak this
layer with cream; spread with the suet, and this with
the fruit chopped fine and mixed together. Sprinkle
this well with sugar, and strew almond shavings over
it. Jit on another stratum of bread; soaking this
with milk; then suet, fruit, sugar, almonds, and
another layer of bread wet with cream. The topmost
layer must be bread, and very wet. Boil two hours.
by
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4
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PUDDINGS. 951
Dip the mould in cold water, and turn out carefully
upon adish. Sift powdered sugar over it.
Eat hot with sweet sauce.
STEAMED Breap Puppine. >
1 pint milk.
2 cups fine bread-crumbs.
4 pound suet powdered.
4 pound sultana raisins, picked, washed and dried.
3 egas.
1 dessert-spoonful corn-starch.
1 tablespoonful sugar.
A. little salt.
% pound macaroons or ratifias.
Make a custard of milk, eggs and sugar; hea al-
most to a boil and stir in the corn-starch wet with
milk. Cook one minute ; take from the fire and pour,
a little at a time, over the bread-crumbs; beating into
a rather thick batter. Butter a mould thickly; line it
with the macaroons, and put, spoonful by spoonful, a
layer of batter in the bottom. Cover this with suet,
then raisins; sprinkle with sugar—put in more batter,
and so on until the mould is nearly full. Fit on the
top; put into the steamer over a pot of boiling water
and steam, with the water at a hard boil, at least two
hours. Dip the mould into cold water to make the
pudding leave the sides; let it stand a moment, and
turn out, with care, upon a hot dish.
Eat hot with wine sauce.
Custarp Brrap Puppina. ( Boiled.) fe
2 cupfuls fine bread-crumbs—stale and dry.
1 quart of milk.
252 BREAKFAST, LUNCHEON AND TEA.
6 eggs—whites and yolks beaten separately.
1 table-spoonful rice flour.
1 teaspoonful salt, and 4 teaspoonful soda.
Flavor to taste.
Soak the bread-crumbs in the milk; put into a
farina-kettle and heat almost to a boil. Stir in the
rice-flour wet with cold milk; cook one minute; turn
into a basin and beat hard several minutes. When
almost cold, add the yolks of the eggs, the soda (dis-
solved in hot water) and the flavoring; finally, the
whipped whites, mixing them in swiftly and thor-
oughly. Boil in a greased mould an hour and a half.
Turn out, and eat hot with sweet sauce.
Macaronr anp ALMoND PuDDING.
4 pound best Italian macaroni, broken into inch
lengths.
3 pints milk.
2 table-spoonfuls butter.
1 cup white sugar.
5 eggs.
4 pound sweet almonds, blanched and chopped.
Rose-water and bitter-almond flavoring.
A little salt and nutmeg.
Simmer the macaroni half an hour in a pint of the
milk.
Stirin the butter and salt. Cover the saucepan, and
take from the fire, letting it stand covered while you
make a custard of the rest of the milk, the eggs and
sugar. Chop the almonds, adding rose-water to keep
them from oiling. When the macaroni is nearly cold,
put into the custard; stir up well, but break it as little
PUDDINGS. 953
as possible; put in nutmeg, bitter-almond extract ;
lastly the almonds.
Bake in the dish in which it is to be served.
Pramn Macaroni Puppine. >
+ pound macaroni, broken into pieces an inch
long. 3
1 pint water.
1 table-spoonful butter.
1 large cup of milk.
2 table-spoonfuls powdered sugar.
Grated peel of half a lemon.
A little cinnamon and salt.
Boil the macaroni slowly in the water, in one vessel
set within another of hot water, until it is tender and
has soaked up the water. Add the butter and salt.
Let it stand covered five minutes without removing it
from the range; put in the rest of the ingredients.
Stir frequently, taking care not to break the maca-
roni, and simmer, covered ten minutes longer before
turning it out into a deep dish.
Eat hot with butter and sugar, or sugar and cream.
Essex Puppina.
2 cups fine bread-crumbs.
# cup powdered suet.
2 table-spoonfuls sago, soaked over night in a little
water.
5 egos, beaten light.
1 cup of milk.
1 cup of sugar.
1 table-spoonful corn-starch, wet in cold milk.
254 BREAKFAST, LUNCHEON AND TEA.
About 4 pound whole raisins, “ plumped” by laying
them in bovling water two minutes.
A little salt.
Set the sago over the fire in a farina-kettle with
enough water to cover it, and let it cook gently until
tender and nearly dry. Make a custard of the eggs,
milk and sugar; add the crumbs, beating into a thick
batter; next the suet, corn-starch, sago and salt. Beat
all up long and hard.
Butter a mould very thickly, and lay the raisins in
the bottom and sides, in rings or stripes, or whatever
pattern you may fancy. Fill the mould by spoonfuls
—not to spoil your pattern—with the batter. Steam
one hour and a half, or boil one hour.
Dip in cold water; let it stand one minute, and
turn out upon a flat dish. The raisins should be im-
bedded in the pudding, but distinctly visible upon the
surface.
Eat with jelly sauce.
Norr.—F or instructions about pudding-sauces, please
see “Common SENSE IN THE HovsEHoLD—GENERAL
Recrrets,” page 419.
BomEp AppLtre Pupprnea.
6 large juicy apples, pared, cored and chopped.
2 cups fine bread-crumbs.
1 cup powdered suet.
Juice of 1 lemon, and half the peel.
4 teaspoonful of salt.
1 teaspoonful of soda dissolved in hot water.
Mix all together with a wooden spoon, stirring until
PUDDINGS. 255
the ingredients are well incorporated into a damp
mass. Put into a buttered mould, and boil three hours.
Eat with a good, sweet sauce.
Baxep Appie Puppine. >}
6 or 7 fine juicy apples, pared and sliced.
Slices of stale baker’s bread, buttered.
% pound citron, shred thin.
Grated peel of half a lemon, and a little cinnamon.
1 cup light, brown sugar.
Cut the crust from the bread; butter it on both
sides, and fit a layer in the bottom of a buttered mould.
Lay sliced apple over this, sprinkle with citron ; strew
sugar and a little of the seasoning over all, and put the
next layer of bread. The slices of bread should be not
quite half an inch thick. Butter the uppermost layer
very abundantly. Cover the mould or dish, and bake
an hour and a half.
Turn out and eat with pudding-sauce.
AprpLtE Barrer Poupprne.
6 or 8 fine juicy apples, pared and cored.
1 quart of milk. |
10 table-spoonfuls of flour.
6 egos, beaten very light.
1 table-spoonful butter—melted.
1 saltspoonful of salt.
4 teaspoonful soda.
1 teaspoonful cream of tartar.
Set the apples closely together in the baking-dish ;
put in enough cold water to half cover them, and bake,
closely covered, until the edges are clear, but not until
256 BREAKFAST, LUNCHEON AND TEA.
they begin to break. Drain off the water, and let the —
fruit get cold before pouring over them a batter made
of the ingredients enumerated above. Dake in a quick
oven.
Serve in the baking-dish, and eat with sauce.
Pracu Barrer Puppia.
This is made in the same way, but if the peaches are
fully ripe and soft, they need no previous cooking.
The stones must be left in.
This is a delightful pudding.
Preacu Licurt CreEMA.
Some fine, ripe peaches pared, and cut in half, leay-
ing out the stones.
3 eggs, and the whites of two more.
3 cups of milk.
$ cup powdered sugar.
2 table-spoonfuls corn-starch, or rice-flour. If you
have neither, take 3 table-spoonfuls best family flour.
1 table-spoonful melted butter.
Scald the milk; stir in the corn-starch wet with cold
milk. Simmer, stirring carefully until it begins to
thicken. Take from the fire and put in the butter.
Beat the eggs light, and add when the corn-starch is
lukewarm. Whip all until light and smooth. Put a
thick substratum of peaches in the bottom of a buttered
baking-dish ; strew with the sugar and pour the créma
gently over them. Bake in a pretty quick oven ten
minutes. Then spread with a méringue made of the
whites of five eggs, whisked stiff with a little powdered
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PUDDINGS. 257
sugar. Shut the oven-door for two minutes to harden
this.
Eat warm with sauce, or cold with cream.
Risrort Porrs. pf.
5 eggs.
The weight of the eggs in flour.
Half their weight in butter and in sugar.
Juice of 1 lemon, and half the grated peel.
4 teaspoonful soda, dissolved in hot water.
Rub the butter and sugar to a cream, whisking until
it is very light. Beat the whites to a standing froth ;
the yolks thick and smooth. Strain the latter throngh
a sieve into the butter and sugar ; stir in well; add the
lemon, the soda, and the flour alternately with the
whites, beating up rapidly aiter these go in. Have
ready small cups or muflin-rings, well-buttered; put
the mixture into them, and bake at once. In less than
half an hour they should rise high in the pans. Test
with a clean straw to see if they are done; turn out
upon a hot dish, and serve with jelly sauce.
These are almost sure to be a success if made with
good prepared flour—Hecker’s, for example. In this
case, use no soda.
JAM Pures.
3 egos. Half a cup of sweet jam or jelly.
The weight of the eggs in Hecker’s prepared flour.
Half their weight in sugar and butter.
Beat the eggs stiff, whites and yolks separately.
Cream the butter and sugar, strain the yolks into the
eream ; beat well before putting in the whites. The
258 BREAKFAST, LUNCHEON AND TEA.
flour should go in last. Put the mixture in great
spoonfuls upon your baking-tin. -They should not
touch, and must be as uniform in size as you can make
them. Bake fifteen minutes in a quick oven. When
cold, run a sharp knife around each, leaving about au
inch uncut to serve as a hinge. Pull far enough open
to put in a spoonful of jelly or jam; close, and sift
white sugar over all when they are filled.
Corrace Porrs. *
1 cup milk, and same of cream.
4 egos beaten stiff, and the yolks strained.
1 table-spoonful butter, chopped into the flour.
A. very little salt.
Enough prepared flour for thick batter.
Mix the beaten yolks with the milk and cream ; then
the salt and whites, lastly the flour. Bake in buttered
iron pans, such as are used for “ gems ” and corn-bread.
The oven should be quick. Turn out and eat with —
sweet sauce.
Lemon Pourrs.
1 cup of prepared flour. Hecker’s always, if pro-
curable.
% cup powdered sugar.
1 table-spoonful butter.
3 eggs, beaten stiff. Strain the yolks.
A little salt, and grated peel of 1 lemon.
3 table-spoonfuls milk.
Mix, and bake in little pans as directed in previous
receipt.
.
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PUDDINGS. 259
Vanttta Cream Pourrs. ‘fe
1 cup boiling water.
2 table-spoonfuls butter.
1 cup prepared flour.
2 eggs—beaten well.
1 cup powdered sugar and
Whites of 2 eggs,
1 pint cream whipped with a little sugar.
Vanilla seasoning in cream.
Put the water over the fire with one table-spoonful
of butter. Boil up, and work in the flour without re-
moving from the fire. Stir until stiff, and work in the
rest of the butter. Take from the range, turn out into
a bowl and beat in the eggs. Put upon a greased bak-
ing-tin in table-spoonfuls, taking care not to let them
touch. - Bake quickly, but thoroughly. When done
and cold, cut a round piece out of the bottom of each,
introduce the handle of a teaspoon, and scrape out most
of the inside. Fill the cavity with the whipped cream
into which you have beaten two table-spoonfuls of icing ;
fit back the round piece taken from the bottom; set
on a dish, and ice. Put into a quick oven one minute
to dry.
for icing.
CorrEzs Cream Porrs.
Make as above, but beat into the icing two table-
spoonfuls of black coffee—as strong as can be made,
and a little of this icing into the whipped cream.
CuHocoLatE OrrAm Porrs.
Instead of coffee, season the cream and icing with 2
table-spoonfuls sweet chocolate, grated. That flavored
-
260 BREAKFAST, LUNCHEON AND TEA.
with vanilla is best. If you have not this, add a little
vanilla extract.
Corn-Mrat Pores.
1 quart boiling milk.
2 scant cups white “corn flour.” 4 cup wheat flour.
1 scant cup powdered sugar. A little salt.
4 egos—hbeaten light.. 1 table-spoonful butter.
4 teaspoonful of soda, dissolved in hot water.
1 teaspoonful cream of tartar, sifted into flour.
4 teaspoonful mixed cinnamon and nutmeg.
Boil the milk, and stir into it the meal, flour and
salt. Boil fifteen minutes, stirring well up from the
bottom. Put in the butter and beat hard in a bowl
for three minutes. When cold, put in the eggs whip-
ped light with the sugar, the seasoning and soda.
Whip up very faithfully ; bake in greased cups in a
steady oven.
Turn out of cups and eat with pudding sauce, or
with butter alone.
Whitt Porrs (Very nice).
1 pint rich milk.
Whites of 4 egas whipped stiff.
1 heaping cup prepared flour.
1 scant cup powdered sugar.
Grated peel of $ lemon.
A little salt.
Whisk the eggs and sugar to a méringue, and add
this alternately with the flour to the milk. (If you
have cream, or half cream half milk, it is better.)
Beat until the mixture is very light, and bake in but-
PUDDINGS. 261
tered cups or tins. Turn out, sift powdered sugar
over them, and eat with lemon sauce.
These are delicate in texture and taste, and pleasing
to the eye.
Wuire Puppia. of.
3 cups of milk.
Whites of 6 eges—whipped stiff.
1 cup powdered sugar.
1 table-spoonful melted butter.
1 table-spoonful rose-water.
2 heaping cups prepared flour.
Whip the sugar into the stiffened whites ; add but-
ter and rose-water; then the flour, stirred in very
lightly.
Bake in buttered mould in a rather quick oven.
Eat with sweet sauce.
Rusk Pupprve. rf
8 light, stale rusk.
A little more than 1 quart of milk.
5 eges—whites and yolks beaten separately.
4 cup powdered sugar, 4 teaspoonful soda.
Flavor to taste, with lemon, vanilla or bitter almond.
Pare every bit of the crust from the rusk, wasting as
little as possible. Crumb them fine into a bowl and
pour a pint of milk boiling hot over them. Cover and
Jet them stand until cold. Make a raw custard of the
rest of the milk, the eggs and the sugar. Stir the
soda, dissolved in hot water, into the soaked rusk,
when they are cold, put in the custard. Pour the
mixture into a buttered baking-dish—the same in
262 BREAKFAST, LUNCHEON AND TEA.
which it is to be serve
should puff up very light.
Sift powdered sugar over the top and eat warm
with sweet sauce. Cream sauce is particularly good
with it.
This is a good way to use up stale buns, rusk, etc.
But they must be really good at first, or the pudding
will be a failure. Rusks soon dry out, and become
comparatively tasteless. Mever try to renew their
youth by steaming them. You will only make them
as sour and flat as a twice-told tale.
Fig Puppina.
4 4 pound best Naples figs, washed, dried and cine
2 cups fine bread-cr al
3 egos.
4% cup best suet, powdered.
2 scant cups of milk.
4 cup white sugar.
A little salt.
A pinch of soda, dissolved in hot water and stirred
into the milk.
Soak the crumbs in the milk; stir in the eggs beaten
light with the sugar, the salt, suet and figs. Beat three
minutes; put in buttered mould and boil three hours.
Kat hot with wine sauce. It is very good.
Fig Custarp Poppina.
1 pound best white figs.
1 quart of milk.
Yolks of 5 eggs, and whites of two.
% package of gelatine, soaked in a little cold water
PUDDINGS. 2638
1 cup made wine jelly —lukewarm.
4 table-spoonfuls sugar.
Flavor to taste.
Soak the figs for a few minutes in warm water to
make them pliable. Split them in two, dip each piece
in jelly, and line the inside of a buttered mould with
them. Make a custard of the milk, yolks and sugar ;
boil until it begins to thicken well; take off the fire
and let it cool. Meanwhile, beat the whites of two
egos to a stiff froth ; melt the soaked gelatine in a very
little hot water, by setting the vessel containing this
im a saucepan of boiling water; stir until clear. Turn
out to cool. When nearly cold, whip gradually into
the whisked eggs. The mixture should be white and
thick before you stir it into the custard. Whip all
rapidly for a few minutes, and fill the fig-lined mould.
Set on ice, or in a cold place to form.
Dip the mould in hot water, to loosen the pudding,
and turn out upon a cold dish.
ee? C7),
Besides lining :the mould with figs, you may chop
some very fine and mix in with the custard before
moulding it.
This pudding is delicious if made with fresh, ripe
fies.
Marrow Sponer Pupprne.
2 cups fine sponge-cake crumbs—made from stale
cake—the drier the better.
4 cup beef marrow, finely minced.
Juice of 1 lemon and half the grated peel.
$% cup white sugar.
264 BREAKFAST, LUNCHEON AND TEA.
4 teaspoonful grated nutmeg.
% pound fresh layer raisins, seeded and chopped.
¢ pound citron, minced.
1 cup milk.
4 egos—beaten light—strain the yolks.
1 table-spoonful flour, and a little salt.
Mix the powdered marrow with the crumbs. Make
a raw custard of milk, eggs, and sugar, and pour over
the cake. Beat well; put in the flour, seasoning,
lastly, the fruit very thickly dredged with flour. Stir
hard before pouring into a greased mould. Boil three
hours. Turn out and eat hot, with cabinet-pudding
sauce.
Ge sure that the water actually boils before you put in
a pudding, and do not let it stop boiling for an instant
until it is done. Replenish from the boiling tea-kettle.
Pua Sponce-Caxe Puppine, vfs
1 stale sponge-cake.
2 table-spoonfuls sugar.
4 egos—beaten light.
2 cups of milk.
1 table-spoonful rice-flour or corn-starch wet up
with cold milk. .
Juice of 1 lemon and half the grated rind.
Slice the cake and lay some in the bottom of a but-
tered dish. Make a custard of the milk boiled for a
minute with the corn-starch in it. Flavor to taste
when you have added the eggs and sugar; pour over
the cake; put another layer of slices; more custard,
and so on, until the mould is full. Let it stand a few
minutes, to soak up the custard; put the dish in the
PUDDINGS. 265
oven—covered—and bake half an hour. Uncover a
few minutes before you take from the oven and brown
slightly.
Cocoanut SpoNGE PUDDING. pf<
_ 2 cups stale sponge-cake crumbs.
2 cups rich milk.
1 cup grated cocoanut.
Yolks of 2 eggs and whites of four.
1 cup of white sugar.
1 table-spoonful rose-water.
1 glass white wine.
Heat the milk to boiling; stir in the crumbed cake
and beat into a soft batter. When nearly cold, add
the beaten eggs, sugar, rose-water and cocoanut—the
wine last. Bake in a buttered pudding-dish about
three-quarters of an hour, or until it is firm in the
centre and of a nice brown. Eat cold, with white
sugar sifted over the top.
You can make an elegant dessert of this by spread-
ing it with a méringue made of—
Whipped whites of 4 eggs.
2 table-spoonfuls powdered sugar.
4 cupful of grated cocoanut.
A little lemon-juice.
Whisk until stiff; cover the pudding and leave it in
a quick oven two or three minutes to harden it.
Fruir Sroner-Caxe Puppine (Botled). vfa
12 square sponge-cakes—stale.
1 pint milk, :
3 eggs—beaten light, fo the custard.
% cup sugar,
pd oe
266 BREAKFAST, LUNCHEON AND TEA.
4 pound currants well washed and dried.
4 pound sweet almonds blanched and cut small.
+ pound citron chopped.
Nearly a cup of sherry wine.
Soak the cakes in the wine. Butter a mould very
thickly and strew it with currants, covering the inside
entirely. Puta layer of cakes at the bottom; spread —
with the chopped citron and almonds; put on three or
four spoonfuls of the raw custard, more cakes, fruit,
custard, until the mould is full, or nearly. The pud-
ding will swell a little. Fit on the cover, and boil one
hour.
Eat cold or hot. If the latter, serve jelly-sauce with
it. If cold, turn out of the mould the day after it is
boiled, and sift powdered sugar over it. Pile a nice
“whip ” about the base.
Frurr Sroner-Caxe Puppine (Baked).
2 cups sponge-cake crumbs—very dry.
2 cups boiling milk.
1 table-spoonful of butter.
4 cup of sugar.
2 table-spoonfuls flour—prepared flour is best.
4 pound currants, washed and dried.
Whites of 3 eggs—whipped stiff.
Bitter almond flavoring.
Soak the cake in the hot milk; leave it over the fire
until it is a scalding batter; stir in the butter, sugar
and flour—(the latter previously wet up with cold
milk), and pour into a bowl to cool. When nearly
cold, stir in the fruit, well dredged with flour, the fla-
voring, and whip up hard before adding the beaten
PUDDINGS. 267
whites. Bake in a buttered mould from half to three-
quarters of an hour. When done, take from the oven
and-let it cool. Just before sending to table, heap
high with a méringue made of—
Whites of 3 eggs.
2 table-spoonfuls sugar.
% pint cream, whipped stiff.
1 glass white wine.
This is a handsome and delightful dessert.
If eaten hot, serve cream sauce with it
OrANGE PuppINa.
2 oranges—juice of both and grated peel of one.
Juice of 1 lemon.
% pound lady’s-fingers—stale and crumbed.
2 cups of milk.
4 eggs. 4% cupful sugar.
1 table-spoonful corn-starch, wet up with water.
1 table-spoonful butter—melted.
Soak the crumbs in the milk (raw), whip up light
and add the eggs and sugar, already beaten to a cream
with the batter. Next the corn-starch, and when your
mould is buttered and water boiling hard, stir in the
juice and peel of the fruit. Do this quickly, and
_ plunge the mould directly into the hot water. Boil
one hour; turn out and eat with very sweet brandy
sauce.
Derry Puppia.
2 cups of milk.
4 table-spoonfuls of sugar.
1 heaping cup prepared flour.
268 BREAKFAST, LUNCHEON AND TEA.
Yolks of 4 eggs and whites of two.
2 oranges. The pulp chopped very fine. Half the
grated peel of 1 orange.
1 table-spoonful melted butter.
Beat eggs and sugar together; whip in the butter
until all are a yellow cream. To this put the orange,.
and beat five minutes. Rub the flour smooth in the
milk, added gradually, and stir up this with the other
ingredients. Pour at once into a buttered mould, and
boil one hour.
Eat hot with jelly sauce.
Bomep Lemon Pupprna.
2 cups of dry bread-crumbs.
1 cup powdered beef-suet.
4 table-spoonfuls flour—prepared.
% cup sugar.
1 large lemon. All the juice and half the peel.
4 egos—whipped light.
1 cup of milk—a large one.
Soak the bread-crumbs in the milk; add the suet ;
beat eggs and sugar together and these well into the
soaked bread. ‘To these put the lemon, lastly the
flour, beaten in with as few strokes as will suftice to
mix up all into a thick batter. Boil three hours in a
buttered mould.
Eat hot with wine sauce.
Wayne Puppine (Good).
2 full cups of prepared flour.
$ cup of butter.
1 cup of sugar—powdered.
PUDDINGS. 269
4 pound Sultana raisins, washed and dried.
1 lemon—the juice and half the grated peel.
% pound citron, cut into long strips—very thin.
5 eggs—whites and yolks beaten light separately.
Rub butter and sugar to a cream, and strain into
this the beaten yolks. Whip up light with the lemon ;
then the flour, alternately with the stiff whites. The
raisins should be dredged with flour and go in last.
Butter a mould thickly, line it with the strips of citron ;
put in the batter, a few spoonfuls at a time; cover,
and set in a pan of boiling water in the oven. Keep
the water in the pan replenished from the boiling ket-
tle, and bake steadily an hour anda half. Turn out
upon hot plate.
Eat warm with brandy sauce. It is a delicious pud-
ding. Leave room in mould for the pudding to swell.
Atmonp SponcE Puppina.
4 egos—hbeaten very light.
The weight of the eggs in sugar and the weight of 5
egos in prepared flour.
Half the weight of 4 in butter.
4+ pound sweet almonds blanched and pounded.
Extract of bitter almond.
A little rose-water.
Rub butter and sugar to a light cream; add the
yolks and beat hard before putting in the whites alter-
nately with the flour. The almonds, pounded to a
paste with a little rose-water and bitter almond ex-
tract, should be put in last.
Boil in buttered mould ; or set in a pan of water as
directed in the last receipt. The mould should not be
270. BREAKFAST, LUNCHEON AND TEA.
much more than half full. Boil nearly an hour. Eat
with lemon sauce—not very sweet.
This is nice baked as a cake.
Boston Lemon Puppine. >{
2 cups fine, dry bread-crumbs.
2 cup of powdered sugar, and half as much butter.
2 lemons, all the juice, and half the gr ated peel.
2 table- fairl prepared flour.
5 egos, beaten light. The yolks must be strained.
Rub butter and sugar to a cream; add the beaten
yolks and lemon ; whip very light; put in handful by
handful the bread-crumbs alternately with the stiffened
whites, then the flour. Butter a mould, and put in the
batter (always remembering to leave room for swell-
ing), and boil two hours steadily.
If you have a pudding-mould with a cylinder in the
centre, use it for this pudding. Turn out upon a hot
dish, and fill the hole in the middle with the following
mixture :
1 cup powdered sugar,
3 table-spoonfuls butter,
Juice of one lemon.
Whipped white of 1 egg.
4 teaspoonful nutmeg.
Beat all well together.
If you have not an open mould, make this sauce, and
pour half over the pudding, sending the rest in a boat
to table.
rubbed to a cream.
Boston Orange Puppina.
Is made in the same way, substituting oranges for lem- —
ons in the pudding, but retaining the lemon in the sauce.
PUDDINGS. O71
Both of these are excellent desserts, and if the direc-
tions be strictly followed, are easy and safe to make.
Either can be baked as well as boiled.
Lemon Pouppina.
6 butter-crackers soaked in water, and crushed to »
pulp.
- 8lemons. Half the grated peel.
1 cup of molasses.
A pinch of salt.
1 table-spoonful melted butter.
Some good pie-crust for shells.
Chop the pulp of the lemons very fine; stir into the
crushed crackers, with the butter and salt. Beat the
molasses gradually into this with the grated peel. Fill
open shells of pastry with the mixture, and bake.
QuxEEN’s Pupprne. -fs
8 or 10 fine, juicy apples, pared and cored.
4 pound macaroons, pounded fine.
2 table-spoonfuls sugar.
$ teaspoonful: cinnamon.
4 cup crab-apple, or other sweet firm jelly, like
quince.
1 table-spoonful brandy.
1 pint of milk.
1 table-spoonful best flour or corn-starch.
Whites of 3 eggs. A little salt.
Put the apples into a pudding-dish, well buttered ;
fill half full of water; cover closely and steam in a
slow oven until so tender that a straw will pierce them.
Let them stand until cold, covered. Then drain off
12*
272 BREAKFAST, LUNCHEON AND TEA.
the water. Put into each apple a spoonful of jelly, and
afew drops of brandy; sprinkle with cinnamon and
sugar. Cover again and leave alone for ten minutes.
Scald the milk, and stir in the macaroons, the salt, the
flour, wet in a little cold milk. Boil all together one
minute. Take from the fire; beat for a few minutes,
and let it cool before whipping in the beaten whites.
Pour over the apples, and bake half an hour in a mod-
erate oven.
Eat hot with cream sauce.
Orance Custrarp Puppinea. ohe
1 quart milk. ~
5 eggs. The beaten yolks of all, the whites of two.
Grated peel of 1 orange.
4 table-spoonfuls powdered sugar for custard, and 2
spoonfuls for méringue.
Scald the milk, and pour carefully over the eggs
which you have beaten light with the sugar. Boil one
minute, season, and pour into a buttered pudding-dish.
Set this in a pan of boiling water, and bake about half
an hour, or until well “set.” Spread with a merengue
made of the reserved whites. Return to oven to
harden, but do not let it scorch.
Kat cold.
Rock Oustarp Puppine. ef.
1 quart milk.
6 eggs.
1 cup powdered sugar for custard and méringue.
1 table-spoonful rice-flour, wet up with cold water.
A little salt.
Vanilla flavoring.
PUDDINGS. Nees
Boil the milk ; beat up the yolks of the eggs with three-
quarters of the sugar; cook in the milk until the mixture
is smoking hot; stir in the rice-flour, salt, and boil just
one minute. Pour into a buttered baking-dish, and
bake in a pan of hot water until the custard is nearly,
but not quite “set.” Have ready the whites beaten
very stiff with the rest of the sugar, and flavored with
vanilla. Without drawing the dish from the oven, drop
this all over it in great spoonfuls, covering it as irreg-
ularly as possible. Do it quickly, lest the custard
should cool and fall. Shut the oven-door for about five
minutes more until the méringwe is delicately browned
and the custard firm.
Eat cold, with powdered sugar sifted over it.
A Puan Boren Pupprne. (No. 1.)
3 cupfuls of flour—full ones.
2 cupfuls of “loppered ” milk or buttermilk. Sour
cream is best of all if you can get it.
1 full teaspoonful of soda, dissolved in hot water.
A little salt.
4 cupful powdered suet.
Stir the sour milk gradually into the flour until it is
free from lumps. Put in suet and salt; lastly beat in
the soda-water thoroughly, but quickly.
Boil an hour and a half, or steam two hours.
Eat at once, hot, with hard sauce.
Pram Boren Puppine. (No 2.)
1 cup loppered milk or cream.
$ cup molasses.
274 BREAKFAST, LUNCHEON AND TEA.
$ cup butter, melted.
2% cups flour.
2 even teaspoonfuls of soda, dissolved in hot water.
A little salt.
Mix molasses and butter together, and beat until very
light. Stir in the cream or milk, and salt; make a
hole in the flour, and pour in the mixture. Stir down
the flour gradually until it is a smooth batter. Beat
in the soda-water thoroughly, and boil at once in a
buttered mould, leaving room to swell. It should be
done in an houranda half. Eat hot with a good sauce.
JELLY Puppinas. of
2 cups very fine stale biscuit or bread-crumbs.
1 cup rich milk—half cream, if you can get it.
5 eggs, beaten very light.
4 teaspoonful soda, stirred in boiling water.
1 cup sweet jelly, jam or marmalade.
Scald the milk and pour over the erumbs. Beat
until half cold, and stir in the beaten yolks, then the
whites, finally the soda. Fill large cups half full with
the batter; set in a quick oven and bake half an hour.
When done, turn out quickly and dexteronsly ; with
a sharp knife make an incision in the side of each; pull
partly open, and put a liberal spoonful of the conserve
within. Close the slit by pinching the edges with your
fingers.
Eat warm with sweetened cream.
Farmer’s Pirum Pupprina.
3 cups of flour.
1 cup of milk,
PUDDINGS. 275
4 cup powdered suet.
1 cup best molasses, slightly warmed.
1 teaspoonful soda, dissolved in hot water.
1 pound raisins, stoned and chopped.
1 teaspoonful mixed cinnamon and mace.
1 saltspoonful ginger.
1 teaspoonful of salt.
Beat suet and molasses to a cream; add the spice,
the salt, and two-thirds of the milk; stir in the flour;
beat hard; put in the rest of the milk, in which the
soda must be stirred. Beat vigorously up from the
bottom for a minute or so, and put in the fruit well
dredged with flour. Boil in a buttered mould at least
three hours.
Eat very hot with butter-and-sugar sauce.
Nursery Prum Puppina. of
1 scaut cup of raw rice.
1 table-spoonful rice-flour, wet up with milk.
3 pints rich milk.
2 table-spoonfuls butter.
4 table-spoonfuls sugar. 7
4 pound currants, washed and dried.
¢ pound raisins, stoned and cut in two.
3 well-beaten eggs.
Soak the rice two hours in just enough warm water
to cover it; setting the vessel containing it in another
of hot water on one side of the range. When all the
water is soaked up, shake the rice well and add a pint
of milk. Simmer gently, still in the saucepan of hot
water until the rice is again dry and quite tender.
Shake up anew, and add another pint of milk. So
276 BREAKFASI, LUNCHEON AND TEA.
soon as this is smoking hot, put in the fruit, well
dredged with flour; cover the saucepan and simmer
twenty minutes. Take from the fire and put with it
the butter, the rice-flour and a custard made of the
remaining pint of milk, the eggs and sugar. Add
while the rice is still hot; stir up well and bake in a
buttered pudding-dish three-quarters of an hour, or
less, if your oven be brisk.
Eat warm or cold, with rich cream and sugar.
Cocoanut Puppine.
1 heaping cup finest bread-crumbs.
1 table-spoonful corn starch wet with cold water.
1 cocoanut, pared and grated.
4 cup butter.
1 cup powdered sugar.
2 cups milk.
6 eggs.
Nutmeg and rose-water to taste.
Soak the crumbs in the milk; rub the butter and
sugar to a cream, and put with the beaten yolks. Beat
up this mixture with the soaked crumbs; stir in the
corn-starch; then the whisked whites, flavoring, and,
at the last, the grated cocoanut. Beat hard one
minute; pour into a buttered pudding-dish—the same
in which it is to be served—and bake in a moderate
oven three-quarters of an hour.
Eat very cold, with powdered sugar on top.
Impromptu Curistmas Puppine. ( Very jine.)
2 cups of best mince meat made for Christmas pies.
Drain off all superfluous moisture. If the meat be
PUDDINGS. 277
rather too dry for pies, it will make the better pud-
ding.
14 cups prepared flour.
6 eges—whites and yolks beaten separately.
Whip the eggs and stir the yolks into the mince-meat.
Beat them in hard for two or three minutes until tho-
roughly incorporated. Put in the whites and the flour,
alternately beating in each instalment before adding
the next. Butter a large mould very well; put in the
mixture, leaving room for the swelling of the pudding,
and boil five hours steadily. If the boiling should
intermit one minute, there will be a heavy streak in
the pudding. Six hours’ boiling will do no harm.
Turn out upon a hot dish; pour brandy over it and
light just as it goes into the dining-room. Eat with
rich sauce. I know of no other pudding of equal ex-
cellence that can be made with so little trouble as this,
and is as apt to “turn out well.”
If you have no mince-meat in the house, you can
buy an admirable article, ready made, at any first-class
grocery store. It is put up in neat wooden cans (which
are stanch and useful for holding eggs, starch, etc.,
after the mince-meat is used up) and bears the stamp,
“ Armorr’s CELEBRATED Mince Muar.”
And what is noteworthy, it deserves to be “ cele-
brated.” It has never been my good fortune to meet
with any other made mince-meat that could compare
with it.
Lemon Sovurrit£é Puppine.
1 heaping cup of prepared flour.
2 cups of rich milk.
278 BREAKFAST, LUNCHEON AND TEA.
4 cup of butter.
duice of 1 lemon and half the grated peel.
4 table-spoonfuls of sugar.
5 eggs—whites and yolks beaten separately and very
light.
Chop the butter into the flour. Scald the milk and
stir into it while still over the fire, the flour and butter.
When it begins to thicken, add it, gradually, to the
beaten yolks and sugar. Beat all up well and turn out
to cool ina broad dish. It should be cold when you
whip in the stiffened whites. Butter a mould; pour
in the mixture, leaving abundance of room for the
soupié to earn its name—and steam one hour and a half,
keeping the water under the steamer at a fast, hard
boil.
When done, dip it into cold water for an instant, let
it stand one minute, after you take it out of this, and
turn out upon a hot dish.
Eat with brandy sauce.
Léicut Crima Sourrié. ofe
1 quart of milk.
8 table-spoonfuls corn-starch, wet with cold milk.
1 cup powdered sugar.
% cup strawberry jam, or sweet fruit jelly.
6 eggs—beaten very light.
Flavoring to taste.
Boil the milk, and stir in the corn-starch. Stir one
minute and pour into a bowl containing the yolks, the
whites of two eggs and half the sugar. Whip up for
two or three minutes and put into a nice baking-dish,
buttered. Set in a pan of boiling water and bake half
NE nee a ae ee ey ee
PUDDINGS. 279
an hour, or until firm. Just before withdrawing it
from the oven, cover with jelly or jam, put on dexter-
ously and quickly, and this, with a mérangue made of
the reserved whites and sugar. Shut the oven until
the meringue is set and slightly colored.
Eat cold, with cream.
Cuerry SovurFrLté Puppinea.
1 cup prepared flour.
2 cups of milk.
5 eggs.
3 table-spoonfuls powdered sugar.
Bitter almond flavoring.
% pound crystallized or glacé cherries.
A pinch of salt.
Seald the milk, and stir into it the flour, wet up
with a cup of the milk. Boil one minute, stirring well
up from the bottom of the farina-kettle ; mix in the
yolks beaten light with the sugar, flavor, and let it get
perfectly cold. Then whip the whites until you can
cut them with a knife, and beat, fast and hard, into
the custard. Butter a mould Bee ; strew a the
cherries until the inside is pretty well covered ; put in
the mixture—leaving room for pufling—and boil for
an hour and a half. |
Dip into cold water; take it out and let it stand, after
the lid is removed, a full minute, before turning it out.
Eat warm with wine, or lemon sauce.
¢
Sponce-Cake SovurrLe Puppina. of
12 square (penny) sponge-cakes—stale.
5 eggs.
250 . BREAKFAST, LUNCHEON AND TEA.
1 cup milk.
2 glasses sherry.
4 cup of powdered sugar.
Put the cakes in the bottom of a buttered pudding-
dish; pour the wine over them, and cover while you
make the custard. Heat the milk and pour over the
yolks of the eggs, beaten and strained, and half the
sugar. Return to the fire, and stir until quite thick.
Pour this upon the soaked cakes, slowly, that they may
not rise to the top; put in the oven, and when it is
again very hot, spread above it the whites whisked
stiff with the rest of the sugar.
Bake ten minutes, or until the mérengue is lightly
browned and firm. Serve in the baking-dish.
Eat cold. It will be found very nice.
AppLe SourFLte Puppine. >f
6 or 7 fine juicy apples.
1 cup fine bread-crumbs.
4 eggs
1 cup of sugar.
2 table-spoonfuls butter.
Nutmeg and a little grated lemon-peel.
Pare, core and slice the apples, and stew in a covered
farina-kettle, without a drop of water, until they are
tender. Mash to a smooth pulp, and, while hot, stir in
butter and sugar. Let it get quite cold, and whip in,
first the yolks of the eggs, then the | Witenes
very stiff—alternately with the bread. crumbs. Flavor,
beat hard three minutes, until all the ingredients are
reduced to a creamy pation! and bake in a buttered
dish, in a moderate oven. It will take about an hour
= a a oe Te
PUDDINGS. 281
to cook it properly. Keep it covered until ten min-
utes before you take it out. This will retain the
juices and prevent the formation of a crust on the top.
Eat warm with “ bee-hive sauce.”
Rick Sourri£é Punppine. f«
% cup raw rice.
1 pint of milk.
6 eggs.
4 table-spoonfuls powdered sugar.
1 table-spoonful butter.
Soak the rice in warm water enough to cover it
well for two hours. Put it over the fire in the same
water, and simmer in a farina-kettle until the rice is
dry. Add the milk, shaking up the rice—no¢ stirring
‘it—and cook slowly, covered, until tender throughout.
Stir in the butter, then the yolks of the eggs, beaten
and strained, whatever flavoring you may desire, and
when these have cooled somewhat, the whipped whites.
Bake in a handsome pudding-dish, well buttered half
an hour.
Eat warm—not hot—.or very cold.
Arrowroor SourrL& Pupprina.
3 cups of milk.
5 egos.
1 large table-spoonful butter.
3 table-spoonfuls sugar.
4 table-spoonfuls Bermuda arrowroot, wet wp with
cold milk.
Vanilla or other flavoring. :
Heat the milk to a boil, and stir into this the arrow
282 BREAKFAST, LUNCHEON AND TEA.
root. Simmer, using your spoon freely all the time,
until it thickens up well. Put in the butter; take
from the fire and beat into it the yolks and sugar, pre-
viously whipped together. Stir hard and put in the
whites, whisked very stiff, and the flavoring.
Butter a neat baking-dish ; put in the mixture and
bake half an hour.
Sift powdered sugar over it, and serve immediately.
A very Deuicatse SourrieE.
5 eges—whites and yolks beaten separately.
2 table-spoonfuls of arrowroot wet up in 4 table-
spoonfuls cold water.
4. table-spoonfuls powdered sugar.
Rose-water flavoring.
Beat the sugar into the whipped yolks, and into the.
whites, little by little, the dissolved arrowroot. Flavor
and whisk all together. Butter a neat mould, pour in
the mixture until half way to the top, and bake half
an hour.
If quite firm, and if you have a steady hand, you
may turn it out upon a hot dish. It then makes a
handsome show. It is safer to leave it in the baking-
dish. It must be served at once. It is very nice.
Barrer Puppine. (Very nice.)
1 quart of milk.,
16 table-spoonfuls of flour.
4 eves beaten very light. Salt to taste.
Stir until the batter is free from lumps, and bake in
two buttered pie plates, or very shallow puddine-
dishes.
oe oe Oe oe
PUDDINGS. 283
Apple AND Batter Pouppina. (Very good.) fa
1 pint of milk.
2 eggs, beaten light.
1 dessert-spoonful butter, rubbed in the flour.
+ teaspoonful of soda, dissolved in hot water.
% teaspoonful of cream of tartar, sifted in the flour.
A pinch of salt.
Flour enough for thin batter.
6 apples—well flavored and slightly tart.
Pare and core the apples and put them in a buttered
pudding-dish. Pour the batter over them and bake
three-quarters of an hour. Eat hot with hard sauce.
PuppDING-DISHES.
The baking-dish of “ye olden time” was never
comely; often positively unsightly. Dainty house-
wives pinned napkins around them and wreathed them
with flowers to make them less of an eyesore. In this
day, the pudding-maker can combine the esthetic and
useful by using the enameled wares of Mussrs.
LaLaANneE AND GRosseAN, 89 BurxMan Srreer, New
Yorx. The pudding-dishes made by them are pretty
in themselves, easily kept clean; do not crack or
blacken under heat, and are set on the table in hand-
some stands of plated silver that completely conceal
the baking-dish. A silver rim runs around the top and
hides even the edge of the bowl. They can be had,
with or without covers, and are invaluable for maca-
roni, scallops, and many other “baked meats.” Sance-
pans and kettles of every kind are made in the same
ware by this firm.
284 BREAKFAST, LUNCHEON AND TEA.
FRITTERS.
Not even so-called pastry is more ruthlessly mur.
dered in the mixing and baking than that class of
desserts the generic name of which stands at the head
of this bake. Heavy, sour, sticky and oleaginous
beyond civilized comparison, it is no marvel that the
compound popularly known and eaten as “ fritter ” has
become a doubtful dainty in the esteem of many, the
object of positive loathing to some.
I do not recommend my fritters to dyspeptics and
babies, nor as a standing dish to anybody. But that
they can be made toothsome, spongy and harmless, as
well as pleasant to those blessed with healthy appetites
and unimpaired digestions, I hold firmly and intelli-
gently.
Two or three conditions are requisite to this end.
The fritters must be quickly made, thoroughly beaten,
of right consistency,—and they must not lie in the fat
the fraction of a minute after they are done. Take
them up with a perforated spoon, or egg-beater, and
lay on a hot sieve or cullender to drain before serving
on the dish that is to take them to the table. More-
over, the fat must be hissing hot when the batter goes
in if you would not have them grease-soaked to the
very heart. Line the dish in which they are served
with tissue-paper fringed at the ends, or a clean nap-
kin to absorb any lingering drops of lard.
Betu Frirrers. >\«
2 cups of milk.
2 cups of prepared
FRITTERS. 285
8 table-spoonfuls sugar.
4 egos, very well beaten.
A little salt.
% tea-spoonful of cinnamon.
Beat the sugar into the yolks; add the milk, salt
and seasoning, the flour and whites alternately. Beat
hard for three minutes.
Have ready plenty of lard in a deep frying-pan or
Scotch kettle; make very hot; drop in the batter in
table-spoonfuls, and fry to a good brown. Be careful
not to scorch the lard, or the fritters will be ruined in
taste and color.
Throw upon a warm sieve or cullender as fast as
they are fried, and sift powdered sugar over them.
Eat hot with lemon sauce.
Rusk Frirrers. >}
12 stale rusks.
5 egos.
4 table-spoonfuls white sugar.
2 glasses best sherry.
Pare all the crust from the rusk, and cut each into
two pieces if small—into three if large. The slices
should be nearly an inch thick. Pour the wine over
them; leave them in it two or three minutes, then lay
on a sieve to drain. Beat the sugar into the yolks
(which should first be whipped and strained), then the
whites. Dip each slice into this mixture and fry in
boiling lard to a light golden brown.
Drain well; sprinkle with powdered sugar mingled
with cinnamon, and serve hot, with or without sauce.
286 BREAKFAST, LUNCHEON AND TEA.
Liaut F RIrrers.
3 cups stale bread-crumbs.
1 quart of milk.
4 egos.
Salt and nutmeg to taste.
8 table-spoonfuls prepared flour.
Scald the milk and pour it over the crumbs. Stir
to a smooth, soft batter, add the yolks, whipped and
strained, the seasoning, the flour—then, the whites
whisked very stiff. Mix well, and fry, by the table-
spoonful, in boiling lard. Drain; serve hot and eat
with sweet sauce.
Currant Frirrers. (Very nice.)
2 cups dry, fine bread-crumbs.
2 table-spoonfuls prepared flour.
2 cups of milk.
4 pound currants, washed and well dried.
5 eggs whipped very light, and the yolks strained.
4 cup powdered sugar.
1 table-spoonful butter.
% teaspoonful mixed cinnamon and nutmeg.
Boil the milk and pour over the bread. Mix and
putin the butter. Let it get cold. Beat in, next, the
yolks and sugar, the seasoning, flour and stiff whites ;
finally, the currants dredged whitely with flour. The
batter should be thick.
Drop in great spoonfuls into the hot lard and fry.
Drain them and send hot to table.
Kat with a mixture of wine and powdered sugar.
Pee a ee
a
FRITTERS. 287
Lemon F rrrrers. pf
2 heaping cups of prepared flour.
5 eggs—hbeaten stiff. Strain the yolks.
% cup cream.
Grated peel of half a lemon.
4 cup powdered sugar.
1 teaspoonful mingled nutmeg and cinnamon.
A. little salt.
Beat up the whipped and strained yolks with the
sugar; add the seasoning and cream; the whites, at
last the flour, worked in quickly and lightly. It
should be a soft paste, just stiff enough to roll ont.
Pass the rolling-pin once or twice over it until it is
about three-quarters of an inch thick. Cut into small,
circular cakes with a tumbler or cake-cutter; drop
into the hot lard and fry. They ought to puff up like
erullers. Drain on clean, hot paper. Eat warm with ~
a sauce made of—
Juice of 2 lemons.
Grated peel of one.
1 cup of powdered sugar.
1 glass wine.
Whites of 2 eggs beaten stiff.
Apple FRITTERS.
8 or 10 fine pippins or greenings.
Juice of 1 lemon.
8 cups prepared flour.
6 eggs.
3 cups milk.
Some powdered sugar.
288 BREAKFAST, LUNCHEON AND TEA.
Cinnamon and nutmeg.
A little salt.
Pare and core the apples neatly, leaving a hole in
the centre of each. Cut crosswise into slices half an
inch thick. Spread these on a dish and sprinkle with
lemon-juice and powdered sugar.
Beat the eggs light, straining the yolks, and add to
the latter the milk and salt, the whites and the flour,
by turns. Dip the slices of apple into the batter,
turning them until they are thoroughly coated, and fry,
a few at a time, in hot lard. Throw upon a warm sieve
as fast as you take them out, and sift powdered sugar,
cinnamon and nutmeg over them.
These fritters require dexterous handling, but if
properly made and cooked, are delicious.
Eat with wine sauce.
Rice Frirrers. >}
2 cups of milk.
Nearly a cup raw rice.
8 table-spoonfuls sugar.
4+ pound raisins.
3 eggs.
1 table-spoonful butter.
1 table-spoonful flour.
Nutmeg and salt.
Soak the rice three hours in enough warm water to
cover it well. At the end of this time, put it into a
farina-kettle, set in an outer vessel of hot water, and
simmer until dry. Add the milk and cook until it is
all absorbed. Stir in the butterand take from the fire.
Beat the eggs very light with the sugar, and when the
J
3
FRITTERS. 289
rice has cooled, stir these in with the flour and season-
ing. Flour your hands well and make this into flat
cakes. Place in the middle of each two or three raisins
which have been “plumped” in boiling water. Roll
the cake into a ball enclosing the raisins, flour well and
fry in plenty of hot lard.
Serve on a napkin, with sugar and cinnamon sifted
over them. Eat with sweetened cream, hot or cold.
Corn-Mrau F Rirrers.
83 cups milk.
2 cups best Indian meal.
$ cup flour.
4 eggs.
4 teaspoonful soda, dissolved in hot water.
1 teaspoonful cream of tartar, sifted in flour.
1 table-spoonful sugar.
1 table-spoonful melted butter.
1 teaspoonful salt.
Beat and strain the yolks; add sugar, butter, milk
and salt, the soda-water, and then stir in the Indian
meal. eat five minutes Aard before adding the
whites. The flour, containing the cream of tartar,
should go in last. Again, beat up vigorously. The
batter should be just thick enough to drop readily
from the spoon. Put into boiling lard by the spoonful,
One or two experiments as to the quantity to be
dropped for one fritter will teach you to regulate size
and shape.
Drain very well and serve at once. Eat witha sauce
made of butter and sugar, seasoned with cinnamon.
Some persons like a suspicion of ginger mixed in the
13
290 BREAKFAST, LUNCHEON AND TEA.
fritters, or in the sauce. You can add or withhold it
as you please.
Praca Frrrrers. (With Yeast.)
1 quart of flour.
1 cup of milk.
% cup of yeast.
2 table-spoonfuls sugar.
4 egos.
2 table-spoonfuls of butter.
A. little salt.
Some fine, ripe freestone peaches, pared and stoned.
Sift the flour into a bowl; work in milk and yeast.
and set it in a tolerably warm place to rise. This will
take five or six hours. Then beat the eggs very light
with sugar, butter and salt. Mix this with the risen
dough, and beat with a stout wooden spoon until all
the ingredients are thoroughly incorporated. Knead
vigorously with your hands; pull off bits about the
size of an egg; flatten each and put in the centre a
peach, from which the stone has been taken through a
slit in the side. Close the dough upon it, make into a
round roll and set in order upon a floured pan for the
second rising. The balls must not touch one another.
They should be light in an hour. Have ready a large
round-bottomed Scotch kettle or saucepan, with plenty
of lard—boiling hot. Drop in yonr peach-pellets and
fry more slowly than you would fritters made in the
usual way. Drain on hot white paper; sift powdered
sugar over them and eat hot with brandy sauce.
You can make these of canned peaches or apricots’
wiped dry from the syrup.
FRITTERS. 991
Poraro Frrrrers.
6 table-spoonfuls mashed potato—very fine.
4 cup good cream.
5 egos—the yolks light and strained—the whites
whisked very stiff.
2 table-spoonfuls powdered sugar.
2 table-spoonfuls prepared flour.
Juice of 1 lemon. Half the grated peel.
4 teaspoonful nutmeg.
Work the cream into the potato; beat up light and
rub through a sieve, or very fine cullender. Add to
this the beaten yoiks and sugar. Whip to a creamy
froth ; put in the lemon, flour, nutmeg, and beat. five
minutes longer before the whites are stirred in. Have
your lard ready and hot in the frying-pan. Drop in
the batter by the spoonful and fry to a light brown.
Drain on clean paper, and serve at once.
Eat with wine sauce.
Cream Frirrers. ( Very nice.)
1 cup cream.
5 egoes—the whites only.
2 full cups prepared flour.
1 salt-spoonful nutmeg.
A pinch of salt.
Stir the whites into the cream in turn with the flour,
put in nutmeg and salt, beat all up hard for two
minutes. The batter should be rather thick. Fry in
plenty of hot sweet lard, a spoonful of batter for each
fritter. Drain and serve upon a hot, clean napkin.
Eat with jelly sauce. Pull, not cut them open.
:
292 BREAKFAST, LUNCHEON AND TEA.
Rott Frrrrers, or Imrration Doueunouts. >\
8 small round rolls, stale and light.
1 cup rich milk.
2 table-spoonfuls sugar.
1 teaspoonful mixed nutmeg and cinnamon.
Beaten yolks of 3 eggs
1 cupful powdered cor
Pare every bit of the crust from the rolls me a keen
knife, and trim them into round balls. Sweeten the
milk mak the sugar, put in the spice; lay the rolls up-
on a soup-plate, and pour the milk over them. Turn
them over and over, until they soak it all up. Drain
for a few minutes on a sieve; dip in the beaten yolks,
roll in the powdered cracker, and fry in plenty of lard.
Drain and serve hot with lemon-sauce.
They are very good.
SponaE-Caxe FRITTERS. -
6 or 8 square (penny) sponge-cakes.
1 cup cream, boiling hot, with a pinch of soda
stirred in.
4 egos, whipped light.
1 table-spoonful corn-starch, wet up in cold milk.
4% pound currants, washed and dried.
Pound the cakes She and pour the cream over them.
Stir in the corn-starch. Cover for half an hour, then
beat until cold. Add the yolks—light and strained,
the whipped whites, then the currants thickly dredged
with flour. Beat all hard together. Drop in spoonfuls —
into the boiling lard; fry quickly; drain upon a —
warmed sieve, and send to table hot.
FRITTERS. 293
The syrup of brandied fruit makes an excellent
sauce for these.
Curp FRIrrTEeRs.
1 quart sweet milk.
2 glasses white wine.
1 teaspoonful liquid rennet.
5 eggs, whipped light.
4 table-spoonfuls prepared flour.
2 table-spoonfuls powdered sugar.
Nutmeg to taste.
Scald the milk, and pour in the wine and rennet.
Take from the fire, cover, and let it stand until curd
and whey are well separated. Drain off every drop of
the latter,and dry the curd by laying for a few
minutes upon a soft, clean cloth. Beat yolks and sugar
together, whip in the curd until fully mixed; then the
flour, nutmeg and whites. The batter should be
smooth, and rather thick.
Have ready some butter in a small frying-pan ; drop
in the fritters a few at a time, and fry quickly. Drain
upon a warm sieve, lay within a dish lined with white
paper, or a clean napkin; sift powdered sugar over
them, and eat with jelly sauce.
Odd as the receipt may seem in the reading, the
fritters are most palatable. Inthe country, where milk
is plenty, they may be made of cream—unless, as is
too often the case, the goodwife wed/ save all the cream
for butter,
CONCERNING ALLOWANCES.
(CoNFIDENTIAL—WITH JOHN.)
I po not like that word “ allowance.” It savors too
much of a stipend granted by a lordling to a serf; a
government pension to a beneficiary; the dole of the
rich to the poor. But since it has crept into general
use as descriptive of that portion of the wife’s earn-
ings which she is permitted to disburse more or less at
her discretion, we must take it as we find it.
Marriage is to a woman one of two things—licensed,
and therefore honorable beggary, or, a copartnership
with her husband upon fair and distinctly specified
terms. When I spoke of the wife’s earnings just now,
it was not with reference to moneys accumulated by
work or investments outside of the home which she
occupies with you and your children. We will set
aside, if you please, the legal and religious fiction that
you have endowed her with all—or half your worldly
goods, and put still further from our consideration the
sounding oaths with which you protested in the days of
your wooing, that you cared nothing for pelf and lucre
—Cupid’s terms for stocks, bonds and mortgages, houses
and lands—except that you might cast them at her feet.
If you recollect such figures of speech at all, it is with
a laugh, good-humored, or shame-faced, and the plea
that everybody talks in the same way in like circum-
stances; that pledges thus given are in no wise to be
CONCERNING ALLOWANCES. 295
regarded as promissory notes. Hymen’s is a general
court of bankruptcy so far as such obligations go.
Your wife is a sensible woman, and never expected to
take you at your word—at least, such hot and hasty
words as those, in which you declared yourself to be
the most abject of her slaves, and herself the empress
of your universe, including the aforementioned stocks,
mortgages, houses and lands, real and personal estate—
all assets an esse and in posse.
Having cleared away, by a stroke of common sense,
this gossamer, that like other cobwebs, is pretty while
the dew of early morning impearls it, and only an an-
noyance afterward; particularly odious when it en-
tangles itself about the lips and eyes of him who lately
admired it—we will look at the question of the wife’s
work and wages from a business point of view——pencil
and paper in hand. | |
First, we will determine what should be the salary
of a competent housekeeper; one who makes her em-
ployer’s interests her own; who rises up early and lies
down late, and eats the bread of carefulness; -who is
not to be coaxed away by higher wages, and is never in
danger of giving warning if her “feelings are hurt ;”
if the servants are insubordinate, or the master is given
to fault-finding, and not always respectful to herself.
It wouid be to your interest, were you a widower, you
confess, to give this treasure two dollars a day—as
women’s wages go. “And,” you add in a burst of
manly confidence, “she would be cheap at that.” But
we will put down her salary in round numbers, at $700
per annum. :
Now comes the seamstress’ pay. Again, a “ compe:
296 BREAKFAST, LUNCHEON AND THA.
tent person,’ one who is ever in her place; whose
work-hours number fourteen out of the twenty-four, if
her services are required by you or the children;
whose needle is always threaded, her eye ever vigilant ;
with whom slighting and botching are things unknown
by practice ; who takes pride in seeing each of the
household trig and tidy; who “seeketh wool and flax,
and worketh willingly with her hands ;” who is an adept
in fine needlework as in plain sewing, and not a novice
in dress-making ; who, perchance, can “ manage” boys’
clothes as well as girls—who will do it, of a cer tainty,
if you explain that you cannot aftord allots bills to
urchins under ten years of age; finally, who possesses
that most valuable of arts for a poor man’s wife,
‘* To gar auld claes look a’maist as weel as new.”
Shall we allow to this nonpareil the wages of an or-
dinary seamstress who “ cannot undertake cutting and
fitting,’—one dollar a day? Or, is she entitled to the
pay of a dressmaker’s assistant——half a dollar more? I
do not want to be hard with you. We will set her down
for $450 a year. And, again, we conclude that you
have made a good bargain.
Next, the nursery-governess, and perhaps the most
important functionary in the household. She must,
you stipulate, have charge of the children, by day and
night; guard morals, health and manners, besides
teaching the youngerlings the rudiments of reading
and ee ; must superintend the preparation of the
elder ones’ lessons for school-recitations, and look to it
that catechism and Bible-lesson are ready for Sabbath-
school ; that musical exercises are duly practised ; that
| line ee als
CONCERNING ALLOWANCES. 297
home is made so attractive to the boys that they shall
not be drawn thence by the questionable hilarity of
engine-house and oyster-cellar. A lady she must be,
else how would your girls be trained to modest and
graceful behavior, and your friends be entertained as
you deem is due to you and to them, in your house ?
A responsible, judicious person is indispensable to the
comfort and health of you and yours; one who does
not regard the care of a young baby as “ too confin-
ing;” nor sleepless nights on account of it, a valid
reason for “ bettering herself ;” nor a brisk succession
of measles, mumps and chicken-pox cogent cause for
informing you that she “didn’t engage for this sort of
work, and would you be suiting yourself with a lady
as has a stronger constitution—immediate, for her
trunk is packed.”
Would a thousand dollars per annum provide you
with such a hireling? I knew a wealthy man who of-
fered just that sum for a nursery-governess during the
protracted illness of his wife. She must be intelligent
and ladylike, he stated, qualified to undertake the edu-
cation of the three younger children. There were six
in all, but there was a tutor for the boys. The gov-
erness’ bed-room adjoined that of the little girls, the
door of which must stand open all night. The baby’s
crib was to be by her bed, and a child, three years old,
was also to share her chamber. She would be treated
respectfully and kindly, and every enjoyment of the
luxurious establishment, compatible with the proper
discharge of the duties appointed, would be hers.
He could get no one to take the place.
This is simple fact, and it is pregnant with meaning.
13
-
298 BREAKFAST, LUNCHEON AND THA.
Nevertheless, what if we put down the wages of
your nursery-governess at the same sum you are will-
ing to give your housekeeper—$700% Oblige me by
adding up the short row of figures under your hand.
8700
450
700
$1,850
This you will please consider as the amount of your
wife’s salary, due from you for services rendered, ex-
clusive of board and lodgings, which are always the
portion of resident employees in your house. There
is no charge for “extras,” you observe. We have said
nothing about the bill for nursing you through that
four weeks’ spell of inflammatory rheumatism last
winter, or the longer siege of fever, three years ago,
when this servant-of-all-work sat up with you fourteen
weary nights, and would entrust the care of you to no
one else. By her skillful ministrations, the miracle of
her patience, love and prayers, you were rescued, say
the doctors, from the close clutch of death. You can-
not see the figures very distinctly while you think of
it, hut we agreed, at the outset, to keep feeling in the
background.
You “have tried to be a kind, affectionate husband,”
you say, in a very unbusiness-like way.
I believe you, and so does the blessed little woman
whom I have shut out from this conference, lest her
foolish fondness should spoil the effect of our matter-
of-fact talk. I would have you and all husbands be
Wi
CONCERNING ALLOWANCES. 299
just, no less than loving. Let us return to our figures.
The estimate is for a man of moderate means and
modest home, one of the middle-class which is every-
where the bone and muscle of the community——the
class that makes national character, the world over.
If you are wealthy, and put the care of a large and
elegant establishment upon your manager, the remu-
neration should be in proportion. For a fancy article
you have to pay a fancy price. You misunderstand
your wife and me, if you imagine that we would in-
augurate in your household a debit and credit system
and quarter-day settlements. She would be the first
to shrink from such an interpretation of your mutual
relations. JI should, of all your friends and well-
wishers, be the last to recommend it.
But I have studied this matter long and seriously,
and I offer you as the result of my observation in va-
rious walks of life, and careful calculation of labor
and expense, the bold assertion that every wife who
performs her part, even tolerably well, in whatever
rank of society, more than earns her living, and that
this should be an acknowledged fact with both parties
to the marriage contract. The idea of her dependence
upon her husband is essentially false and mischievous,
and should be done away with, at once and forever,
It has crushed self-respect out of thousands of women ;
it has scourged thousands from the marriage-altar to
the tomb, with a whip of scorpions; it has driven
many to desperation and crime.
“Every dollar is a lash!” I once overheard a wife
say, in bitter soliloquy, as her husband left her pres-
ence after placing in her hand the money for which
300 BREAKFAST, LUNCHEON AND TEA.
she had timidly asked him, to pay the weekly house-
hold bills.
Then, still supposing herself unseen, she threw the
roll of bank-notes upon the floor and trampled it
under foot, in a transport of impotent, and, to my way
of thinking, righteous wrath.
“An exceptional case?” I beg your pardon! I
wish it were. Her husband meant to be kind and af-
fectionate as honestly as do you. When money was
“easy,” he would give it to her freely and cheerfully,
provided. his mood was propitious at the time of her
application. He had expended large sums in the pur-
chase of jewelry and handsome clothing for her, and
exulted in seeing her arrayed in them. He loved her
truly, and was proud of her. His mistake was in ig-
noring the fact that he owed her anything in actual
dollars and cents; that she worked for her livelihood
as faithfully as did he, and that his debt to her was, in
the highest degree, a “confidential” one. If put into
the confessional, he would have admitted that he
thought of himself as the only bread-winner of the
family, and was, sometimes, tartly intolerant of the
domestic demands upon his earnings. He made a yet
grosser mistake in feeling and behaving as if the
money deposited in her hands for the current expenses
of the establishment, were a gift to her personally.
This is a masculine blunder that poisons the happiness
of more women than I like to think of, or you would
be willing to believe. Be kindly-affectioned as you
will, your wife cannot respect you thoroughly if she
sees that you are habitually unreasonable and unjust.
And it is neither just nor rational to speak and act as
:
|
CONCERNING ALLOWANOES. 301
if all the butter, flour, sugar, meat and sundries which
she saves you the trouble of buying, and of which,
nine times out of ten, she is the more judicious pur-
chaser, were to be consumed by her, and her alone.
“You never thought of such a thing!” you protest
betwixt laughter and vexation.
Then, do not act as if it were your settled con-
- viction.
Set aside from your income what you adjudge to be
a reasonable and liberal sum for the maintenance of
your family in the style suitable for people of your
means and position. »Determine what purchases you
will yourself make, and what shall be intrusted to
your wife, and put the money needed for her propor-
tion into her care as frankly as you take charge of
your share. Try the experiment of talking to her as
if she were a business partner. . Let her understand
what you can afford to do, and what you cannot. If
in this explanation you can say, “we,” and “ours,”
you will gain a decided moral advantage, although it
may be at the cost of masculine prejudice and pride
of power. Impress upon her mind that a certain sum,
made over to her apart from the rest, is hers absolutely.
Not a present from you, but her honest earnings, and
that yow would not be honest were you to withhold it.
And do not ask her “if that will do?” any more than
you would address the question to any other work-
woman. (With what cordial detestation wives regard
that brief query, which drops, like a sentence of the
creed, from husbandly lips, I leave your spouse to tell
you. Also, if she ever heard of a woman who an-
swered anything but “ yes.”’)
d02 BREAKFAST, LUNCHEON AND TEA.
Advise her, for her own satisfaction, and because itis
“business like,” to keep an account of her receipts and
expenditures, but apprise her distinctly that you do
not expect her to exhibit this to you, unless she should
need your assistance or advice in balancing her books,
or in some perplexed question of “ profit and loss.”
She will be ready to appreciate that the one sum de-
posited with her is a trust fund to be used to the besé
advantage for the general good, and the proud con-
sciousness that she is the actual proprietor of the other,
and irresponsible, save to her conscience, for the man-
ner in which it is spent, will make her the more care-
ful not to use it amiss. As to the housekeeping money
—the weekly or monthly “allowance”—you may be
very sure that you and the children will get the benefit
of every cent. However economically she may handle
her private store, the bulk of it will not be increased by
surreptitious pinchings from the family supply of daily
bread.
I have known women whose sole perquisites were
what they could save from their not large allowances,
who, in the absence of their husbands from home,
would keep themselves and families of hungry, growing
children,—with the consent and co-operation of the
latter—-upon the most meagre fare consistent with the
bare satisfaction of the cravings of nature, that the
few dollars thus spared might go toward the purchase
of some coveted article of dress for one of the girls;
a set of tools or books for a boy, or a piece of furni-
ture desired by all. Which bit of economy (!) being
reported to the paterfamilias when the dearly-bought
thing was exhibited, was pronounced by him, his hand
CONCERNING ALLOWANCES. 803
complacently finding its way to the plethoric wallet in
his pocket, to be worthy of his august approval. How
many husbands have heard their wives remark how
cheaply the family lived when “papa was away?” and
how many have asked themselves seriously why and
how this was done ?
Other women, and more to be pitied, I am ac-
quainted with, who make false entries in the account-
books, which are showed weekly to their lords as ex-
planatory of “the way the money goes.” It is easier
and less likely “to make a fuss,” to record that seven
pounds of butter have been bought and used, his lord-
ship having helped in the consumption thereof, when
by sharp management, five have sufliced; to write
down “new shoes for Bobby, $4,00,” when, in reality,
the cost of mending his old ones that they might last a
month longer, was only $1,50,—than to confess to the
practical critic who does not overlook a single item,
that the money “made” by these expedients was
spent, partly in paying up a yearly subscription to the
‘Charitable Society; partly for an innocent luncheon |
during a day’s shopping in the city.
“Unjustifiable deception?” Have I pretended to
excuse it? But I look back of the timid woman—the
pauper, bedecked in silks, laces and gems,—for most
men like to see their wives dressed as well as their
neighbors—the moral coward, who has lied from the
natural desire to handle a little money for herself
without being cross-examined about it--and ask—“ by
what stress of humiliating tyranny was she brought to
this?”
All women do not manage monetary affairs well,
304 BREAKFAST, LUNCHEON AND TEA.
you remind me, gently. Some are unprincipled in
their extravagance, reckless of everything save their
own whims and unconscionable desires. Must a man
beggar himself and those dependent upon him, lest
such an one should aceuse him of parsimony? By
yielding to demands he knows to be exorbitant, he
proves himself to be weaker even than she.
I have said nowhere that a woman is the best judge
of what her husband ought to appropriate from his
gains or fortune for the support of his family. But
he stands convicted of a grave error of judgment, if he
has chosen from the whole world as the keeper of his
honor and happiness, a woman whom he cannot trust to
touch his purse-strings.
Let us be patient as well as reasonable. So long asa
babe is kept in long clothes, and carried in arms, it will
not learn to walk alone. The majority of women have
been swathed in conventionalities and borne above the |
practicalities of business by mistaken tenderness or mis-
apprehension of their powers, for so long, that, how-
ever quick may be their intuitions, time and practice
are necessary to make them adepts in financiering. The
best way to render them trustworthy is not by taking
it for granted, and letting them see that you do, that
they have sinister designs upon your pockets. They are
not pirates by nature, nor are they, even with such
schouling as many get from their legal proprietors,
always on the alert to wheedle or extort a few dollars for
their own sly and selfish ends. After all, is there nota
spice of truth in the would-be satire of the old distich ?
‘‘ What are wives made of—made of ? ‘
Everything good, if they're but understood /”
CONCERNING ALLOWANCES. 305
If you chance to be painfully conscions of the men-
tal inferiority and warped conscience of your partner
in the solemn dance of life ; if there is more “ worse ”
than “better” in the everyday wear of the matrimo-
nial bond; if sloth and waste mark her administratior
of household affairs, instead of the industrious thrift
you would recommend, and which you see others prac-
tise; if the rent in the bottom of the pouch carries off
the money faster than you can drop it in, you are to
be pitied almost as much as your bachelor neighbor,
who sews on his own buttons, and depends upon board-
ing-houses for his daily food. Still, my friend, is
there any reason why you should accept the conse-
quences of this one mistake on your part, with less
philosophy ; bring to the bearing of it a smaller modi-
cum of Christian resignation than you summon to sup-
port you under any other? Women have been as
grievously misled by fancy or affection, before now,
and have borne the burden of disappointment to the
grave without murmur or reproach.
Then, there is always the chance that your wife is
not “ understood,” or that, well-meant as your attempts
to “manage” her have been, you have not selected
the most judicious methods of doing this. In this en-
lightened and liberal age, nobody, unless he be bigot
or fool, habitually thinks and speaks of women as a
lower order of intelligent beings. But even in your
breast, my ill-mated friend, there may lurk a touch of
the ancient leaven of uncharitableness, and in your
treatment of her “ whom the Lord hath given to be with
you,” there may be aspice of arrogance, the exponent of
which, were you Turk or Kaffir, would be brute force.
306 BREAKFAST, LUNCHEON AND TEA.
“T do not object to your proposal, my love. You
alivays have your own way in household affairs,” said
a very “kind and affectionate” man to his wife, with
the air of a potentate amiably relinquishing his sceptre
for love’s sake.
“Will you tell me, my dear husband, why, if i
conduct ‘household affairs’ wisely and pleasantly (and
you have often acknowledged that I do!) I should
not have my own way?” was the unexpected reply,
uttered in perfect temper—no less sweetly for being an
argument. “Tor twenty years I have made domestic
economy a constant and practical study. Is it reason-
able to suppose that, after all this expenditure of time
and thought, I am not a better judge of ways and
means in my profession than are you, whose life has
been spent in other pursuits? For all your indulgent
affection to me, as displayed in a thousand ways since
our marriage-day, I love and thank you. But excuse me
for saying that I am not grateful that you have, as you
are rather fond of saying, ‘made it a point to give me
my head’ in all pertaining to housekeeping. That
you do this shows that you are just and honorable. It
is no more a favor done to me than is my non-interfe-
rence with your clerks and purchases, your shipments
and warehouses, a matter for which you should thank
me.”
~The husband stroked his beard thoughtfully. He
was a sensible man, and magnaminous enough to rec-
ognize the truth that his wife was a sensible woman.
“Upon my word,” he said, presently, with a frank
laugh, “that is a view of the case I never took before.
I believe you are right.”
CONCERNING ALLOWANCES. 307
One more hint, which may be of service to those who
are not so ready to acknowledge the superiority—in
any case—of feminine reasoning, or to such as are
not blessed with sensible consorts—the best friends of
these ladies being judges.
“Drive him with an easy rein!” said my John in
trusting me for the first time to manage his favorite
horse. “ His mouth is tender as a woman’s. You can-
not deal with a thoroughbred as with a cold-blooded
roadster.”
“What will happen if I hold him in hard?” in-
quired I, eyeing the pointed ears and arched neck
with as much apprehension as admiration.
I commend the laconic answer to your consideration,
as altogether pertinent to the subject we have been
discussing.
“A yrear-up, and a run backward, instead of for-
ward |”
RIPE. FRUIG.
Tur sight of the fruit-dish or basket upon the break-
fast table has become so common of late years that
its absence, rather than its presence, in the season of
ripe fruits would be remarked, and felt even painfully
by some. It is fashionable, and therefore considered a
wise sanitary measure, to eat oranges as a prelude to
the regular business of the morning meal. Grapes are
eaten so long as they can be conveniently obtained. It
may be because my own taste and digestion revolt at
the practice of forcing crude acids upon an empty, and
often faint stomach, that I am disposed to doubt the
healthfulness of the innovation upon the long-estab-
lished rule that sets fruit always in the place of dessert.
I have an actual antipathy to the pungent odor of raw
orange-peel, and have been driven from the breakfast-
table at a hotel more than once by the overpowering
effect of the piles of yellow rind at my left, right, and
opposite to me.
2 cups rich milk.
4 pound sweet almonds, blanched and pounded.
4 eggs, beaten light.
4 cup powdered sugar.
Rose-water.
RIPE FRUIT. 313
1 cocoanut, pared, thrown into cold water and grated,
Scald the milk and sweeten. Stir into it the almonds
pounded to a paste, with a little rose-water. Boil three
minutes, and pour gradually upon the beaten eggs,
stirring all the time. teturn to the fire and boil until
well thickened. When cold turn into a glass bowl, and
heap high with the grated cocoanut. Sift a little
powdered sugar over all. |
STEwED APPLES. >§
Core the fruit without paring it, and put it into a
glass or stoneware jar, with a cover. Set in a pot
of cold water and bring to a slow boil. Leave it at
the back of the range for seven or eight hours, boiling
gently all the time. Let the apples get perfectly cold
before you open the jar.
Kat with plenty of sugar and cream.
Only sweet apples are good cooked in this manner,
and they are very good.
Baxep Prars. vf
Cut ripe pears in half, without peeling or removing
the stems. Pack in layers in a stoneware or glass jar.
Strew a little sugar over each layer. Put a small cup-
ful of water in the bottom of the jar to prevent burn-
ing; fit on a close cover, and set in a moderate oven.
Bake three hours, and let the jar stand unopened in
the oven all night.
APPLES AND JELLY. >
Fill a baking-dish with pippins, or other tender juicy
apples, pared and cored, but not sliced. Make a syrup
314 BREAKFAST, LUNCHEON AND TEA.
of one cup of water, and half as much sugar; stir
until the sugar is dissolved, and pour over the apples.
Cover closely, and bake slowly until tender. Draw
from the oven, and let the apples cool without uncover-
ing. Pour off the syrup, and fill the hollowed centres
with some bright fruit jelly.
Boil down the syrup fast, until quite thick, and, just
before sending the apples to table, stir into it some rich
cream sweetened very abundantly. Pass with the
apples.
Boimtep CHESTNUTS.
Put into warm (not hot) water, slightly salted, bring
to a boil, and cook fast fifteen minutes. Turn off the
water through a cullender; stir a good piece of butter
into the hot chestnuts, tossing them over and over until
they are glossy and dry.
Serve upon a hot napkin in a deep dish.
Watnuts and Hickory Nors.
Crack and pick from the shells; sprinkle salt lightly
over them, and serve mixed in the same dish. .
Black walnuts are much more wholesome when eaten
with salt. Indeed, they are not wholesome at all with-
out it. .
Mxtons.
Wipe watermelons clean when they are taken from
the ice. They should lie on, or in ice, for at least four
hours before they are eaten. Carve at table by slicing
off each end, then cutting the middle in sharp, long
points, letting the knife go half way through the melon
RIPE FRUIT. 81h
at every stroke. Pull the halves apart, and you will
have a dentated crown.
Wash nutmeg and muskmelons; wipe dry; cut in
two, scrape out the seeds, and put a lump of ice in
each half.
Eat with sugar, or with mixed pepper and salt.
CAKES OF ALL KINDS.
Nevuin’s Cur Caxr. >}«
5 cups of flour.
5 egos, whites and yolks separated—the latter
strained.
1 cup of butter,
3 cups of sugar,
1 cup of sweet milk.
1 teaspoonful soda, dissolved in hot water.
2 teaspoonfuls of cream tartar, sifted with flour.
1 teaspoonful of vanilla.
If prepared flour be used in this or any other cake,
there is no need of soda and cream of tartar.
Hecker’s flour I have found invaluable in cake-
making. Indeed, I have never achieved anything short
of triumphant success when I have used it.
{ well creamed together.
CarotinA Cake (wirnour Eaes.)
1 coffee-cup of sugar—powdered.
2 large table-spoonfuls butter, rubbed into the sugar.
14 cups of flour.
$ cup sweet cream.
% teaspoonful of soda.
Bake quickly in small tins, and eat while fresh and
warm.
Wuirr CaKn. phe
1 cup of butter, rubbed to a light cream.
2 cups of sugar,
CAKES. 317
1 cup of sweet milk.
6 egos, the whites only—beaten stiff.
% teaspoonful of soda, dissolved ir boiling water.
1 teaspoonful of cream tartar, sifted with flour.
4 cups of flour, or enough for tolerably thick batter,
Juice of 1 lemon, and half the grated peel.
CuocoLate Cake. f«
2 cups of sugar.
4 table-spoonfuls butter, rubbed in with the sugar.
4 eggs, whites and yolks beaten separately.
1 cup sweet milk.
3 heaping cups of flour.
1 teaspoonful of cream tartar, sifted into flour.
4 teaspoonful soda, melted in hot water.
Bake in jelly cake tins.
Filling.
Whites of two eggs, beaten to a froth.
1 cup of powdered sugar.
+ pound grated chocolate, wet in 1 table-spoonful
cream.
1 teaspoonful vanilla.
Beat the sugar into the whipped whites; then the
chocolate. Whisk all together hard for three minutes
before adding the vanilla. Let the cake get quite cold
before you spread it. Reserve a little of the mixture
for the top, and beat more sugar into this to form a
firm icing. |
Apple CAKE, »)x
2 cups powdered sugar.
3 cups of flour.
318 BREAKFAST, LUNCHEON AND THA.
4 cup corn-starch, wet up with a little milk.
4 cup of butter, rabbed to light cream with sugar.
4 cup sweet milk.
1 teaspoonful cream of tartar, sifted with flour.
% teaspoonful soda, dissolved in hot water.
6 eggs, the whites only, whipped very stiff.
Add the milk to the creamed butter and sugar ; the
soda-water, corn-starch, then the flour and whites
alternately. Bake in jelly cake tins.
Filling.
3 tart, well-flavored apples, grated.
1 egg, beaten light.
1 cup of sugar.
1 lemon, grated peel and juice.
Beat sugar and egg up with the lemon. Pare the
apples and grate them directly into this mixture, letting
an assistant stir it the while. The color will be better
preserved by this method. Put into a farina-kettle,
with boiling water in the outer vessel, and stir until it
comes to a boil. Let it cool before putting it between
the cakes.
It is best eaten fresh.
ORANGE CAKE.
8 table-spoonfuls butter.
2 cups of sugar.
Yolks of 5 eggs, whites of three, beaten separately
—the yolks strained through a sieve after they are
whipped.
1 cup of cold water.
3 full cups of flour—enough for good batter.
ar os
CAKES. 319
1 large orange, the juice, and half the grated peel.
4 teaspoonful soda, dissolved in hot water.
1 teaspoonful cream of tartar, sifted in flour.
Cream the butter and sugar; add the eggs; beat in
the orange, the water, soda, and stir in the flour quickly.
Bake in jelly cake tins.
Filling.
Whites of two eggs, whisked stiff.
1 cup powdered sugar.
Juice, and half the peel of an orange.
Whip very light, and spread between the cakes when
~ cold. |
Reserve a little, and whip more sugar into it for
frosting on top layer.
Cuartorre Potonatse Cake. (Very fine.) -f«
2 cups powdered sugar.
4 cup of butter.
4 eggs, whites and yolks beaten separately.
1 small cup of cream, or rich milk.
8 cups of prepared flour.
Bake as for jelly cake.
Filling.
6 eges, whipped very light.
2 table-spoonfuls flour.
3 cups of cream—scalding hot.
6 table-spoonfuls grated chocolate.
6 table-spoonfuls powdered sugar.
4 pound sweet almonds, blanched and pounded.
4 pound chopped citron.
\
520 BREAKFAST, LUNCHEON AND TEA.
4 pound apricots, peaches, or other crystallized fruit,
4 pound macaroons.
Beat the yolks of the eggs very light. Stir into the
cream the flour which has been previously wet with a
little cold milk.
Add very carefully the beaten yolks, and keep the
mixture at a slow boil, stirring all the time, for five
minutes. Take from the fire and divide the custard
into three equal portions. Put the grated chocolate,
with the macaroons, finely crumbled (or pounded),
with one table-spoonful of sugar, into one pan of the
mixture, stirring and beating well. Boil five minutes,
stirring constantly ; take from the fire, whip with your
ego-beater five minutes more, and set aside to cool.
Pound the blanched alinonds—a few at a time—in a
Wedgewood mortar, adding, now and then, afew drops
of rose-water. Chop the citron very fine and mix with
the almonds, adding three table-spoonfuls of sugar.
Stir into the second portion of custard; heat to a slow
boil; take it off and set by to cool.
Chop the crystallized fruit very small, and put with
the third cupful of custard. Heat to a boil; pour out
and let it cool.
Season the chocolate custard with vanilla; the al-
mond and citron with bitter almond. The fruit will
require no other flavoring. When quite cold, lay out
four cakes made according to receipt given here, or
bake at the same time a white cake in jelly-cake tins, and
alternate with that. This will give you two good loaves.
Put the chocolate filling between the first and second
cakes; next, the almond and citron; the fruit custard
next to the top. There will be enough for both loaves.
CAKES. 321
Ice the tops with lemon icing, made of the whites
of the eggs whisked very stiff with powdered sugar, and
flavored with lemon-juice.
Lest the reader should, at a casual glance through
this receipt, be appalled at the length and the number:
of ingredients, let me say that I have made the “ polo-
naise” frequently at the cost of little more time and
trouble than is required for an ordinary cream or cho-
colate cake. J would rather make three such, than
one loaf of rich fruit-cake.
A CuyarvotTs Cacn&e CAKE.
1 thick loaf of sponge, or other plain cake.
2 kinds of jelly—tart and sweet.
Whisked whites of 5 eggs.
1 heaping cup powdered sugar—or enough to make
stiff icing.
Juice of 1 lemon whipped into the icing.
Cut the cake horizontally into five or six slices of
uniform width. Spread each slice with jelly—tfirst
the tart, then the sweet, and fit them into their for-
mer places. Ice thickly all over, so as to leave no sign
of the slices; set in a slow oven for a few minutes to
harden; then, in a sunny window.
This is an easy way of making a showy cake out of
a plain one.
Fanny’s Cake. >/
1 pound powdered sugar.
1 pound flour—Hecker’s “ prepared.”
4 pound butter rubbed to a cream with the sugar.
8 eggs, whites and yolks beaten separately.
322 BREAKFAST, LUNCHEON AND TEA.
1 coffee-cupful sweet almonds—blanched.
Extract ot bitter almond and rose-water.
Blanch the almonds in boiling water. Strip off the
skins and spread them upon a dry cloth until perfectly
cold and crisp. Pound in a Wedgewood mortar, add-
ing rose-water as you go on, and, at the last, half a
teaspoonful bitter almond extract.
Stir the creamed butter and sugar and yolks to-
gether until very light; add to this the flour, handful
by handful; then the almond paste, alternately with
the whites. Beat vigorously up from the bottom, two
or three minutes.
Bake in small tins, well buttered. When cold, turn
them out and cover tops and sides with—
Almond Icing.
_ Whites of 3 eggs, whisked to a standing froth.
# pound of powdered sugar.
% pound*of sweet almonds blanched and pounded to
a paste. When beaten fine and smooth, work gradu-
ally into the icing. Flavor with lemon-juice and rose-
water.
This frosting is delicious. Dry in the open air when
this is practicable.
Morner’s Cur Caxz.
1 cup of butter,
2 cups of sugar,
3 cups of flour.
4 eggs beaten light—the yolks strained.
1 cup sweet milk—a small one.
1 teaspoonful of soda, dissolved in hot water.
creamed together.
CAKES. 823
2 teaspoonfuls cream of tartar sifted into the flour.
Nutmeg and vanilla flavoring.
Bake in a loaf, or as jelly-cake.
Ratsin CAKE.
1 pound powdered sugar.
1 pound flour.
% pound butter rubbed to light cream with sugar.
1 cup sweet milk.
5 eggs, whites and yolks whipped separately, and
the latter strained.
1 pound raisins, stoned, cut in half, dredged with
flour, and put into the cake just before it goes into the
oven.
1 teaspoonful mixed cloves, cinnamon and nutmeg.
4 teaspoonful of soda dissolved in hot water.
1 teaspoonful cream of tartar, sifted in the flour.
Beat very hard after itis mixed, and bake in small
loaves, in a steady oven. .
NeapouitTan Cake. >< ( Yellow, pink, white and brown.)
Y ellow.
2 cups powdered sugar.
1 cup butter stirred to light cream with sugar.
5 egas—beaten well, yolks and whites separately.
4 cupful sweet milk.
3 cups prepared flour.
A little nutmeg.
Pink and White.
1 pound sugar—powdered.
1 pound prepared flour.
324 BREAKFAST, LUNCHEON AND TEA.
4 pound butter creamed with sugar.
10 eggs—the whites only—whisked stiff.
Divide this batter into two equal portions. Leave
one white, and color the other with a very little pre-
pared cochineal. Use it cautiously, as a few drops too
much will ruin the color.
Brown.
3 eggs beaten light. .
1 cup powdered sugar.
4 cup of butter creamed with sugar.
2 table-spoonfuls cream.
1 heaping cup prepared flour.
2 table-spoontuls vanilla chocolate grated and rubbed
smooth in the cream, before it is beaten into the cake.
Bake all in jelly-cake tins. The above quantity
should make one dozen cakes—three of each color. Of
course, half as much will suffice for an ordinary family
baking. But it is convenient to prepare it wholesale
in this manner for a large supper, for a charity bazaar
entertainment, or a church “ sociable.”
Filling.
Ist. 2 cups sweet milk.
2 table-spoonfuls corn-starch, wet with milk.
2 egos.
2 small cups powdered sugar.
Heat the milk, stir,in the sugar and corn-starch ;
boil five minutes and put in the eggs. Stir steadily
until quite thick. Divide this custard into two parts.
Stir into one 2 table-spoonfuls of chocolate (grated) and
a teaspoonful of vanilla; into the other bitter almond.
CAKES. b25
2d. Whites of three eggs, whisked stiff.
1 cup of powdered sugar—heaping.°
Juice, and half the grated peel of 1 lemon.
Whip up well. Lay the brown cake as the founda-
tion of the pile; spread with the yellow custard. Put
the pink, coated with chocolate, next, and the white
frosting between the third and fourth cakes—z.e. the
white and yellow. You can vary the order as your
fancy dictates. Cover the top with powdered sugar, or
ice it.
This cake looks very handsome cut into slices and
mixed with plain, in baskets or salvers. You can
hardly do better than to undertake it, if you have
promised a liberal contribution to any of the objects
above named.
ORLEANS CAKE.
1 liberal pound best flour, dried and sifted.
1 pound powdered sugar.
# pound butter, rubbed to a cream with the sugar.
6 eggs beaten light, and the yolks strained.
1 cup cream.
1 glass best brandy.
1 teaspoonful mixed mace and cinnamon.
1 teaspoonful soda, dissolved in hot water.
2 teaspoonfuls cream of tartar sifted with flour.
Add the strained yolks to the creamed butter and
sugar; to this, the cream and soda—then, in alternate
supplies, the whites and flour ; finally, spice and brandy.
Beat up hard for three minutes, and bake in two
square loaves. The oven should not be too quick, but
steady. Cover with paper if the cake shows signs of
326. BREAKFAST, LUNCHEON AND TEA.
crustiness on the top before it has risen to the proper
height. It should bake one hour.
Cover with lemon frosting when it is cool.
It is a good cake, and keeps well.
Morris CAKE. pie
2 cups powdered sugar.
1 cup butter, creamed with the sugar.
4 cups flour. |
5 eggs beaten light, the yolks strained.
1 rather large cup sowr cream, or loppered milk.
% grated nutmeg.
1 teaspoonful vanilla.
1 teaspoonful of soda, dissolved in hot water.
Stir beaten yolks, butter, and sugar together, and
beat very light. Put in nutmeg and vanilla, the sour
cream, half the flour, the soda-water, and the rest of
the flour. Beat with steady strokes five minutes, bring-
ing up batter from the bottom of the bowl at every
sweep of the wooden spoon. In this way you drive
the air into the cells of the ege-batter, instead of owt
of them. This is a knack in the cake-maker’s art that
is too little understood and practised.
Remember, then, that the motion should always be
upward, and the spoon always come up full.
Bake in two loaves, or several smaller ones. The
oven should not be too quick.
Mont Brano Caxs. of
2 even cups of powdered sugar.
# cup butter, creamed with sugar.
Whites of 5 eggs, very stiff.
1 cup of milk.
CAKES. 327
3 cups of flour, or enough for good batter.
1 teaspoonful soda, dissolved in hot water.
2 teaspoonfuls of cream of tartar, sifted in flour.
Vanilla flavoring.
Bake in jelly-cake tins.
Filling.
Whites of three eggs, whisked stiff.
1 heaping cup powdered sugar.
1 cocoanut, pared and grated.
Mix all lightly together, taking care not to bruise the
cocoanut, and when the cakes are perfectly cold,
spread between, and upon them.
Cream Rose Care. (Very pretty.) -f<
Whites of 10 eggs, beaten to standing froth.
1 cup butter, creamed with sugar.
3 cups powdered sugar.
1 small cup of sweet cream.
Nearly 5 cups prepared flour.
Vanilla flavoring, and liquid cochineal.
Stir the cream (into which it is safe to put a pinch of
soda) into the butter and sugar. Beat five minutes
with “the Dover,” until the mixture is like whipped
cream. Flavor with vanilla, and put in by turns the
whites and the flour. Color a fine pink with cochineal.
_ Bake in four jelly-cake tins. When cold, spread with,
Filling.
1% cocoanuts, pared and grated.
Whites of 4 eggs, whisked stiff.
1} cups powdered sugar.
2 teaspoonfuls best rose-water.
328 BREAKFAST, LUNCHEON AND TEA.
Instead of cochineal, you can use strawberry or cur-
rant juice in their season, making allowance for the
thinning of your batter, by adding a little more flour.
Cochineal is much better, however, since it takes but a
few drops to color the whole cake. Any druggist will
prepare it for you as he does for the confectioners, as a
liquid. Or, he will powder it, and you can add toa
pinch of the grayish crimson-dust a very little water ;
strain it, and stir in, drop by drop, until you get the
right tint. It is without taste or odor, and is perfectly
harmless.
Heap the cake after it is filled, with the white mix-
ture, beating more sugar into that portion intended
for the frosting.
SULTANA CAKE.
4 cups flour.
1 cup of butter.
3 cups powdered sugar.
8 eggs, beaten light. Strain the yolks.
1 cup cream, or rich milk.
1 pound sultana (seedless) raisins, dredged thickly.
1 teaspoonful soda, dissolved in hot water.
2 smaller teaspoonfuls of cream of tartar.
$ grated nutmeg, and $ teaspoonful of cinnamon.
Cream the butter and sugar. Sift the cream of tar-
tar with the flour. Dredge the raisins with flour when
you have picked them over with great care, washed
and dried them.
Mix the beaten yolks with the creamed butter and
sugar; then, the spice and brandy. Beat three min-
utes, and stir in the cream or milk lightly with the
CAKES. 3829
soda-water. Put in, first a handful of one, then a
spoonful of the other, the flour and whipped whites.
At last, beat in the fruit.
Bake in two large loaves, or four smaller ones. My
own preference is for small loaves of cake. They are
safer in baking, and can be cut more economically,
especially where the family is not large. It is better to
eut up the whole of a small cake for one meal, than to
halve or quarter a large one, since the outer slices must
be dry at the next cutting, and are wasted, to say nothing
of the effect of the air upon the whole of the exposed
interior.
The Sultana must be baked slowly and carefully, and
like all fruit-cakes, longer than a plain one. Ice
thickly. It wil] keep very well.
My Lapy’s Cake. pf.
2 cups powdered sugar.
4 cup butter, creamed with the sugar.
Whites of 5 eggs, whisked stiff.
1 cup of milk.
3 full cups of prepared flour.
Flavor with vanilla.
Bake in jelly-cake tins.
Filling.
1 cup sweet cream, whipped stiff.
8 table-spoonfuls powdered sugar.
4 cup grated cocoanut, stirred in lightly at the last.
1 teaspoonful rose-water.
A very delicate and delicious cake, but must be
eaten very soon after it is made, since the cream will
530 BREAKFAST, LUNCHEON AND TEA.
be sour or stale after twenty-four hours. It is best on
the day in which it is made.
Cocoanut AND ALMOND Cake. >}«
24 cups powdered sugar
1 cup of butter.
4 full cups prepared flour.
Whites of 7 eggs, whisked stiff.
1 small cup of milk, with a mere pinch of soda.
1 grated cocoanut.
4 teaspoonful nutmeg.
Juice and half the grated peel of 1 lemon.
Cream butter and sugar; stir in lemon and nutmeg.
Mix well, add the milk, the whites and flour alternately.
Lastly, stir in the grated cocoanut swiftly and lightly.
Bake in four jelly-cake tins.
Liiling.
1 pound sweet almonds.
Whites of 4 eggs, whisked stiff.
1 heaping cup powdered sugar.
2 teaspoonfuls rose-water.
Blanch the almonds. Let them get cold and dry.
Then pound in a Wedgewood mortar, adding rose-water,
as you goon. Save about two dozen to shred for the
top. Stir the paste into the icing after it is made;
spread between the cooled cakes. Make that for the
top a trifle thicker, and lay it on heavily. When it
has stiffened somewhat, stick the shred almonds closely
over it. Set in the oven to harden, but do not let it
scorch.
You will like this cake.
CAKES. dol
Cocoanut Sponge CAKE.
5 egos, whites and yolks separated.
1 cup powdered sugar.
1 full cup prepar ed flour.
Juice and half the grated peel of 1 lemon.
A little salt.
% grated nutmeg.
1 cocoanut, pared and grated.
Stir together sugar, and the whipped and strained
yolks. To this put the lemon, salt and nutmeg. Beat
in the flour and whites by turns, then the grated cocoa-
nut.
Bake in square, shallow tins, or in one large card.
It should be done in half an hour, for the oven must
be quick, yet steady.
It is best eaten fresh.
Ricuer Cocoanut Cake.
1 pound powdered sugar.
1 pound flour, dried and sifted.
% pound butter, rubbed to cream with sugar.
1 cup of fresh milk.
1 lemon, the juice and half the grated peel.
5 eggs, yolks and whites beaten separately.
1 grated cocoanut.
1 teaspoonful soda, dissolved in hot water.
2 smaller Pas pcontuls cream of tartar, sifted in the
flour.
Bake in two square, shallow pans.
Ice, when cold, with lemon icing.
332 BREAKFAST, LUNCHEON AND THA,
CorreE CAKE.
5 cups flour, dried and sifted.
1 cup of butter.
2 cups of sugar.
1 cup of tHOTASteN
1 cup made black coffee—the very best aay.
4 pound raisins, seeded and minced.
% pound currants, washed and dried.
¢ pound citron, chopped fine.
3 egos, beaten very light.
4 teaspoonful cinnamon.
4 teaspoonful mace.
+ teaspoonful cloves.
Cream the butter and sugar, warm the molassea
slightly, and beat these, with the spices, hard, five
minutes, until the mixture is very hght. Next, put in
the yolks, the coffee, and when these are well mixed,
the flour, in turn with the whipped whites. Next, the
saleratus, dissolved in hot water, and the fruit, all
mixed together and dredged well with flour. Beat up
very thoroughly, and bake in two loaves, or in small
round tins.
The flavor of this cake is peculiar, but to most
palates very pleasant. Wrap in a thick cloth as soon
as it is cold enough to put away without danger
of “sweating,” and shut within your cake box, as it
soon loses the aroma of the coffee if exposed to the
air.
CAKES. 333
Mo.uassss Freir CaKks.
1$ pound flour.
1 pound powdered sugar.
1 cup of molasses.
1 cup sour cream.
5 egos, beaten very light.
1 pound of raisins, seeded and cut into thirds.
1 teaspoonful cinnamon and cloves.
% grated nutmeg.
% teaspoonful ginger.
# pound butter.
1 full teaspoonful soda, dissolved in hot water.
Cream butter and sugar ; warm the molasses slightly
and beat into this with spices and cream. Add the
yolks of the eggs, stir in the flour and the whites
alternately, the soda-water, then the fruit, well dredged
with flour. Beat all together vigorously for at least
three minutes before putting into well-buttered tins to
be baked.
It will require long and careful baking, the molasses
rendering it liable to burn.
Uniry Cake. >
1 egg.
1 cup of powdered sugar.
1 cup of cream (with a pinch of soda stirred in).
1 pint of prepared flour.
1 table-spoonful butter.
1 salt-spoonful nutmeg.
1 teaspoonful vanilla.
Rub the butter and sugar together; add the beaten
834 BREAKFAST, LUNCHEON AND TEA.
egg, the cream and nutmeg. Whip all for five minutes
with the “ Dover,” stir in*the vanilla. and then very
lightly, the flour. 2
Bake at once.
It is a nice cake if eaten while fresh.
Brown Caks,
4 cups flour.
1 cup butter.
1 cup molasses.
1 cup best brown sugar. .
6 egus, beaten very light.
1 table-spoonful ginger.
1 table-spoonful mixed cloves and cinnamon.
1 pound sultana raisins, washed, picked over and
dried.
1 teaspoonful soda, dissolved in hot water.
Warm the molasses, butter and sugar slightly, and
whip with an egg-beater toa cream. Beat in the yolks,
the spices, the whites, flour, soda-water, and lastly the
fruit, dredged with flour. :
Beat hard for two or three minutes, and bake in two
loaves or in small round tins.
The oven must be moderate and steady.
Myrriy’s Caxn. fe
5 egos, beaten light, and the yolks strained.
3 cups of powdered sugar.
1 cup of butter creamed with the sugar.
1 cup sweet milk.
4 cups of prepared flour.
Juice of 1 lemon and half the grated peel.
.
CAKES. 33D
A little nutmeg.
Bake in two loaves. It*is a very good cup cake, safe
and easy. Cover with lemon frosting.
Risen SEED CAKE.
' 1 pound of flour:
4 pound of butter.
# pound powdered sugar.
$ cup good yeast.
4 table-spoonfuls cream.
Nutmeg. A pinch of soda, dissolved in hot water.
2 table-spoonfuls carraway seed.
< pound of citron shred very small.
Mix flour, cream, half the butter (melted) and the
yeast together; work up very well and set to rise for
six hours. When very light, work in the rest of the
butter rubbed to a cream with the sugar, the soda-
water, and when these ingredients are thoroughly in-
corporated, the seed and citron. Let it rise three-
quarters of an hour longer—until it almost fills the
pans—and bake steadily half an hour if you have put
it in small pans, an hour, if it is in large loaves. This
is a German cake.
Cirron CAKE.
6 eggs, beaten light and the yolks strained.
2 cups of sugar.
# cup of butter.
24 cups prepared flour, or enough to make pound-
cake batter. With some brands you may need 3 cups.
$ pound citron cut in thin shreds.
Juice of an orange and 1 teaspoonful grated peel.
306 BREAKFAST, LUNCHEON AND TEA.
Cream butter and sugar; add the yolks, the whites
and flour by turns, the orange, and lastly, the citron,
dredged with flour. Beat all up hard, and bake in
two loaves.
Rica Atmonp Cake. >}«
4 cups prepared flour.
2 cups powdered sugar.
1 cup of butter.
10 eggs, whipped light, the yolks strained.
% pound sweet almonds, blanched and pounded.
1 table-spoonful orange-flower water.
Nutmeg.
Beat butter and sugar ten minutes until they are
like whipped cream ; add the strained yolks, the whites
and flour alternately with one another, then the almond
paste in which the orange-flower water has been mixed
as it was pounded, and the nutmeg. Beat well and
bake as “snow balls,” in small round, rather deep pans,
with straight sides. They will require some time to
bake. Cover with almond icing.
A Cuartorre A LA PARISIENNE, >f«
1 large stale sponge-cake.
1 cup rich sweet custard.
1 cup sweet cream, whipped.
2 table-spoonfuls rose-water.
4 grated cocoanut.
% pound sweet almonds, blanched and pounded.
Whites of 4 eggs, whipped stiff.
3 table-spoonfuls powdered sugar.
Cut the cake in horizontal slices the whole breadth
ny
CAKES. Soa
of the loaf. They should be about half an inch thick.
Divide the whipped eggs into two portions ; into one
stir the cocoanut with half the sugar; into the other
the almond paste with the rest of the sugar. Spread
the slices with these mixtures,—half with the cocoanut,
half with almond, and replace them in their origi-
nal form, laying aside the top-crust for a lid. Press
all the sliced cake firmly together, that the slices may
not slip, and with a sharp knife cut a deep cup ont of
the centre down to the bottom slice, which must be
left entire. Take out the rounds you have cut, leaving
walls an inch thick, and soak the part removed in a
bowl with the custard. Rub it to a smooth batter, and
whip it into the frothed cream. The rose-water in the
almond paste will flavor it sufficiently. When it is a
stiff rich cream, fill the cavity of the cake with it, put
on the lid, and ice with the following:
Whites of 3 eggs.
1 heaping cup of powdered sugar.
Juice of 1 lemon.
Beat stiff and cover the sides and top of the cake.
Set in a very cold place until needed.
This is a delicious and elegant Charlotte.
JEANIE’Ss Fruit CAKE.
6 eggs.
1 cup of butter.
+ cups of powdered sugar.
5 cups of flour.
2 cups of sour cream.
% pound raisins, seeded and chopped.
¢ pound citron, shred finely.
bo
338 BREAKFAST, LUNCHEON AND TEA,
1 heaping teaspoonful of soda.
1 teaspoonful mixed nutmeg and cinnamon.
Cream butter and sugar, beat in the yolks; the
cream and spices, whip together for a minute, stir in
the flour and whites, the soda, dissolved in hot water,
and, very quickly, the fruit dredged with flour. Stir
up hard and bake immediately.
This will make two good-sized loaves.
Pompton Cake. »}«
2 cups powdered sugar.
3 cups prepared flour.
1 cup rich, sweet cream. A little salt.
3 egos whipped very light.
Vanilla and nutmeg flavoring.
Beat the eggs very light—the whites until they will
stand alone, the yolks until they are thick and smooth.
Put yolks and sugar together ; whip up well; add the
cream, the flour, whites and flavoring, stirring briskly
and lightly; fill your “snow-ball” pans or cups and
bake at once, in a quick oven.
This cake may be made of sour cream, if a teaspoon-
ful of soda be added. In this case, the prepared flour
must not be used.
May’s Caxkn.
3 cups flour, full ones.
3 eggs.
4 cup of milk.
2 cups of sugar,
4 cup of butter.
4 cup of cream.
CAKES. 339
4 teaspoonful soda dissolved in hot water.
1 teaspoonful cream of tartar, sifted in flour.
Nutmeg, and a pinch of grated lemon-peel.
Bake in one loaf.
Frep’s Favorite. >}
3 eggs—whites and yolks beaten separately.
1 cup of sugar.
2 cups of flour.
% cup rich milk—cream is better.
% teaspoonful soda, dissolved in hot water.
1 teaspoonful cream of tartar sifted in flour.
Extract of bitter almond.
Bake in jelly-cake tins and when cold, spread with
the following.
Filling.
Whites of 4 eggs, whipped stiff.
Heaping cup of powdered sugar.
2 table-spoonfuls crab-apple jelly, beaten into the
méringue after it is stiff.
Reserve enough of the frosting before you add the
jelly, to cover the top.
Corn-SrarcH Cup Cakk.
5 egas. |
1 cup of butter.
2 cups of sugar.
1 cup sweet milk.
1 cup corn-starch.
2 cups prepared flour.
Vanilla flavoring.
Bake at once in small loaves, and eat while fresh.
340 BREAKFAST, LUNCHEON AND TEA.
All corn-starch cakes become dry and insipid after
twenty-four hours.
“ OnzE, TWO, THREE” Cup Cake, >a
1 cup powdered sugar.
2 cups prepared flour.
3 egos well beaten.
1 table-spoonful butter.
4 cup milk.
A little vanilla.
Bake in jelly-cake tins, and spread with méringue
or jelly.
Snow-Drirr Cake.
2 cups powdered sugar.
1 heaping cup prepared flour.
10 eggs—the whites only, whipped stiff.
Juice of 1 lemon and half the grated peel.
A. little salt.
Whip the eggs stiff, beat in the sugar, lemon, salt,
and finally the flour. Stir in very lightly and quickly
and bake at once in two loaves, or in square cards.
It is a beautiful and delicious cake when fresh. It
is very nice, baked as jelly-cake and spread with this:
Filling.
Whites of 3 eggs.
1 heaping cup of powdered sugar.
Juice of 1 orange and half the peel.
Juice of 4 lemon.
Whip toa good méringue and put between the layers,
adding more sugar for the frosting on the top.
CAKES. 341
NeEwark Cake.
1 cup of butter.
2 cups of sugar.
4 even cups prepared flour.
1 cup of good milk.
6 egos, beaten very light.
Nutmeg and bitter almond flavoring.
If you have not the prepared flour, put in a teaspoon-
ful of soda and two of cream of tartar.
Wine Cake.
34 cupfuls prepared flour.
% cup of butter.
4 egos—beaten light.
4 cupful cream (with a pinch of soda in it).
4 glass sherry wine.
Nutmeg.
2 full cups of powdered sugar.
Cream butter and sugar; beat in the yolks and
wine until very light, add the cream; beat two minutes
aud stir in very quickly, the whites and flour.
Bake in one loaf.
Fruir anp Nut Cake, >}
4 cups of flour.
2 cups of sugar.
1 cup of butter.
6 eges—whites and yolks separated.
1 cup cold water.
1 coffee cupful of hickory-nut kernels, free from
shells and very sweet and dry.
342 BREAKFAST, LUNCHEON AND TEA.
% pound raisins, seeded, chopped and dredged with
cakeies Sapec)
1 teaspoonful of soda dissolved in hot water.
2 teaspoonfuls of cream of tartar, sifted in the
flour.
1 teaspoonful mixed nutmeg and cinnamon.
Rub butter and sugar together to a smooth cream ;
put in the yolks, then the water, spice, soda; next the
whites and flour. The fruit and nuts, stirred together
and dredged, should go in last. Mix thoroughly and
bake in two loaves.
Uniry GINGERBREAD. >}
1 cup of butter.
1 cup sugar.
1 cup molasses—the very best.
1 cup “loppered ” milk or buttermilk.
1 quart flour.
1 table-spoonful ginger.
1 teaspoonful mixed cloves and mace.
1 teaspoonful cinnamon.
1 cup raisins, seeded and cut in two.
1 half-pound eggs—beaten light.
1 heaping teaspoonful of soda dissolved in hot water.
Put butter, molasses and sugar together; warm
slightly and whip with an egg-beater, until light and
creamy. Add the eggs, milk, spices; flour, soda-water.
Beat hard for a minute, then put in the fruit, well
dredged with flour. Bake in two loaves, or cards.
For the eae of “preserving the unities” “1 half pound
of eggs” is introduced into this wnique receipt. It is
safe, however, if you do not care to take the trouble of
CAKES. 343
weighing them, to allow four (or five, if they are small,)
to the half-pound.
RttcuMonp GINGERBREAD. fe
1 cup of sugar.
1 cup of molasses.
1 cup of butter.
1 cup of sweet milk.
4 cups of flour.
4 egos.
1 table-spoonful mixed ginger and mace.
1 teaspoonful soda—a smail one—dissolved in the
milk.
Beat sugar, molasses, butter and spice together to a
cream; add the whipped yolks, the milk, and, very
quickly, the whites and flour.
Bake in one loaf, or in cups.
E@eLess GINGERBREAD. Pf
1 cup of sugar.
1 cup of best molasses.
4 cup of butter.
1 cup of sour cream.
1 table-spoonful ginger.
1 teaspoonful cinnamon.
1 heaping teaspoonful of soda, dissolved in hot water.
Nearly 4 cups of flour.
Mix, and bake quickly, adding the soda-water last,
and beating hard for two minutes after it goes in.
Sugar GINGERBREAD. p<
1 cup butter.
2 cups of sugar.
344 BREAKFAST, LUNCHEON AND TEA.
4 egos, beaten very light.
1 cup of sour cream.
44 cups of flour.
Juice of 1 lemon, and half the grated peel.
, 1 teaspoonful of cinnamon.
Gre grated nutmeg.
1 table- Giectal ginger.
I teaspoonful of soda, dissolved in hot eatee
Bake in two loaves. It is very nice, and will keep
several days if wrapped in a thick cloth.
Hatr-Cur GINGERBREAD.
$ cup of sugar.
4 cup of butter.
4 cup of best molasses.
% cup of sour milk.
% pound of eggs.
4 pound of flour, ov enough for good batter.
+ coffee-cup of raisins, seeded and halved.
4 table-spoonful ginger.
4 teaspoonful cinnamon.
4 dessert-spoonful soda, dissolved in hot water.
Cream butter, sugar, molasses and spices. Beat
, thoroughly before adding yolks and milk. Put in flour
and whites alternately, then the soda-water. Mix well,
and stir in the fruit dredged with flour.
Bake in one card or loaf.
CuRRANT CAKE. p}«
1 cup of butter.
2 cups of powdered sugar, creamed with butter.
4 cup of sweet milk.
CAKES. 345
4 egos.
e cups of erepied flour.
$ grated nutmeg.
4 pound currants, washed, dried and dredged.
Put the fruit in last. Bake in cups or small pans.
They are very nice for luncheon or tea—very convenient
for Sabbath-school suppers and picnics.
Cocoanut Cakes. (Small.)
grated cocoanut.
1 cup powdered sugar.
3 eggs—the whites only, whipped stiff.
1 table-spoonful corn-starch, wet in the milk of the
cocoanut.
Rtose-water flavoring.
Whip the sugar into the stiffened whites; then the
corn-starch, the cocoanut and rose-water last. Beat up
well, and drop by the spoonful upon buttered paper.
Bake half an hour.
Rosz Dror Caxzs. (Cocoanut.)
Mix as directed in last receipt, coloring the mérengue
before you put in the cocoanut, with liquid cochineal.
Add cautiously until you get the right tint.
VARIEGATED CAKES.
1 cup of powdered sugar.
4 cup of butter, creamed with the sugar.
% cup of milk.
4 evos—the whites only, whipped light.
24 cups of prepared flour.
Bitter-almond flavoring.
Spinach-juice and cochineal.
15*
46 BREAKFAST, LUNCHEON AND TEA.
Cream butter and sugar, add the milk, flavoring the
whites and flour. Divide the batter into three parts.
Bruise and pound a few leaves of spinach in a thin
muslin bag, until you can express the juice. Puta few
drops of this into one portion of the batter, color an-
other with cochineal, leaving the third white. Put a
little of each into small round pans or cups, giving a
slight stir to each color as you add the next. This will
vein the cakes prettily. Put the white between the
pink and green, that the tints may show better.
If you can get pistachio-nuts to pound up for the
green, the cakes will be much nicer.
Ice on sides and top.
Snow-Droprs.
1 cup of butter.
2 cups of sugar.
Whites of 5 eggs.
1 small cup of milk.
3 full cups of prepared flour.
Flavor with vanilla and nutmeg.
Bake in small, round tins. Those in the shape of
fluted shells are very pretty.
Rico Drop Caxszs.
1 pound of flour.
1 pound of powdered sugar.
# pound of butter.
4 pound of currants, washed and dried.
4 eggs, beaten very light.
Juice of 1 lemon, and half the grated peel.
% teaspoonful of soda, wet up with hot water.
CAKES. 347
Dredge the currants, and put them in last of all.
Drop the mixture by the spoonful, upon buttered paper,
taking care that they are not so close relat as to
touch in baking. ,
KxELLoce CookrEs.
1 cup of butter.
2 cups powdered sugar, creamed with the butter.
3 table-spoonfuls sour cream.
4 egos, beaten very light.
5 cups of flour.
1 teaspoonful—an even one—of soda.
1 teaspoonful of nutmeg.
A handful of currants, washed and dried.
Mix all except the fruit, into a dough just stiff
enough to roll out. The sheet should be about a quar-
ter of an inch thick. Cut round, and bake quickly.
When about half done open the oven-door; strew a
few currants upon each cookey, and close the door
again immediately, lest the cakes should get chilled.
Berrie’s Cooktzs. >}
1 large cup of sugar.
4 cup of butter.
1 cup sweet milk.
3 egos, beaten light.
4 cups prepared flour, or enough to enable you to
roll out the dough.
Nutmeg and cinnamon.
Cream butter, spice and sugar; add the yolks, then
the milk; whites and flour alternately ; roll into a thin
348 BREAKFAST, LUNCHEON AND TEA.
sheet with as few strokes as possible; cut into fancy
shapes with tin-cutters, and bake quickly.
SEED CookKIEs.
1 cup of butter.
2% cups powdered sugar.
4 eggs.
4 cups of flour, or enough for soft dough.
2 ounces carraway-seeds, scattered through the flour
while dry.
Rub butter and sugar to a cream; add the yolks,
and mix up well. Put in flour and whites in turns;
roll out thin and cut into round cakes.
Montrose Cooxtes. >}
1 pound of flour.
4 pound of butter.
4% pound of powdered sugar.
1 teaspoonful mixed spices—cinnamon, nutmeg, and
mace, and a few raisins.
3 eggs, well beaten.
Juice of 1 lemon, and half the grated peel.
Roll out rather thin, and cut into round or oval
cakes. Sprinkle a little white sugar over the top; lay
a whole raisin in the centre of each, and bake quickly
until crisp.
Aunt Mottiy’s Cooxtss.
1 cup of butter.
2 cups powdered sugar.
4 egos.
4 cups of prepared flour, or enough for soft dough.
CAKES. 349
2 table-spoonfuls of cream.
Nutmeg and mace.
Roll into a thin sheet, and cut into small cakes.
Bake in a quick oven until crisp and of a delicate
brown. Brush them over while hot with a soft bit of
rag dipped in sugar and water, pretty thick.
Lemon Macaroons.
1 pound of powdered sugar.
4 egos, whipped very light and long.
Juice of 3 lemons, and peel of one.
1 heaping cup of prepared flour.
4 teaspoonful nutmeg.
Butter your hands lightly; take up small lumps
of the mixture; make into balls about as large as
a walnut, and lay them upon a sheet of buttered
paper—more than two inches apart. Bake in a brisk
oven.
Lemon CooKIEs.
1 pound of flour, or enough for stiff dough.
+ pound of butter.
1 pound of powdered sugar.
Juice of 2 lemons, grated peel of one.
3 eggs, whipped very light.
Stir butter, sugar, lemon-juice and peel to a light
cream. Beat at least five minutes before adding the
yolks of the eggs. Whip them in thoroughly, put in
the whites, lastly the flour. Roll out about an eighth
of an inch in thickness, and cut into round cakes.
Bake quickly.
350 BREAKFAST, LUNCHEON AND TEA.
Keep in a dry place in a tin box, but do not wrap
them up, as they are apt to become soft.
Carraway Cooxtms, mf.
3 poner ee rubbed to a cream.
4 pound of sugar,
3 eggs, beaten Rise and light.
1 ounce carraway eae see through the flour.
Flour to roll out pretty stiff.
Roll into a thin sheet ; cut out with a cake-cutter ;
prick with a sharp fork, and bake in a moderate oven.
SmaLL ArtMonpD Caxkzs.
1 pound of powdered sugar
6 eggs, beaten very hate
, Aeneid of almonds, blanched and pounded.
$ pound of prepared flour.
Rose-water, mixed with the almond-paste.
Whip up the whites of the eggs to a méringue with
half the sugar; stir in the almond-paste. Beat the
yolks ten minutes with the remainder of the sugar.
Mix all together, and add the flour lightly and rapidly.
Bake in well-buttered paté-pans, or other small tins,
very quickly. Turn out as soon as done upon a baking-
pan, bottom uppermost, that these may dry out.
Cream Oakss. 9 (Pretty and good.)
Some good puff- nd
Whites of 2 egos, $ cup sweet jelly.
1 cup of cream, hie to a froth.
3 table-spoonfuls powdered sugar. 5
Vanilla, or other flavoring.
CAKES. 351
Roll out the paste as for pies; cut into squares five
inches across. Ilave ready greased muflin-rings three
inches in diameter; lay one in the centre of each
square; turn up the four corners upon it, so as to make
a cup of the paste, and bake in a quick oven. When
almost done, open the oven-door, pull out the muffin-
rings with care, brush the paste cups inside and out
with beaten white of egg; sift powdered sugar over
them, and brown. ‘This operation must be performed
quickly and dexterously, that the paste may not cool.
Let them get cold after they are taken from the oven,
line with the jelly and fill with the whipped cream
sweetened and flavored.
CustarD Cakes. pf.
Some good puff-paste.
Some balls of white, clean tissue-paper.
3 or 4 table-spoonfuls powdered sugar.
2 eggs.
2 cups—more or less, of rich custard.
Roll out the paste very thin; spread it thickly with
beaten yolk of egg, and strew powdered sugar over
this. Fold up tightly ; flatten with the rolling-pin, and
roll out as for a pie-crust. Line paté-pans well greased
with this ; put a ball of soft paper within each to keep
up the top crust; put this on, lightly buttering the
inner edge, and bake quickly until nicely browned.
When almost cold, turn out of the tins, lift the top
crusts, take out the papers and cover the tops with
icing made of the whites of the eggs and powdered
sugar. Sift more sugar over this, and set in the oven
a minute or two to harden. Just before sending them
352 BREAKFAST, LUNCHEON AND TEA.
to table fill with custard ; replace the frosted covers,
and serve.
They are very good. It is well to thicken the cus-
tard with a little corn-starch.
QurEN CAKES. >/
1 cup of butter.
2 cups of sugar.
3% cups of flour.
$ cup of cream.
4 eggs.
$ pound of currants.
+ pound sweet almonds, blanched aud pounded.
% teaspoonful soda, dissolved in hot water.
1 teaspoonful of cream of tartar, sifted in flour.
Rose-water, worked into almond-paste.
Beat butter and sugar to a cream, add the yolks and
almond-paste. Whip all together for five minutes be-
fore putting in the cream, the soda-water, whites and
flour alternately ; finally the fruit dredged with flour.
Stir thoroughly, and bake in small tins well buttered.
They should be done in from twenty to thirty min-
utes. Ice them with lemon frosting on the tops only.
SMALL Cirron Cakes,
6 eggs.
4 pound of butter.
% pound sugar, creamed with the butter.
# pound of prepared flour.
1 glass best brandy.
¢ pound citron, shred fine.
Nutmeg to taste.
CAKES. is
Beat the creamed butter and sugar up with the
yolks; add the brandy, and whip Aard five minutes ;
then the flour, whites, and the citron shred fine and
dredged with flour. Bake in small tins very quickly.
They keep well.
SEED WAFERS.
$ pound of sugar.
4 pound of butter, creamed with the sugar.
4 egos, beaten very light.
Enough flour for soft dough.
1 ounce carraway-seeds, mixed with the dry flour.
Mix well; roll into a very thin paste. Cut into
round cakes, brush each over with the white of an egg,
sift powdered sugar upon it, and bake in a brisk oven
about ten minutes, or until crisp. Do not take them
from the baking-tins until nearly cold, as they are apt
to break while hot.
GIncER Cooxtzrs. »f«
1 cup of butter.
2 cups of sugar, creamed with the butter.
4+ cup of milk, with a pinch of soda in it.
2 eggs.
1 table-spoonful ginger.
4 grated nutmeg.
4 teaspoonful of cinnamon.
Ilour for stiff dough.
Roll very thin; cut into round cakes, and bake
quickly until crisp.
They will keep a long time.
oo+ BREAKFAST, LUNCHEON AND TEA.
GincEeR Snaps. (Large quantity.)
1 pound of butter.
2 pounds of flour.
1} pounds of sugar.
6 eggs, beaten very light.
1 great spoonful of ginger.
1 teaspoonful mixed cloves and cinnamon.
Roll as thin as wafer-dough. Cut into small, round
cakes, and bake crisp. Let them get cooi before put-
ting them away, or they may soften.
F'riep JUMBLEs.
2 egos. .
1 cup of sugar,
4 table-spoonfuls of butter,
1 cup of milk.
1 teaspoonful of soda.
2 teaspoonfuls of cream of tartar.
4 cups of flour, or enough for soft dough.
Season to taste with nutmeg.
Roll into a sheet nearly an inch thick. Cut into
shapes, and fry in boiling lard, as you would crullers.
Drain. off every drop of fat; sift powdered sugar over
the cakes while hot, and eat fresh.
rubbed to a cream.
Genuine Scotcu Suorr Breap. ( Very fine.)
2 pounds flour.
1 pound best butter.
Scant 4 pound of sugar.
Wash all particles of salt from the butter. Rub
this and the sugar together to a cream, as for loaf cake.
CAKES. 3 Y95)
The flour should be dry and slightly warm. Mix this
into the creamed butter and sugar gently and gradually
with the hand, until all the ingredients are thoroughly
incorporated. The longer it is kneaded the better it
will be. Lay it on a pasteboard, and press into sheets
nearly half an inch thick with the hand, as rolling has
a tendency to toughen it. Cut into such shapes as you
may desire—into oblong, or square cards; prick or
stamp a pattern on top (I have seen the Scotch thistle
pricked upon it) and bake in a moderate oven until it
is crisp, and of a fine yellow brown.
It delights me to be able to make public this receipt,
for the excellent housewife and friend, from whom I
have procured it, is a native of the “land o’ cakes,”
and, as I can testify from repeated and satisfactory
proofs thereof, makes the most delicious “short bread ”
that was ever eaten in this country—quite another
thing from the rank, unctuous compound vended under
that name by professional bakers and confectioners.
THA.
THE evening meal, call it by whatever name we
may, is apt to be the most social one of the three which
are the rule in this land. The pressure of the busi-
ness allotted to the hours of daylight is over. The
memory and the conversation of each one who comes
to the feast, are richer by the history of another day. It
is sometimes hard to “make talk” for the breakfast
table. The talk of the six o'clock p.m. dinner, or
supper, or tea, makes itself. I frankly own that, how-
ever much may be said in favor, on hygienic grounds,
of early meals for the nursery, the mid-day dinner for
adults has always worn for me a grim, and certainly an
unpoetical aspect. The “nooning” should, for the
worker with muscles, nerves, or brains, be a light re-
past and easily digested, followed by real physical rest.
He is weary when he comes to it; he eats in haste, his
mind intent upon the afternoon’s work, and he may not
tarry when it is dispatched, having already “lost” an
hour in discussing (or bolting) soup, salad, fish, meat
and dessert. The weight of undigested food seems,
during the succeeding hours of business or study, to
shift its position and clog and heat the brain.
“T will not preach to roast-beef and plum-pudding! ”
said America’s greatest preacher, in refusing to hold a
Sabbath afternoon service.
TRA, 857
People quoted the bon mot approvingly. Few had
common sense enough to apply it to week-day occupa-
tions. If men and women would rest, after au early
dinner on Monday, Tnesday, Wednesday, Thursday,
Triday and Saturday, as long and absolutely as they
do on Sabbath afternoons, there would be less money
made, perhaps, but fewer stomachs destroyed, and fewer
intellects overstrained.
This, however, as Paul candidly remarks touching
certain of his deliverances—“ I say of mine own judg-
ment.” And, after all, | should be the sorriest of the
sorry to see the tea-table swept out of American
households. While I write, there come stealing back
to me recollections that tempt me to draw my pen
through some lines I have just set down. Late dinners
and late suppers used to be the fashion, seldom
altered—in Southern homes. In summer, the latter
were always eaten by artificial light. In winter, lamps
were brought in with the dessert, at dinner-time. I
was almost grown before I was introduced to what the
valued correspondent who gave us the text for the first
“ Wamiliar Talk ” in this volume calls, “a real old New
England tea-table.” During one delicious vacation I
learned, and reveled in knowing, what this meant.
Black tea with cream, (I have never relished it without,
since that idyllic summer) rounds of brown bread,
light, sweet, and fresh; hot short-cake in piles that
were very high when we sat down, and very low when
we arose ; a big glass bowl of raspberries and currants
that were growing in the garden under the back win-
dows an hour before ; a basket of frosted cake ; a plate
of pink ham, balanced by one of shaved, not chipped
358 BREAKFAST, LUNCHEON AND TEA.
beef—and sage cheese! I had never eaten it before.
I have never tasted it anywhere else than in that wide,
cool tea-room, the level sun-rays flickering through the
grape-vines shading the west side of the house, and
through the open casements opposite, a view of Boston
bay—all purple and rose and gold, dotted with hun-
dreds of white sails. This was what we had, when, in
that Old New England farm-house, Polly, the faithful
—who had startled me, for a time, by saying, “ proper
glad,” and “sweet pretty ;” who “hadn’t ought ” to do
this, and “should admire” to do that—Polly, whom
nobody thought of calling a servant, but was a “ help”
in every conceivable sense of the word—had““ put the
kettle on and we all had tea!”
Ido not like to think it possible that in that beloved
homestead they may have kept up with the times so
far as to have dinner at six o’clock, and tea—never!
1t is a pleasant practice, in many families, where
the late dinner is convenient, and, for many reasons,
preferred during the rest of the week, to have a “ com-
fortable tea” on Sabbath evening. The servants are
thus released the earlier for their evening’s devotions
or recreations; the housewife has an opportunity of
indulging the father, who is seldom at home at lunch-
eon-time, with dainty wonders of her skill that are not
en regle at dinner, and the children have a taste of old-
fashioned home-life, the memory of which will be
carried by them as long and fondly into their after-
_lives as I have borne the taste and fragrance of Cousin
Melissa’s sage cheese. We do not say “Cousin,” now-
adays in polite society, nor christen our children
Melissa. You will find elsewhere in this book that I
TEA, 309
have directed you, as preliminary to frosting fruit for
dessert-—peaches, apricots and nectarines—first to rub
off the down (which makes the softness of the blush)
with a rough cloth.
It may be a weakness, but I, for one, like to remem-
ber while admiring the pretty conceit of the glacé
peach, how it looked before it was rubbed bright, and
sugar-coated.
BEVERAGES.
Tra A LA Russe.
Suickr fresh, juicy lemons; pare them carefully, lay
a piece in the bottom of each cup; sprinkle with white
sugar and pour the tea, very hot and strong, over them.
Or,
Send around the sliced lemon with the cups of tea,
that each person may squeeze in the juice to please
himself. Some leave the peel on, and profess to like
the bitter flavor which it imparts tothe beverage. The
truth is, the taste for this (now) fashionable refresh-
ment is so completely an acquired liking, that you had
best leave to your guests the matter of “peel on” or
“peel off.’ There are those whom not even fashion
can reconcile to the peculiar “smack” of lemon-rind
after it has been subjected to the action of a boiling
lignid.
Tea a la Russe is generally, if not invariably drunk
without cream, and is plentifully sweetened. It is very
popular at the “high teas” and “kettle-drums,” so
much in vogue at this time,—tea being to women, say
the cynics, a species of mild intoxicant, of which they
are not to be defrauded by evening dinners and their
sequitur of black coffee. Others, who cleave to an-
cient customs, and distrust innovations of all kinds,
will have it that the popularity of these feminine
carousals has its root in remorseful hankering after the
BEVERAGES. o61
almost obsolete “family tea.” “Since there must be
fashionable follies,’ growl these critics, “this is as
harmless as any that can be devised, and is, assuredly,
less disastrous to purse and health than an evening
crush and supper.”
I‘or once, we say “Amen” to the croakers. The
“kettle-drum” is objectionable in nothing except its
absurd name, and marks a promising era in the history
of American party-giving.
Cotp TEA.
Mixed tea is better cold than either black or green
alone. Set it aside after breakfast, for luncheon or
for tea, straining it into a perfectly clean and sweet
bottle, and burying it in the ice. When ready to use
it, you must filla goblet three-quarters of the way to
the top with the clear tea; sweeten it more lavishly
than you would hot, and fill up the glass with cracked
ice. It is a delicious beverage in summer. Drink
without cream.
\
Iczep TEA A LA Russe.
To each goblet of cold tea (without cream), add the
juice of half a lemon. [ill up with pounded ice, and
sweeten well. A glass of champagne added to this
makes what is called Russian punch.
Tra MiILK-PUNCH.
1 ege beaten very light.
1 small glass new milk.
_ 1 cup very hot tea.
Sugar to taste.
16
362 BREAKFAST, LUNCHEON AND TBA.
Beat a teaspoonful or so of sugar with the ege; stir
in the milk and then the hot tea, beating all up well
together, and sweetening to taste. This is a palatable
mixture, and is valuable for invalids who suffer much
from weakness, or the peculiar sensation known as a
“ eold stomach.”
A “Cozy” ror A TEAPOT.
This is not an article of diet, yet an accessory to good
tea-making and enjoyable tea-drinking that deserves to
be better known in America. It is a wadded cover or
bag made of crotcheted worsted, or of silk, velvet or
cashmere, stitched or embroidered as the maker may
fancy, with a stout ribbon-elastic drawn loosely in the
bottom. This is put over the teapot so soon as the tea
is poured into it, and will keep the contents of the pot
warm for an hour or more. Those who have known
the discomfort, amounting to actual nausea, produced
by taking a draught of lukewarm tea into an empty
or weary stomach; or whose guests or families are
apt to keep them waiting for their appearance at
table until the “cheering ” (if hot) “ beverage ” lowers
in temperature and quality so grievously that it must
be remanded to the kitchen, and an order for fresh
issued—will at once appreciate’ the importance of
this simple contrivance for keeping up the heat of our
“mild intoxicant” and keeping the temper of the
priestess at the tea-tray down.
CorreE with WuiprPEp CREAM.
For six cups of coffee, of fair size, you will need
about one cup of sweet cream, whipped light with a
BEVERAGES. 863
little sugar. Put into each cup the desired amount of
sugar, and about a table-spoonful of boiling milk. Pour
the coffee over these, and lay upon the surface of the
hot liquid a large spoonful of the frothed cream.
Give a gentle stir to each cup before sending them
around. This is known to some as méringued coffee, and
is an elegant French preparation of the popular drink.
FrotHep Caré& av Larr.
1 quart strong, clear coffee, strained through muslin.
1 scant quart boiling milk.
Whites of 3 eggs, beaten stiff.
1 table-spoonful powdered sugar, whipped with the
eggs. |
Your coffee urn must be scalded clean, and while it
is hot, pour in the coffee and milk alternately, stirring
gently. Cover; wrap a thick cloth about the urn for
five minutes, before it goes to table. Have ready in a
cream-pitcher the whipped and sweetened whites. Put
a large spoonful upon each cup of coffee as you pour
it out, heaping it slightly in the centre.
Froruep Cuocotate. (Very good.)
1 cup of boiling water.
8 pints of fresh milk.
3 table-spoonfuls Baker’s chocolate, grated.
5 eggs, the whites only, beaten light.
2 table-spoonfuls of sugar, powdered for froth.
Sweeten the chocolate to taste. )
Heat the milk to scalding. Wet up the chocolate
with the boiling water and when the milk is hot, stir
this into it. Simmer gently ten minutes, stirring fre-
364 BREAKFAST, LUNCHEON AND TEA.
quently. Boil up briskly once, take from the fire,
sweeten to taste, taking care not to make it too sweet,
and stir in the whites of two eggs, whipped stiff, with-
out sugar. Pour into the chocolate pot or pitcher,
which should be well heated. Have ready in a cream
pitcher, the remaining whites whipped up with the.
powdered sugar. Cover the surface of each cup with the
sweetened méringue, before distributing to the guests.
If you like, you can substitute scented chocolate
for Baker’s.
Chocolate or cocoa is a favorite luncheon beverage,
and many ladies, especially those who have spent much
time abroad, have adopted the French habit of break-
fasting upon rolls and a cup of chocolate.
MiItLED CHOCOLATE.
3 heaping table-spoonfuls of grated chocolate.
1 quart of milk.
Wet the chocolate with boiling water. Scald the
milk and stir in the chocolate-paste. Simmer ten
minutes; then, if you have no regular “ muller,” put
your sylabub-churn into the boiling liquid and churn
steadily, without taking from the fire, until it is a
yeasty froth. Pour into a chocolate-pitcher, and serve
at once.
This is esteemed a great delicacy by chocolate loy-
ers, and is easily made.
Soyrr’s Caré av Larr.
1 cup best coffee, freshly roasted, but unground.
2 cups of boiling water.
1 quart boiling milk.
‘BEVERAGES. 365
Put the coffee into a clean, dry kettle or tin pail ; fit
on a close top and set in a saucepan of boiling water.
Shake it every few moments, without opening it, until
you judge that the coffee-grains must be heated
through. If, on lifting the cover, you find that the
contents of the inner vessel are very hot and smoking,
pour over them the boiling water directly from the
tea-kettle. Cover the inner vessel closely and set on
the side of the range, where it will keep very hot with-
out boiling for twenty minutes. Then, add the boil-
ing milk, let all stand together for five minutes more,
and strain through thin muslin into the coffee-urn,
Use loaf-sugar in sweetening.
The flavor of this is said to be very fine.
Waite LemMonabe.
3 lemons.
3 cups loaf sugar.
2 glasses white wine.
2 quarts fresh milk, boiling hot.
Wash the lemons, grate all the peel from one into
a bowl; add the sugar, and squeeze the juice of the
three over these. After two hours add the wine,
and then, quickly, the boiling milk. Strain through a
flannel jelly-bag. Cool and set in the ice until wanted.
CLARET Cup.
1 (quart) bottle of claret.
1 (pint) bottle of champagne.
% pint best sherry.
2 lemons, sliced.
+ pound loaf sugar dissolved in 1 cup cold water.
366 BREAKFAST, LUNCHEON AND THA.
Let the sugar, water and sliced lemon steep together
half an hour before adding to the rest of the ingre-
dients. Shake all well together in a very large pitcher
twenty or thirty times, and make thick with pounded
ice, when you are ready to use it.
There is no better receipt for the famous “ claret
cup ” than this.
Very Fine Porrerer. —
1 pint bottle best porter.
2 glasses pale sherry.
1 lemon peeled and sliced.
4 pint ice-water.
6 or 8 lumps of loaf sugar.
4 grated nutmeg.
Pounded ice.
This mixture has been used satisfactorily by inva-
lids, for whom the pure porter was too heavy, causing
biliousness and heartburn.
GiIncER CoRDIAL.
2 table-spoonfuls ground ginger, fresh and strong.
1 lb. loaf sugar.
% pint best whiskey.
1 quart red currants.
Juice of 1 lemon.
Crush the currants in a stone vessel with a wooden
beetle, and strain them through a clean, coarse cloth,
over the sugar. Stir until the sugar is dissolved ; add
the lemon, the whiskey, and the ginger. Put it into a
demijohn or a stone jug, and set upon.the cellar-floor
for a week, shaking up vigorously every day. At the end
BEVERAGES. 367
of that time, strain through a cloth and bottle. Seal
and wire the corks, and lay the bottles on their sides
in a cool, dry place.
An excellent summer drink is made by putting two
table-spoonfuls of this mixture into a goblet of iced
water. It is far safer for quenching the thirst, when
one is overheated, than plain ice-water or lemonade.
TMirx-Puncn. (Hot.)
1 quart milk, warm from the cow.
2 glasses best sherry wine.
4 table-spoonfuls powdered sugar.
4 egos, the yolks only, beaten light.
Cinnamon and nutmeg to taste.
Bring the milk to the boiling point. Beat up the
yolks and sugar together; add the wine; pour into a
pitcher, and mix with it, stirring all the time, the
boiling milk. Pour from one vessel to another six
times, spice, and serve as soon as it can be swallowed
without scalding the throat.
This is said to be an admirable remedy for a bad
cold if taken in the first stages, just before going to
bed at night.
Muuiep ALE.
3 egos, the yolks only.
A pint of good ale.
2 table-spoonfuls loaf sugar.
A pinch of ginger, and same of nutmeg.
Heat the ale scalding hot, but do not let it quite
boil. Take from the fire and stir in the eggs beate:
with the sugar, and the spice. Pour from pitcher to
pitcher, five or six times, until it froths, and drink hot.
368 BREAKFAST, LUNCHEON AND TEA.
Mou.uep WInez.
2 egos, beaten very light with the sugar.
1 table-spoonful white sugar.
2 full glasses white wine.
, % cup boiling water.
A little nutmeg.
Heat the water, add the wine; cover closely and
bring almost to a boil. Pour this carefully over the
beaten egg and sugar; set in a vessel of boiling water
and stir constantly until it begins to thicken. Pour
into asilver goblet, grate the nutmeg on the top, and let
the invalid drink it as hot as it can be swallowed with-
out suffering.
A Summer Drink. (Very good.)
2 lbs. Catawba grapes.
3 table-spoonfuls loaf sugar.
1 cup of cold water.
Squeeze the grapes hard in a coarse cloth, when you
have picked them from the stems. Wring out every
drop of juice; add the sugar, and when this is dis-
solved, the water, surround with ice until very cold;
put a lump of ice into a pitcher, pour the mixture
upon it, and drink at once. | .
You can add more sugar if you like, or if the grapes
are not quite ripe.
Rum Miix-Punou.
1 cup milk, warm from the cow.
1 table-spoonful of best rum.
1 egg, whipped light with a little sugar.
A little nutineg.
BEVERAGES. 369
Pour the rum upon the egg-and-sugar; stir for a
moment and add the milk; strain and drink.
It is a useful stimulant for consumptives, and should
be taken before breakfast.
CLEAR Puncu.
% cup ice-water.
1 glass white wine (or very good whiskey).
White of 1 egg whipped stiff with the sugar.
1 table-spoonful of loaf sugar.
A sprig of mint.
Pounded ice.
Mix well together and give to the patient, ice-cold.
CuRRANT AND Raspperry SuRve.
4 quarts ripe currants.
3 quarts red raspberries.
4 lbs. loaf sugar.
1 quart best brandy.
Pound the fruit in a stone jar, or wide-mouthed
erock, with a wooden beetle. Squeeze out every drop
of the juice ; put this into a porcelain, enamel, or very
clean bell-metal kettle, and boil hard ten minutes.
Bring to the boil quickly, as slow heating and boiling
has a tendency to darken all acid syrups. Put in the
sugar at the end of the ten minutes, and boil up once
to throw the scum to the top. Take it off; skim, let
it get perfectly cold, skim off all remaining impurities,
add the brandy and shake hard for five minutes. Bot-
tle ; seal the corks, and lay the bottles on their sides in
dry sawdust.
Put up ae way, “shrub ” will keep several years,
370 BREAKFAST, LUNCHEON AND TEA.
and be the better for age. It is a refreshing and slight-
ly medicinal drink, when mixed with iced water.
STRAWBERRY SHRUB.
4 quarts of ripe strawberries.
The juice of 4 lemons.
4 ibs. of loaf sugar.
1 pint best brandy, or colorless whiskey.
Mash the berries and squeeze them through a bag.
Add the strained lemon-juice; bring quickly to a fast
boil, and after it has boiled five minutes, put in the
sugar and cook five minutes more. Skim as it cools,
and, when quite cold, add the brandy. Be sure that
your bottles are perfectly clean. Rinse them out with
soda-and-water; then, with boiling water. The corks
must be new. Soak them in cold water; drive into
the bottles ; cut off even with the top; seal with bees-
wax and rosin, melted in equal quantities, and lay the
bottles on their sides in dry sawdust.
Strawberries, preserved in any way, do not keep so
well as some other fruits. ence, more care must be
taken in putting them up.
Lemon Surv.
Juice of 6 lemons, and grated peel of two.
Grated peel of 1 orange.
3 lbs. loaf sugar.
3 pints of cold water.
8 pints of brandy or white whidheg
Steep the grated peel in the brandy for two days.
Boil the sugar-and-water to a thick syrup, and when it
is coo}, strain into it the lemon-juice and the liquor.
BEVERAGES. ois
Shake up well for five minutes, and bottle. Seal the
bottles and lay them on their sides.
CuRAGOA.
Grated peel and the juice of 4 fine oranges.
1 lb. of rock-candy.
1 cup of cold water.
1 teaspoonful cinnamon.
4 teaspoonful nutmeg.
A pinch of cloves.
1 pint very fine brandy.
Break the candy to pieces in a mortar, or, by pound-
ing it ina cloth, cover with cold water and heat toa
boil, by which time the candy should be entirely dis-
solved. Add the orange-juice, boil up once and take
from the fire. When cold, skim, put in the spices,
peel, and brandy; put it into a stone jug, and let it
stand for a fortnight in a cool place. Shake every
day, and at the end of that time strain through flan-
nel, and bottle.
This is an excellent flavoring for pudding sauces,
custards, trifles, ete. For tipsy Charlottes and like
desserts, it is far superior to brandy or wine.
Novyav.
4 pound sweet almonds.
Juice of 3 lemons, and grated peel of one.
2 pounds loaf sugar.
3 teaspoonfuls extract of bitter-almonds.
2 table-spoonfuls clear honey.
1 pint best brandy.
1 table-spoonful orange-flower water.
372 BREAKFAST, LUNCHEON AND TEA.
Blanch and pound the almonds, mixing the orange.
flower water with them to prevent oiling. Add the
sugar and brandy, and let these ingredients lie together
for two days, shaking the jug frequently. Put in the
lemon, honey and flavoring; shake hard, and leave in
the jug a week longer, shaking it every day.
Strain through very fine muslin, bottle and seal.
The flavor of this is delicious in custards, ete. Asa
beverage, it must be mixed with ice-water.
Rost Syrup.
1} pound of fresh rose-leaves.
2 pounds loaf sugar.
Whites of 2 eggs, whipped light. ©
1 pint best brandy.
1 quart cold water.
Boil the sugar and water to a clear syrup, beat in the
whites of the eggs, and, when it has boiled up again
well, take from the fire. Skim as it cools, and when a
little more than blood-warm, pour it over half a pound
of fresh rose-leaves. Cover it closely, and let it alone
for twenty-four hours. Strain, and put in the second
supply of leaves. On the third day put in the last half
pound, and on the fourth, strain through a muslin bag.
Add the brandy; strain again through a double linen
bag, shake well and bottle.
This liqueur is delightful as a beverage, mixed with
iced water, and invaluable where rose-flavor is desired
for custards, creams or icing.
In the height of the rose-season, the requisite quan-
tity of leaves may easily be procured. The receipt is
nearly fifty years old.
BEVERAGES. ote
ORANGE CREAM.
12 large, very sweet oranges.
2 pounds loaf sugar.
1 quart milk, warm from the cow.
1 quart best French brandy.
Grate the peel from three of the oranges, and reserve
for use in preparing the liqueur. Peel the rest, and
use the juice only. Pour this with the brandy over the
sugar and grated rind ; put into a stone jug, and let it
stand three days, shaking twice a day.
Then boil the milk, which must be new, and pour hot
over the mixture, stirring it in well. Cover closely.
When it is quite cold, strain through a flannel bag.
Put in clean, sweet bottles, seal the corks, and lay the
bottles on their sides in sawdust.
It will keep well, but will be fit for drinking in a
week. Mix withiced water as a beverage. It is a fine
flavoring liqueur for trifles, ete.
VANILLA LIQUEUR.
4 fresh vanilla beans.
4 pounds loaf sugar.
1 quart cold water.
1 pint best brandy, or white whiskey.
Split the beans and cut intoinch lengths. Put them
to soak in the brandy for three days. Boil the sugar
and water until it is a thick, clear syrup. Skim well,
and strain the vanilla brandy into it. Shake, and pour
into small bottles.
I have called this a liqueur, but it is so highly
flavored as to be unfit for drinking, except as it is used
374 BREAKFAST, LUNCHEON AND THA.
in small quantities in effervescing beverages. But it
imparts an exquisite flavor to creams, whips, cakes, etc.,
that cannot be obtained from the distilled extracts.
The receipt was given to me as a modern prize by
an expert in cookery, but in reading it over there
floated to me a delicious breath from a certain store-
room, the treasures of which to my childish imagina-
tion rivalled those of the “island of delights,” where
the streams were curagoa and capillaire, and the rocks
loaf sugar. Led by this wandering zephyr of early as-
sociation, I did not cease my rummaging until I un-
earthed the same receipt from an old cookery-book be-
queathed to me by my mother.
FLAVORING EXTRACTS.
LEMON.
The peel of 6 lemons.
1 quart white whiskey or brandy.
Cut the rind into thin shreds; half fill three or four
wide-mouthed bottles with it, and pour the spirits upon
it. Cork tightly, and shake now and then for the first
month. ‘This will keep for years, and be better for
age. It has this. advantage over the distilled extract
sold in the stores—country-stores especially, lemon ex-
tract being especially liable to spoil if kept for a few
months, and tasting, when a little old, unfortunately
like spirits of turpentine.
ORANGE.
Prepare as you would lemon-peel. Put into small
bottles. It is said to be an excellent stomachic taken
in the proportion of a teaspoonful to a glass of iced
water, and slightly sweetened.
It is very nice for flavoring the icing of orange cake.
VANILLA.
2 vanilla beans.
4 pint white whiskey.
Split the bean, and clip with your scissors into
bits, scraping out the seeds which possess the finest
flavoring qualities. Put the seed and husks into the
376 ' BREAKFAST, LUNCHEON AND TEA.
bottom of a small bottle; fill up with the spirits, and
cork tightly. Shake it often for a few weeks, after
which it will be fit for use—and never spod.
Birrer ALMOND.
4 pound of bitter almonds.
1 pint white whiskey.
Blanch the almonds, and shred (not pound them),
using for this purpose a sharp knife that will not bruise
the kernels. Put them into a wide-mouthed bottle;
pour in the spirits, cork tightly ; shake every other day
for a fortnight. It will then be fit for use. Strain it
as you have occasion to use it, throngh a bit of cloth
held over the mouth of the bottle.
I introduce these directions for the domestic manu-
facture of such extracts as are most used in cooking,
chiefly, but not altogether for the benefit of country
readers. The land—town and country—is so deluged
now with makers and peddlers of “ flavoring extracts,”
that some, of necessity, must be indifferent in quality, if
not hurtful. I have purchased from a _ respectable
druggist in a large city, rose-water that smelled like
ditch-water, and tasted worse; essence of lemon that
could not be distinguished by the sense of taste or smell
from varnish; and vanilla that was like nothing I had
ever tasted or smelled before—least of all like helio-
trope, new-mown hay, or vanilla-bean.
The answer to my complaint in each of these cases
was the same. “I cannot understand it,madam. The
extract is of Our Own Make, and there is no better in
the American market ! ”
BEVERAGES. 377
In country stores the risk of getting a poor article is
of course much greater. To this day, I recall with a
creep of the flesh that drives a cold moisture to the
surface, the unspoken (at the moment) agony with
- which I detected something wrong, and very far wrong
in some nice-looking custards, the manufacture of
which I had myself superintended, and that formed
the staple of the dessert, to which I set down a couple
of unexpected guests. As the first spoonful touched
my tongue, I looked at John, and John looked (pity-
ingly) at me! By mutual consent, we began to press
the fruit upon our friends, and I hastened the entrance
of the coffee-tray.
After dinner, we snatched a few words from one
another, aside. |
“The cook’s carelessness!” said he. “ She got hold
of the liniment-bottle by mistake.”
“Tt was a fresh bottle of ‘pure vanilla!’” answered
Isolemnly. “I saw her draw the cork! ”
It was after this experience that I was assured there
was “no better article in the American market.”
PRESERVED FRUITS, CAN.
DIES, ETC
AppLteE Marmanabe. pfs
2 or 8 dozen tart, juicy apples, pared, cored and
sliced.
A. little cold water.
# pound of sugar to every pint of juice.
Juice of 2 lemons.
Stew the apples until tender, in just enough cold |
water to cover them. Drain off the juice through a
cullender, and put into a porcelain or enamel kettle ;
stirring into it three-quarters of a pound of sugar for
every pint of the liquid.. Boil until it begins to jelly ;
strain the lemon-juice into it; put in the apples and
stew pretty fast, stirring almost constantly, until the
compote is thick and smooth. (If the apples are not
soft all through, you had better rub them through the
cullender before adding them to the boiling syrup.)
Put up the marmalade in small jars or cups, and
paste paper covers over them as you would jelly, hay-
ing first fitted a round of tissue-paper, dipped in
brandy, upon the surface of the marmalade. Keep
cool and dry. | .
The simple precaution of covering jellies, jams, and
marmalade with brandied tissne-paper, will save the
housekeeper much anneyance and inconvenience by
protecting the conserve from mould. Should the fun-
PRESERVED FRUIT, CANDIES, ETC. 379
gus form inside the upper cover, the inner will effect-
ually shield the precious sweet. I have seen the space
left by the shrinking of the cooled jelly between it and
the metallic, or paper cover of the glass, or jar, com-
pletely filled with blue-gray mould—a miniature forest
that might appear well under the microscope, but was
hideous to housewifely eyes. Yet, when the tissue-
paper was carefully removed, the jelly was seen to be
bright, firm, and unharmed in flavor as in appearance.
PEAR AND Quince MarMA.aDE. pfx
2 dozen juicy pears.
10 fine, ripe quinces.
Juice of 3 lemons.
2 pound of sugar to every pound of fruit after it is
ready for cooking.
A little cold water.
Pare and core the fruit, and throw it into cold water
while you stew parings and cores in a little water to
make the syrup. When they have boiled to pieces
strain off the liquid; when cold, put in the sliced fruit
and bring toafast boil. It should be thick and smooth
before the sugar and lemon-juice go in. Cook steadily
an hour longer, working with a wooden spoon to a rich
jelly. When done, put into small jars while warm, but
do not cover until cold.
ORANGE MarMALaDE. Pa
18 sweet, ripe oranges.
6 pounds best white sugar.
Grate the peel from four oranges, and reserve it for
the marmalade. The rinds of the rest will not be
230 BREAKFAST, LUNCHEON AND TEA,
needed. Pare the fruit carefully, removing the inmer
white skin as well as the yellow. Slice the orange; re.
move the seeds; put the frnit and grated peel in a
porcelain or enamel saucepan (if the latter, those made
by Lalange and Grosjean are the best), and boil stead-
ily until the pulp is reduced to a smooth mass. Take
from the fire and rub quickly through a clean, bright
cullender, as the color is easily injured. Stir in the
sugar, return to the fire, and boil fast, stirring con-
stantly half an hour, or until thick. Put while warm
into small jars, but do not cover until cold.
Lhis is a handsome and delicious sweetmeat.
DutunpDEE ORANGE MARMALADE.
12 fine, ripe oranges.
4 pounds white sugar—the best.
3 lemons—all the juice, and the rind of one lemon.
Cut the peel of four oranges into small dice, and the
rind of one lemon. Stew them in clear water until
tender. Slice and seed the oranges; put them into a
preserving-kettle with the juice of the lemons and cook
until all are boiled down to a smooth pulp. Rub this
through a cullender; return to the saucepan with the
sugar, and keep at a fast boil until quite thick. Stir
in the “ dice ” from which the water has been drained ;
boil two minutes longer and pour into small jars.
Cover with brandied tissue-paper when quite cold,
pressed close to the surface of the marmalade, then,
with metal or stout paper tops.
All marmalade should be stirred constantly after the
sugar goes In.
Us aris or granulated sugar for ales marmalade
PRESERVED FRUIT, CANDIES, ETC. 381
—not powdered. The crystals are said to make it
more sparkling.
Canpiep CHERRIES.
2 quarts large, ripe, red cherries, stoned eurefir'ly.
2 lbs. loaf sugar.
1 cup water.
Make a syrup of the sugar and water and boil until
it is thick enough to “ pull,” as for candy. Remove to
the side of the range, and stir until it shows signs of
granulation. It is well to stir frequently while it is
cooking, to secure this end. When there are grains, or
-erystals on the spoon, drop in the cherries, a few at a
time. Let each supply lie in the boiling syrup two
minutes, when remove toa sieve set overa dish. Shake
gently but long, then turn the cherries out upon a cool,
broad dish, and dry in a sunny window.
GLACE CHERRIES.
Make as above, but do not let the syrup granulate.
It should not be stirred at all, but when it “ropes,”
pour it over the cherries, which should be spread
out upon a large, flat dish. When the syrup is almost
cold, take these out, one by one, with a teaspoon, and
spread upon a dish to dry in the open air.
If nicely managed, these are nearly as good as those
put up by professional confectioners. Keep in a dry,
cool place.
Canpiep Lremon-PEEt.
12 fresh, thick-skinned lemons.
4 lbs. loaf sugar. A little powdered alum.
3 cups clear water.
382 BREAKFAST, LUNCHEON AND TEA.
Cut the peel from the lemons in long, thin strips,
and lay in strong salt and water all night. Wash
them in three waters next morning, and boil them until
tender in soft water. They should be almost trans-
lucent, but not so soft as to break. Dissolve a little
alum—about half a teaspoonful, when powdered—in
enough cold water to cover the peel, and let it lie in it
for two hours. By this time the syrup should be ready.
Stir the sugar into three cups of water, add the sirain-
ed juice of three lemons and boil it until it “ropes ”
from the end of the spoon. Put the lemon-peels into
this, simmer gently half an hour; take them out and
spread upon a sieve. Shake, not hard, but often, tossing
up the peels now and then, until they are almost dry.
Sift granulated sugar over them and lay out upon a
table spread with a clean cloth. Admit the air freely,
and, when perfectly dry, pack in a glass jar.
Marie Syrovp. ef
6 lbs. maple sugar—pure.
6 large coffee-cups of water.
Break the sugar to pieces with a stone or hammer;
-eover with the water—cold—and let it stand until it is
nearly, or quite melted. Put over the fire and bring
to a gentle boil, leaving the kettle uncovered. Boil,
without stirring, until it is a pretty thick syrup.
If possible, buy maple sugar direct from the “ sugar
camps,” or their vicinity, and in large blocks. The
“pretty scolloped cakes offered by peanut venders at
treble the price of the genuine article, are largely
adulterated with other substances.
PRESERVED FRUIT, CANDIES, ETC. 383 ©
CRANBERRIES.
Instead of expending my own time in covering a
couple of sheets of -paper with receipts touching this
invaluable berry, | would direct the reader’s attention
to the very admirable and comprehensive circular issued
by Messrs. C. G. anp E. W. Cranz, as an accompani-
ment to their “First Premium: Star Brand Cran-
berries,” raised in Ocean County, New Jersey. Ihave
never seen finer, or tasted more delicious berries than
those sent out with their stamp upon the crates, and I
consider that Iam doing my fellow-housekeepers a sub-
stantial service by this unqualified commendation of
the same. ‘The berries are larger, firmer and of richer
flavor than those one is accustomed to see in the markets
(and to buy, knowing no better), and certainly delivered
in a more sightly and wholesome condition.
The receipts go with them, and are clear, safe, and
excellent.
The plantations on which the “Star Berries” are
grown are in Cassville, Ocean County, New Jersey.
Pranur Oanpy. (Very nice.)
1 scant pint of molasses.
4 quarts of peanuts, measured before they are shelled.
2 table-spoonfuls of vanilla.
1 teaspoonful of soda.
Boil the molasses until it hardens in cold water,
when dropped from the spoon. Stir in the vanilla—
then the soda,dry. Lastly, the shelled peanuts. ‘Turn
out into shallow pans well buttered, and press it down
smooth with a wooden spoon.
* 384 BREAKFAST, LUNCHEON AND TEA.
I can heartily recommend the candy made according
to this receipt as being unrivalled of its kind.
The molasses should be good in quality, and the
peanuts freshly roasted.
Dorry Divete’s Vinegar Canpy. ea
3 cups white sugar.
1} cups clear vinegar.
Stir the sugar into the vinegar until thoroughly dis-
solved; heat to a gentle boil and stew, uncovered,
until it ropes from the tip of the spoon. Turn ont
upon broad dishes, well buttered, and cool. * So soon.
as you are able to handle it without burning your
fingers, begin to pull it, using only the tips of your
fingers. It can be “pulled” beautifully white and
porous.
Those who have read Sophie May’s delightful “ Lit-
tle Prudy,” and “Dotty Dimple” series, will remem-
ber the famous “ vinegar candy.”
Lemon-Cruam Canpy. rf
6 pounds best white sugar.
Strained juice of 2 lemons.
Grated peel of 1 lemon.
1 teaspoonful of soda.
3 cups clear water.
Steep the grated peel of the lemon in the juice for
an hour; strain, squeezing the cloth hard to get out all
the strength. Pour the water over the sugar, and, when
nearly dissolved, set it over the fire and bring to a boil.
Stew steadily until it hardens in cold water; stir in the
PRESERVED FRUIT, CANDIES, ETO. B85
lemon; boil one-minute; add the dry soda, stirring in
well; and, instantly, turn out upon broad, shallow
dishes. Pull, as soon as you can handle it, into
long white ropes, and cut into lengths when brittle.
Vanilla cream candy is made in the same way, with
the substitution of vanilla flavoring for the lemon-juice
and peel.
These home-made candies furnish pleasant diversions
for the children on winter evening and rainy days,
and are far more wholesome than those sold in the
shops.
CHocoLAte CARAMELS.
1 cup rich, sweet cream.
1 cup brown sugar.
1 cup white sugar.
7 table-spoonfuls vanilla chocolate.
1 table-spoonful corn-starch, stirred into the cream.
1 table-spoonful of butter.
Vanilla flavoring.
Soda, the size of a pea, stirred into cream.
Boil all the ingredients except the chocolate and
vanilla extract, half an hour, stirring to prevent burn-
ing. Ieserve half of the cream and wet up the choco-
late in it, adding a very little water if necessary.
Draw the saucepan to the side of the range, and stir
this in well; put back on the fire and boil ten minutes
longer, quite fast, stirring constantly. When it makes
a hard glossy coat on the spoon, it is done. Add the
vanilla after taking it from the range. Turn into
shallow dishes well buttered. When cold enough to
retain the impression of the knife, cut into squares.
Li
386 BREAKFAST, LUNCHEON AND TBA.
Marsiep Cream Canpy. (Good.)
4 cups white sugar.
1 cup rich sweet cream.
1 cup water.
1 table-spoonful of butter.
1 table-spoonful vinegar. 7
Bit of soda the size of a pea, stirred in cream.
Vanilla extract.
3 table-spoonfuls of chocolate— grated.
Boil all the ingredients except half the cream, the
chocolate and vanilla, together very fast until it is a
thick, ropy syrup. Heat in a separate saucepan the
reserved cream, into which you must have rubbed the
grated chocolate. Let it stew until quite thick, and
when the candy is done, add a cupful of it to this,
stirring in well.
Turn the uncolored syrup out upon broad dishes,
and pour upon it, here and there, great spoonfuls of
the chocolate mixture. Pull as soon as you can handle
it with comfort, and with the tips of your fingers only.
If deftly manipulated, it will be streaked with white
and brown. |
CHocoLATE Cream Drops.
1 cake vanilla chocolate.
3 cups of powdered sugar.
1 cup soft water.
2 table-spoonfuls corn-starch or arrow-root.
1 table-spoonful butter.
2 teaspoonfuls vanilla.
Wash from the butter every grain of salt. Stir the
PRESERVED FRUIT, CANDIES, ETC. 387
sugar and water together; mix in the corn-starch, and
bring to a boil, stirring constantly to induce granula-
tion. Boil about ten minutes, when add the butter.
Take from the fire and beat as you would eggs, until
it begins to look like granulated cream. Put in the
vanilla; butter your hands well, make the cream into
balls about the size of a large marble, and lay upon a
greased dish.
Meanwhile, the chocolate should have been melted
by putting it (grated fine) into a tin pail or saucepan
and plunging it into another of boiling water. When
it is a black syrup, add about two table-spoonfuls of
powdered sugar to it, beat smooth, turn out upon a hot
dish, and roll the cream-balls in it until sufficiently
coated. Lay upon a cold dish to dry, taking care that
they do not touch one another.
SucarR Canpy.f
6 cups of white sugar.
3 cup of butter.
2 table-spoonfuls of vinegar.
4 teaspoonful of soda.
1 cup cold water. Vanilla flavoring.
Pour water and vinegar upon the sugar, and let
them stand, without stirring, until the sugar is melted.
Set over the fire and boil fast until it “ropes.” Put
in the butter; boil hard two minutes longer, add the
dry soda, stir it in and take at once from the fire.
Flavor when it ceases to effervesce.
Turn out upon greased dishes, and pull with the tips
of your fingers until white.
THE SCRAP-BAG.
For Suppen Hoarsynuss. pf
Roast a lemon in the oven, turning now and then,
that all sides may be equally cooked. It should not
crack, or burst, but be soft all through. Just before
going to bed take the lemon (which should be very
hot), cut a piece from the top, and fill it with as much
white sugar as it will hold.
“ Chock-full—do you mean?” asked an old gentle-
man to whom I recommended the palatable remedy.
“If that is very full—pressed down, and running
over—I mean chock-full!” I replied.
Eat all the sugar, filling the lemon with more, as you
find it becoming acid.
This simple remedy induces gentle perspiration, be-
sides acting favorably upon the clogged membranes of
the throat. I have known it to prove wonderfully efi-
cacious in removing severe attacks of hoarseness.
ANOTHER,
And far less pleasant prescription, is a teaspoonful of
vinegar made thick with common salt. Having my-
self been, in earlier years, more than once the grateful
victim of its severely benevolent agency, I cannot but
endorse the dose.
But—try the lemon first.
THE SCRAP-BAG. 389
For Sorz Turoar. es
1 drachm chlorate of potassa dissolved in 1 cupful
of hot water.
Let it cool; take a table-spoonful three times a day,
and gargle with the same, every hour.
Before retiring at night, rub the outside of the
throat, especially the soft portions opposite the ton-
sils, with a little cold water, made so thick with com-
mon salt that the crystals will scratch the skin smartly.
Do this faithfully until there is a fair degree of external
irritation ; then, bind a bit of flannel about the throat.
Free use of cracked or pounded ice is also admir-
able for sore throat of every kind. The patient
should hold bits of ice in his mouth and let them slow-
ly dissolve.
Desperate cases of ulcerated sore throat are some-
times relieved by the constant use of this and the
chlorate of potassa gargle.
For a Covuan.
Eat slowly, three or four times a day, six lumps of
sugar, saturated with the very dest whiskey you can get.
Having tested this “old woman’s prescription” for
myself, and found in it the messenger of healing to a
cough of several months’ standing which had set phy-
sicians and cod-liver oil at defiance, I write it down
here without scruples or doubt.
For CuoLtera Symptoms, >fa
Summer complaint, or any of the numerous forms
of diseased bowels—pin a bandage of red flannel as
390 BREAKFAST, LUNCHEON AND TEA.
tightly about the abdomen as is consistent with com,
fort, having first heated it well at the fire or register.
The application is inexpressibly soothing to the racked
and inflamed intestines, and will, sometimes, combined
with perfect quiet on the part of the patient, and judi-
cious diet, cure even dysentery without medicine. Per-
sons who have chronic maladies of this class should
wear the red flannel bandage coustantly.
For years, this has been my invariable treatment of
the disorders which are, particularly in the summer,
the torment of children and terror of mothers, and the
results have been most gratifying. I keep in what
may be called my “accident drawer,’ red flannel,
divided into bandages of various lengths, and to these
is recourse had in slight, and even violent cases, in-
stead of to drugs. If the patient is suffering in-
tense pain, steep a flannel pad large enough to cover
the affected part,in hot spirits (you may add a little
landanum in severe cases) and bind upon the abdomen
with the flannel bandage, renewing whenever the suf-
ferer feels that it is growing cold.
Above all things else, keep the patient quiet in bed,
if possible, but in a recumbent position—and the feet
warm with flannel or bottles of hot water. These are
always preferable to bricks, or hot boards for warming
the extremities, being clean, safe and good preservers
of heat.
The diet should be light and nourishing, avoiding
liquids and acids as much as possible. Let the patient
quench his thirst by holding small bits of ice in his
mouth, or, if hermust drink, let him have mucilaginous
beverages, such as gum-arabic water. The burning
' THE SCRAP-BAG. 391
thirst consequent upon these diseases may be measur-
ably allayed by eating, very slowly, dry gum arabic,
which has, likewise, curative qualities.
Mustrarp Puasrers. pf
It should be more generally known that a few drops
of sweet oil, or lard, rubbed lightly over the surface of
a mustard plaster, will prevent it from blistering the
skin. The patient may fearlessly wear it all night,
if he can bear the burning better than the pain it has
relieved temporarily, and be none the worse for the
application. This, 7 4now, to be infallible, and those
who have felt the torture of a mustard-blister, should
rejoice to become. acquainted with this easy and sure
preventive.
A mustard plaster is an excellent remedy for severe
and obstinate nausea. It must be applied, hot, to the
pit of the stomach. In less serious cases, flannel, dip-
ped in hot camphor, wrung out and applied, still smok-
ing, will often succeed. A drop of camphor in a sin-
gle teaspoonful of water, given every twenty minutes,
for an hour or s0, is also a good palliative of nausea.
For Nausea. >}
But the specific for nausea, from whatever cause, is
Hosrorp’s Acip Puospratr, a by no means unpleasant
medicine. Put twenty drops into a goblet of ice-
water ; add a little sugar, and let the patient sip it, a tea-
spoonful, at a time, every ten or fifteen minutes. Or,
where more active measures are required, give a drop
in a teaspoonful of water, every five minutes for an
392 BREAKFAST, LUNCHEON AND THA.
hour. At the same time use the mustard plaster as
above directed.
My reader, to whatever “school” she may belong,
would not frown at what may seem to her like unlaw-
ful dabbling in the mysteries of medicine, had she
stood with me beside the bed of a woman who had not
been able, for three days and nights, to retain a parti-
cle of nourishment upon her stomach ; who was pro-
nounced by physicians to be actually dying of nausea
—and seen her relieved of all dangerous symptoms,
within the hour, by the harmless palliative I have
named.
Inter nos, sister mine, in the matter of drugs I am
heterodox, choosing, in ninety-nine cases out of a hun-
dred, to trust dear old, Mother Nature, and skillful, in-
telligent nursing. But to become a good nurse one
should possess some knowledge of Materia Medica,
especially in the matter of what are known as
“simples.”
For Cuapprp Hanns anv Lips. ef
First, wash the hands with Indian, or oatmeal and
water, and wipe them perfectly dry. Then—do this
just before retiring for the night—rub the chapped
members well with melted—not hot—mutton-tallow,
“tried out,” pur et simple, or beaten up, while warm,
with a little rose-water. Lubricate thoroughly; draw
a pair of old kid gloves—never black ones—upon
your hands, and do not remove them until morning.
A single application will usually effect a cure, but
should it fail, repeat the treatment for two or three
nights. |
THE SCRAP-BAG. 393
For Sore Eyes. >}
Beat up half a teaspoonful of powdered alum to a
curd with the white of an egg; spread upon soft linen,
and lay on the inflamed lid. It. is a soothing, and often
potent remedy.
Strong tea, black, green, or mixed, strained and cold,
is an excellent eye-wash. At night, lay cold tea-leaves
within a soft linen bag, squeeze almost dry, and bind
over the eye.
For a stye, many physicians advise the sufferer to
take internally brewer’s yeast, a table-spoonful at a
dose. It is sometimes singularly successful, being a
good purifier of the blood.
Mixture ror Cieantne Biack Croru, or Worstrrep
DRESSES.
Equal quantities of strong black tea and alcohol.
Fine scented soap.
Dip a sponge in boiling water, squeeze as dry as you
ean, and rub while hot, upon the sweet soap. Wet with
the mixture of tea and alcohol, and sponge the worsted
material to be cleaned, freely. Rub the spots hard,
washing out the sponge frequently in hot water, then
squeezing it. Finally, sponge off the whole surface of
the cloth quickly with the mixture, wiping always in
one direction if you are cleansing broadcloth.
Iron, while very damp, on the wrong side.
CLEANSING CREAM.
1 ounce pure glycerine.
1 ounce ether.
304 BREAKFAST, LUNCHEON AND TEA.
1 ounce spirits of wine.
+ pound best Castile soap.
4+ pound ammonia.
The soap must be scraped fine, the rest of the mate-
rials worked into it. .
To use it, wet a soft flannel cloth with it; rub grease _
and dirt-spots upon worsted garments or black silk, un-
til the cloth is well impregnated with the cream. Then
sponge off with clean hot water, and rub dry with a
clean cloth.
To Crean Marnie. >f«
The pumice soap made by the Indexical Soap Man-
ufacturing Co., Boston, Mass., is the best preparation I
have ever used for removing dirt and stains from mar-
ble. I have even extracted ink-spots with it. Wet a
soft flannel cloth, rub on the soap, then on the stain,
und wash the whole surface of mantel or slab with the
same, to take off dust, grease, etc. Wash off with fair
water, and rub dry. The polish of the marble is rather
improved than injured by the process. The same soap
is invaluable in a family for removing ink, fruit-stains,
and even paint from the hands. The makers of the
pumice soap, Robinson & Oo., are also the manufac-
turers of the “silver soap,” for cleaning plate which
has nearly superseded all plate-powders, whiting, etc.,
formerly used for this purpose.
Poumprrin Four. efs
I remind myself, comically, while jotting down these
items of domestic practicalities, of the lucky chicken
of the brood, who, not content with having secured her
tit-bit of crumb, seed, or worm, noisily calls the atten-
TIE SCRAP-BAG. 395
tion of all her sisters to the fact. I never secure even
a small prize in the housewifely line, but I am seized
with the desire to spread the Beate of the same.
About three months ago, my very courteous and in-
telligent grocer (1 think sometimes, that nobody else
was ever blessed with such merchants of almost every
article needed for family use, as those with whom I
deal) handed me, for inspection, a small box of what
looked like yellow tooth-powder, and smelled like
vanilla and orris-root. It was pumpkin flour, he ex-
plained—-the genuine pumpkin, desiccated by the
“Alden process,” and ground very fine. I took it
home for the sake of the goodly smell, and because it
looked “ nice.”
The pies made from it were delicious beyond all my
former experience in Thanksgiving desserts—a soft,
smooth, luscious custard, procured without cost of stew-
ing, straining, etc. And the flavor of them upon the
tongue fully justified the promise of the odor that had
bewitched me. It is seldom in a lifetime that one
finds a thing which looks “nice,” smells nicer, and
tastes nicest of all. If you, dearest and patientest
of readers, who never quarrel with my digressions, and
hearken indulgently to my rhodomontades, doubt now
whether I am in very earnest, try my pumpkin flour,
and bear witness with me to its excellence.*
ANOTHER TREASURE.
Those who are fond of Julienne soups, and would
oftener please themselves and their families by making
* Prepared at the Alden Fruit Factory, Colon, Michigan.
396 BREAKFAST, LUNCHEON AND TEA.
or ordering them, were not the work of preparing the
vegetables properly, tedious, and so often a failure,
should not hesitate to purchase freely the packages of
shred and dried vegetables now put up expressly for
Julienne soups, and sold in nearly all first-class grocer-
ies. They are imported from France, but are not at all
expensive. I['ull directions for their use accompany
them.
Seymour Puppia.
4 cup of molasses.
$ cup of milk.
4 cup of raisins, seeded, and cut in half.
% cup of currants.
$ cup of suet, powdered.
4 teaspoonful of soda.
1 egg.
13 cups of Graham flour.
Spice, and salt to taste.
Boil, or steam for 24 hours.
STRAWBERRY SHORTCAKE.
1 cup of powdered sugar.
1 table-spoonful of butter, rubbed into the sugar.
3 egos.
1 cup prepared flour—a heaping cup.
2 table-spoonfuls of cream.
Bake in three jelly-cake tins.
When quite cold, lay between the cakes nearly a
quart of fresh, ripe strawberries. Sprinkle each layer
lightly with powdered sugar, and strew the same
thickly over the uppermost cake. Eat while fresh.
THE SCRAP-BAG. 397
Wewtsy RaAREBIT.
4 pound of English cheese.
3 eggs, well beaten.
1 scant cup of fine bread-crumbs.
8 table-spoonfuls of butter, melted.
2 teaspoonfuls of made mustard.
1 saltspoonful of salt.
Mix all well together, and beat to a smooth paste.
Have ready some slices of toasted bread, from which
the crust has been pared; spread them thickly with
the mixture, and set them upon the upper grating of
the oven until they are slightly browned. Serve at
once.
PARTING WORDS.
On ty a few, lest the patience I have already had
occasion—and more than once—to praise, should fail at
the last pages. And if, in my desire to be brief, IL
seem abrupt, you will understand that it is not because
I do not enjoy talking with, and at you.
Be honest with me! Have you ever, in studying
these two volumes which I have tried to make as little
dry as the subject would admit, whispered, or thought
something that implied a likeness between the author
and the anonymous gentleman, in whose garden—
** The wild brier,
The thorn and the thistle grew higher and higher ?”
I used to know Watts from title-page to “finis.” I
have taken pains to forget the creaking numbers of his
pious machinery of late years. But wasn’t the afore-
said personage the one who “talked of eating and
drinking?” Have you ever said, *twixt amusement
and impatience, “ This woman thinks all women born
to be cooks, and nothing more?” As I look at the
matter of every-day and necessary duty—the routine
of common life—“ common” meaning anything but vul-
gar—there are certain things which must be learned,
whether one have a natural bias for them or no. All
men and women who would maintain a respectable
PARTING WORDS. 399
position in this enlightened land at this day, must learn
how to read and write; must possess a fair knowledge
of the multiplication-table, have a tolerably correct im-
pression as to what hemisphere and zone they live in,
whether in a kingdom or republic; must be able to
describe the shape of the earth, and to tell who is the
President of the United States. Next to these, in my
opinion, stands the necessity that every woman should
know how to use her needle deftly, and have a practi-
cal acquaintance with the leading principles of cookery.
The acquisition of these homely accomplishments can
never, in any circumstances, harm her. The proba-
bility is, that she cannot perform her part aright as
spinster, wife, mother, or mistress without them.
I have a lovely child waiting for me on the “thither
shore,” whose many playful and earnest sayings are
still quoted by us in our family talks, quite as often
with smiles as with tears. Hers was asunny life. We
knew that should the Father prolong her earthly exis-
tence into womanhood, the power of making her hap-
piness would be no longer ours. But while our chil-
dren were children, to us belonged the precious prerog-
ative of flooding their hearts with delight, making of
home a haven of joy and peace they would never for-
get, whatever the coming years might bring. Our
darling, then, was a happy, healthy child, and symmet-
rical in mind as body—learning readily, and usually
with ease, the simple lessons suited to her years. Yet
at nine years of age, she said to me one night before
going to bed:
“Mamma, when I remember as I lay my head on
the pillow, every night, that I have to say the 9 col-
400 BREAKFAST, LUNCHEON AND TEA.
umn of the multiplication-table to-morrow, I conld
almost wish that I could die in my sleep, and the morn-
ing never come!”
With my heart aching in the great pity I could ill-
express to one so young, I took her in my arms and
told her of the need she would have, in after-life, of the
knowledge gained so hardly ; how, setting aside the
actual utility of the multiplication-table, she would be
better, wiser, stronger, always for the discipline of the
study. ee
She lived to laugh at the recollection of the fearful
bug-bear. Do I recall the incident with the least shade
of remorse that I did not yield to my compassion and
her pleading eyes, and remit, for good and all, the
dreaded exercise? On the contrary, I am thankful the
strength was given me to teach her how to battle and
to conquer. And—I say it in no irreverent spirit of
speculation—I have faith to believe that in the richer,
deeper life beyond, she still, in some way or sense, reaps
the good of that which she won by resolute labor, and
by the victory over her faint-heartedness.
I have thought of the little circumstance, a hundred
times, when women have bemoaned themselves, in my
hearing, over the hardship of being compelled to
“understand something about housekeeping.”
Since the “understanding” is a need, and patent
even to their unwilling eyes, what say Common Sense
and Duty?
My dear, I would not breathe it if there were a man
within possible hearing—-but are you not sometimes
ashamed that women are content to know and to do so
little in this world ? |
PARTING WORDS. 401
“So are manymen!” True, but that is the look-out
of masculine philanthropists—not ours. How many
ladies in your circle of acquaintances are willing—
much less eager to do anything, except the positive
and well-defined work laid upon them by custom and
society ? How many enter into the full meaning, and
have any just appreciation of the beauty of the duties
especially appointed to them, of the glory and solem-
nity of maternity, the high honor of being the custo-
dians of others’ happiness so long as life shall last;
Gop’s deputies upon earth in the work of training
_ immortal souls; of forming the characters and lives
that shall outlive the sun ?
How many—to descend to a very plain and practical
question—could, if bereft of fortune to-morrow or next
week, or next year, earn a living for themselves, to say
nothing of their children ?
I talked out this last-named question on paper, a few
months ago; threw arguments and conclusions into a
form which I hoped would prove more attractive to the
general reader, than a didactic essay. The last favor
I shall ask of you before closing this volume, is that
you will read my unpretending story through, and
answer to yourself, if not to me and the public, the
question put in the title.
PRACTIGAL—OR UTOPIAN?
PART I.
“Tam going to think this matter out to a practical
issue, if it takes me all night!” said Mrs. Hiller, posi-
tively. ‘It may be that I am rowing against wind
and tide, as you say, but I will hold to the oars until I
am hopelessly swamped, or reach land! ”
Her husband laughed. Not sneeringly ; but as good-
natured men always do laugh when women talk of
finding their way out of a labyrinth by means of the
clue of argument.
“You val nae no more than your conven-
tions and: women’s rights books ”
“ Don’t call them mzne/” pr seed the wife. -
“T speak of the sex at large, my love. No more,
then, than women’s rights books and conventions have
achieved. All their battle for the equality of the
sexes; the liberation of women from the necessity of
marriage as a means of livelihood; for more avenues
of remunerative labor, and the acknowledgment of the
dignity of the same—now that the smoke has cleared
away, and combatants and spectators can look about
them—is seen to have resulted in nothing, or next to
nothing. You have encouraged a few more women to
paint poor pictures, and spoil blocks and plates in at-
tempts to practise engraving ; put some at bookkeep-
rs’ desks where they are half paid; crowded the
Sarg
ne
3 ; Weetees
Ws ahr)
i [ak
\* Br.
PRACTICAL—OR UTOPIAN 2 403
board-rooms of our public schools with applicants at
the rate of a hundred for each vacancy; induced a
similar rush upon telegraph offices, and every other
place where ‘ light, lady-like labor’ can be procured ;
brought down, rather than raised the salaries in each
of these departments of industry—and made marriage
more than ever the swmmuwm bonum of every thinking
workwoman—the shining gate that is to give her lib-
eration from ill-requited toil.”
“ Philip! how you exaggerate !”
“Not in the least, my dear, sanguine wife! Who
puts on her rose-colored spectacles whenever the sub-
ject of ‘woman’s emancipation’ is brought forward. I
have studied this matter as closely as you have; hope-
fully, for a while, but, of late, with the fast-growing
conviction that Nature and Society yoked are too
strong a team for you to pull against. Coimbat the as-
sertion as you will,—it is natural for a woman to look
forward to matrimony as her happiest destiny ; to de-
sire, and to bring it about by every means which seems
to her consistent with modesty and self-respect. And
to this conclusion Society holds her by the refusal to
receive into the ‘ best circles’ her who earns her living
by her own labor. Mrs. Million treads the charmed
arena by virtue of her husband’s wealth. But, when
Mrs. Sangpur is envious of her dear friend’s latest
turn-out in equipage, dress, or furniture, she recurs,
tauntingly, to the time when Mrs. Million was a work-
girl in Miss Fitwell’s establishment, and shrugs her
patrician shoulders over ‘new people.” As Miss Fit-
well’s assistant, forewoman, and successor, Miss Bias—
now Mrs. Million—were she rich, refined, beautiful,
AOL BREAKFAST, LUNCHEON AND TEA.
could yet never hope for a card even to one of Mrs.
Sangpur’s mass parties.”
“ But there are distinctions of social degree, Philip,
which must be maintained. You don’t bring your
bootmaker home to dine with Judge Wright, or Honor-
able Senator Rider.”
“Tam not a reformer, my love. When my boot-
maker fits himself for the society of those you name,
he will be welcomed by them, and his early history
referred to as an honor, not disgrace. The annals of
Court and Congress will tell you this. To return to
the original question; I insist there is a want of prac-
ticalness—I won’t say of common sense—in your re-
form, as heretofore conducted ; that no one woman in
five thousand, especially in what are called the higher
walks of life, is able to support herself, or would be
allowed by popular sentiment to do so, were she able.
There is a screw loose somewhere, and very loose at
that. I, for one, am never rid of the rattle. Maybe,
because I am the father of three daughters. If I had
sons, I should be condemned by the entire community ;
stand convicted at the bar of my own conscience, if I
had not trained each of them to some trade or profes-
sion. As it is, the case stands thus: I may live long
enough to accumulate a fair competency for each of
my girls, a sum, the interest of which will support her
»omfortably ; for she, being a woman, will never in-
crease the bulk of the principal. My more reasonable
hope is to see her married t» an energetic business man,
or one who has inherited a fortune and knows how to
take care of it. This accomplished, parental responsi-
bility is supposed to end, so far as provision for the life
PRACTICAL——OR UTOPIAN ? 405
that now is, goes. Ifher husband should fail, or die a
poor man—the Lord help her and her children—if [
cannot !”
tle was not talking flippantly now. As he knocked
the ashes from the tip of his cigar into the grate, his
face was grave to sorrowfulness.
“Our girls have been carefully educated,” said Mrs.
Hiller, a little hurt at the turn the dialogue had taken.
“In this country a thorough education is a fortune.
They could set up a school.”
“To compete with a thousand others conducted by
those who have been trained expressly for this profes-
sion; whom constant practice has made au fart to the
ever-changing modes of instruction and fashionable
text-books. Why, I, whose Latin salutatory was praised
as a inodel of classic composition, and who read Llorace,
Sallust, and Livy in the original almost every day,
cannot understand more than half the quotations spout-
ed in the court-house and at lawyers’ dinners, by
youngsters who have learned the ‘ continental method’
of pronunciation. I cannot even parse English, for the
very parts of speech are disguised under new names.
‘A noun-substantive is something else, an article is a
pronoun, and, what with adjuncts, subjects, and imodi-
fiers, I stand abashed in the presence of a ten-year-old
in the primary department of a public school. Our
girls might go out as daily governesses at a dollar a
day, or run their chances of getting music scholars
away from professionals by offering lessons at half
price. They are good, intelligent, and industrious. I
don’t deny their ability to make a bare living, if forced
to do it. I don’t believe they could do more. When
406 BREAKFAST, LUNCHEON AND TEA.
the rainy day comes, He who tempers the wind to the
shorn lamb, must be their helper. Let us hope that
day will never dawn. And by way of additional pro-
vision against it, I must leave you for an hour or two,
to keep an engagement witha client. Don’t let the
memory of our talk depress you. We won’t cross the
bridge before we come to it. Here is ‘ Old Kensing-
ton’ to amuse you. You know, darling, that I would
work brains and fingers to nothing rather than haye
you and the lassies want for so much as the ‘ latest
thing’ in neck ribbons. And so would any man who
is worthy of the name.”
“T know you would.” |
The elderly love-couple gazed into each other’s
eyes, exchanged a good-bye kiss as fondly as at their
partings twenty-three years before.
“T could ask no fairer destiny for my daughters
than has been mine,’ murmured the mother, resettling
herself in her luxurious chair before the sea-coal fire,
and putting out her hand for the book the thoughtful
kindness of her husband had provided for her evening’s
entertainment. “ But to every prize, there are so
many blanks! It is worse for a woman to sell herself
for a home and a livelihood than for her to fight, hand-
to-hand with poverty, all her life. If girls would only
believe this. I mean that mine shall /”
She did not open the book yet. Unrest and dissat-
isfaction were in the face that studied the seething,
elowing pile in the grate.
“There are the Payne girls, for instance!” she said,
presently, with increasing discomfort.
The book lay, still shut, in her lap. She folded her
PRACTICAL—OR UTOPIAN ¢ 407
hands upon it; lay back in the chair, and did not move
again in an hour. She was “ thinking it out; ” pull-
ing hard on the oar in the teeth of head-wind and fog.
She was haunted by the Payne girls. Their father,
a popular physician, had lived handsomely ; worked
hard; been exemplary in his home, his profession,
in Church, and in city. He sent his five daughters
to the best schools, and fitted them by culture and
dress to make a creditable appearance in the world—
the only world they cared for—a round of visits, par-
ties and show-places for marriageable young people of
both sexes. They were nice girls, said complaisant
Everybody. Not beautiful, or gifted, but sprightly,
well-bred and amiable—the very material out of which
to make good wives and mothers. Two did marry be-
fore the sad day on which their father was brought
home in an apoplectic fit, from which he never rallied.
They married for love, but not imprudently. Their
husbands were merchants with fair prospects, steady,
enterprising, moral young men, who were yet not quite
disposed to be burdened with the care of a maiden
sister-in-law-and-a-half apiece in addition to the sup-
port of their families proper. That somebody would
have to “look after the unmarried daughters” was
soon bruited about. There were two boys—five and
ten years old—to be educated ; the widow to be pro-
vided for, and, when the estate was settled up, nothing
except a life-insurance of eighteen thousand dollars
was left with which to compass all this. Tender-
hearted Everybody was sorry for the fatherless boys 5
sorrier for the widow, who had loved her husband very
truly ; sorriest for “the Payne girls.” Before their
408 BREAKFAST, LUNCHEON AND THA.
mourning was rusty, appreciative Everybody began ta
nudge Everybody Else slyly, when in company with
the Payne girls, to call attention to the fact, daily more
and more palpable, that the sisters three were anxious
to get married. Not more anxious, if the secrets of
feminine hearts had been revealed, than were dozens of
others in their set, but they had not the art to dissemble
their eagerness. Nobody stayed his, or her laugh at
them by considering that, since they had deliberately,
conscientiously, and humanely determined to relieve
their mother from the crushing weight of their depend-
ence, and saw no other way of doing this than by sell-
ing themselves in the licensed and respectable shambles
of matrimony, they should have been commended for
doing with all their might whatsoever their hands found
to do. They angled earnestly, but with a zeal so little
according to knowledge that the most bull-headed gud-
geon in the preserved waters of bachelor and widower- |
dom scorned to be imposed upon by the bait. They
borrowed the finery of their better-off sisters; made
their own and their mother’s over and over again ; went
everywhere and tried every phase of fascination, ‘‘ from
grave to gay, from lively to severe,” until their eager,
ceaseless smiles wore wrinkles about lips and eyes that
ill-natured Everybody called crows-feet, and the tales of
their fawnings, toadyisms, and manceuvres were stale in
the ears of greedy Everybody—yet were still, at thirty-
six, thirty-eight, and forty years of age, the Payne girls,
“whose brothers were now able to do something for
them.” What more suitable than that these fine young
fellows—one of whom had chosen his father’s profes-
sion, while the other had gone into partnership with his
PRACTICAL—OR UTOPIAN 2 409
brother-in-law, should bind pillions upon their backs
whereon their sisters could ride in reputable indolence,
behind the wives they had wedded and had a right to
cherish ?
“It was a pity,’ considerate Everybody now began
to whisper, “that they should be thus hampered ; bat
what else could be done ?”
Mrs. Hiller’s fresh-colored, matronly face might well
be grave, as she recounted these things to herself,
had the history of the Payne girls been an isolated
case.
“But they are a type of so many!” she said, sadly.
“Society is encrusted with such, like barnacles sticking
toaship. There is Lewis Carter, one of the ablest
young lawyers at the bar, Philip says. He aud Annie
Morton have been in love with one another ever since
he was twenty-one, and she nineteen, ten years ago,
It is eight since his father died, and left him in charge
of his mother and three sisters, only one of whom is
younger than himself. They have not married, and,
until they do, he cannot. Annie may wait for him
until they are both fifty years old and upward—maybe
all their lives—for the older the sisters grow, the more
dependent they will become. They make a pleasant
home for him, people say; manage his money judi-
ciously, and fairly worship their benefactor. Yet he
must compare them, mentally, to leeches, when he
reflects how youth and hope are ebbing out of his
heart and Annie’s. No doubt leeches are sincerely
attached to what they feed upon. What right have
they to expect a support from him, more than he from
them? They are strong and well, and as much money
18
3
410 BREAKFAST, LUNOHEON AND TEA.
was spent upon their education as upon his. House-
keepers, forsooth! Does it take four women to keep
one man’s house ?”
She was rowing very hard now, and the fog was
denser than ever.
“There is Mr. Sibthorpe, with his four girls and
three boys, and a salary, as bank-teller, of two thousand
dollars a year. The daughters all ‘took’ French and
music lessons at school. One of them is ‘ passionately
fond’ of worsted work; another does decaleomanie
flower-pots and box-covers for fairs, and all crochet in
various stitches, and one is great upon tatting. They
‘help about house, as our grandmothers used to say,
all four of them; do contrive, with the aid of their
mother and a strapping Irish girl, to keep the house-
work tolerably in hand, and ‘have in’ a dressmaker
and seamstress, spring and fall, to give them a fresh
start. They don’t read a book through once a year ;
they have no connected plans about anything, except
to appear as well as girls whose fathers are worth ten
times as much as is theirs—and to get married! They
murder time by inches while waiting for the four
coming men; ménce it into worthlessness with their
pitiful fal-lals of fancy work and the fine arts (save
the mark!). Evelyn told me, the other day, that the
sprig of wax hyacinths she showed me—a stiff, tasteless
spike that smelled of oil and turpentine— occupied ”
her for ten hours! What will become of them when
their pale, overworked father dies? It is frightful to
think of a vessel thus freighted and cumbered being
tied to safety by such a worn, frayed cord as that. one
man’s life.”
PRACTICAL—OR UTOPIAN ? Ail
A dash of sleety rain against the window interrupted
her.
“Philip said there would be a storm before morn-
ing. I wonder if he took his umbrella? He never
thinks of himself. I am sorry he had to go out at all
with such a cold.”
“One man’s life!” What flung the words back at
her? What had she and her petted daughters between
them and comparative — maybe absolute — poverty,
save the life of this man, who, with a heavy cold on
his lungs, had gone out into the fierce March night?
Who would dare prophesy that his dream of amassing
a competency for his children would be fulfilled?
Why should she be vexing her soul with speculations
about the Payne, and the Carter, and the Sibthorpe
girls, when other women, as wise and far-sighted as
she, were perhaps asking aloud, in friendly or imperti-
nent gossip over their respective firesides, what would
become of the “poor Hillers,” in the event of their
father’s death.
She felt very much as if her barque had, like Robin-
son Crusoe’s ship,
** with a shock,
Struck plump on a rock!”
What were Aer daughters good for, if the question
should arise how to keep the wolf from their own door ?
There was Philip’s life-insurance (everybody insured his
life nowadays) of fifteen thousand dollars, secured to
herself ; and this house in which they lived, the lowest
valuation of which was twenty thousand—and some-
thing—she wasn’t sure how much besides. That is,
she supposed something would be left when all out-
AL? BREAKFAST, LUNCHEON AND TEA.
standing accounts were paid. Say, however, that they
would have thirty-five thousand clear. At six per cent.
interest, this would bring, she estimated, after a pause,
an income of twenty-one hundred dollars per annum.
Provided she sold the house! That was a pang, even
in imagination. Out of this sum must come rent, fuel,
clothes, and a thousand etceteras for a family of four
grown people, whose present income was, at the least,
ten thousand a year.
“Good Heavens!” The rosy face blanched even
under the ruddy rays of the sea-coal fire. “Say, then,
that we were worth fifty thousand dollars, free of in-
cumbrance. That would be only three thousand a
year; and, as Philip says, we could do nothing to in-
crease the principal. Why we would have to be eco-
nomical, if we had double that sum. And few men’s
estates yield more. How do widows and orphans who
have been reared in luxury, live, when the strong staff
is broken? I seem never to have understood until this
instant what helpless wretches women are; how most
helpless of all classes are those who know themselves,
and who have always been known as ladies, born and
bred. Is there a remedy, a preventive for this? Is it im-
practicable to throw out an anchor to windward? What
was the origin of this insane, wicked, cruel prejudice
against independent thought and vigorous work on the
part of women, that fills every rank of life with miser-
able wives, and mothers who ought never to be entrusted
with the care of children? Does He, who can make
even wickedness the instrument of His purposes, permit
this to flourish rank in Christian lands, that the world
may be lawfully populated ?”
PRACTICAL—-OR UTOPIAN ? 413
In the boat again, and in very deep, murky waters,
but tugging at the oar with all the energy of her prac-
tical, common-sensible character.
“Philip says teaching does not pay any longer; nor
painting, nor music, nor fine sewing. What does?”
Through the smooth, oily heart of the big lump of
coal on the top of the mass in the grate, placed there
carefully by Mr. Hiller’s tongs before he went out, ran
a concealed layer of slate, not wider than a man’s finger,
nor thicker than a plate of mica. But when the fire
touched it, it cracked, and the big, justly-balanced lump
exploded with force that sent the fragments helter-
skelter in every direction.
Mrs. Hiller jumped up with a little scream, and shook
her dress violently, inspected every flounce, lest the
flutings might harbor a live coal or spark.
“All safe, fortunately,’ she congratulated herself,
after brushing off rug and fender, and pushing her
chair a few paces further from the hearth. “It is a
real calamity to scorch a dress in this day, when one
pays so much for having it made. Our bills are abso-
lutely shameful. Whoever loses money, or fails to
make it, the milliners and dressmakers ought to be fat
and flourishing. Their profits must be enormous, yet
all of them—the competent and obliging ones—are
overrun with work. Madame Champe, for example,
gives herself the airs of a queen dispensing favors,
when she consents to undertake a dress for me.”
At that instant, with. that tart speech, Mrs. Hiller
reached land and beached her boat.
The three girls did not return home from the party
to which they had gone until twelve o'clock. The rain
414 BREAKFAST, LUNCHEON AND TEA.
had not touched them in the close coach their father
always hired for them on such occasions. Tossing off
their wrappings as they ran, they trooped into their
mother’s sitting-room, adjoining her chamber, where
she awaited them.
“With such a super/wgious home-sy fire! bright and
warm as her own heart,” chattered Blanche, the young-
est, rushing forward to throw herself on the rug at her
mother’s knee. “ And a heavenly cup of tea! I enter
now into the full comprehension of the reason why it
is called the celestial herb,” sniffing the air. “There
never was, there never will be, there never cowld be,
such another mamma.”
“You are right there!” cried the others, kissing her
less noisily, but as fondly, as did the madcap of the
flock.
Any mother might be proud of the trio, clustered
about her, sipping the tea they declared to be more
delicious than all the delicacies of the supper table;
talking as fast as their nimble tongues could move of
what they had done, and seen, and heard, since she
had superintended their toilets, four hours before.
That the understanding between her and them was per-
fect, hearty, and joyous, was plain.
imma, the eldest, was twenty-one, tall, shapely, with
a complexion and gait that bespoke healthy nervous
organization, a sound mind and judgment. Her excel-
lent sense and happy temper made her a safe coun-
sellor, as well as agreeable companion, for her more
volatile sisters. She dressed tastefully, as did they
all; moved with composed grace through a systematic
round of daily duties; was her father’s pride, the
PRACTICAL——OR UTOPIAN 2 415
mother’s helper, and not a whit less popular in her
circle than if she had been both wit and beauty, where-
as she was neither.
Imogen was far handsomer, a decided blonde, while
Imma had gray eyes and dark hair. The second
daughter liked to set off her fairness by all justifiable
and lady-like appliances of art and fashion, and knew
how to do it. She was never florid or conspicuous in
appearance, yet never en déshabille in the simplest
attire. Her clothes became a part of her so soon as
she put them on. A few touches of her deft fingers
brought fitness out of disorder; added the nameless,
inestimable air we term “style,” for the want of a
fitter word, to whatever she touched or wore. A very
busy bee she was in her way, with a mania for reno-
vating her own paraphernalia and that of everybody
else who would allow her the privilege; giving to the
parlors, which were her especial charge, a new aspect
every day by the variety of her elegant devices.
Blanche—eighteen and just “ont,” was petite in
figure, with light, fluffy hair, dancing blue eyes and
small white teeth that somehow made more arch her
merry smile. She was the pet and the mischief-maker
of the household, affectionate and frolicsome, with in-
numerable tricksy, yet dainty ways that belonged only
to herself; quick of wit and fearless of tongue, and
facile in hand as Imogen, her room-mate and con-
federate in all her schemes of pleasure or work.
“imma lays the foundation; Imogen builds there-
upon. Mine is the ornamental department—the gloss-
ing over and decking, after the scaffold is down,” she
had once said.
416 BREAKFAST, LUNCHEON AND TEA.
The mother recalled it, now, watching them as with
unsealed eyes, and was confirmed in the resolutions
which were the fruit of her evening’s musings.
“ Away to bed, magpies!” she said, at length, “I
won't hear a word more! You are warmed and re-
freshed now. And unless you go soon, you will not
be down in season to recount your adventures and con-
quests to papa at breakfast. He considers himself an
ill-used person when he has to go off without getting
the evening’s report. Moreover, I want you to have
your brains steady and clear, for I must have a long
business talk with you to-morrow forenoon.”
“Business! that sounds portentous,” said Imogen, in
affected consternation.
“Jt sounds entrancing!” commented Blanche. It
savoreth of new dresses, and, perchance, jewelry—per-
adventure, though that is a bold flight of fancy, of a
trip across the sea next summer.”
“Nothing has gone wrong, I hope, mother?” queried
Emma.
“Nothing at all, my dear Lady Thoughtful,” was the
smiling reply.
“ Dear Lady Owl, you mean!” cried saucy Blanche,
and she went off singing :—
‘¢ And what says the old gray owl ?
To who? To who?”
“Happy children!” Mrs. Hiller heaved a confiden-
tial sigh to the fire that had shone on the young faces a
moment ago. “ Will what I have to tell them make
them less happy or gay? Is mine, after all, the needless
croak of the owl instead of a wise warning?”
PRACTICAL—OR UTOPIAN 2 417
The thought pierced her again, next day, when they
met in her boudoir, eager and curious, their eyes and
cheeks unmarred by the moderate dissipation of the
preceding night. But she stood fast to her purpose ;
unfolded her scheme in bulk and detail, with the assured
tone of one who had considered the cost to the last
farthing. She was not accounted an eccentric woman
by her acquaintances, but her proposal was novel, and,
to her listeners, startling. Their days of school-study
were over, she reminded them. It was time that upon
the foundation of general information thus laid should
be erected the superstructure of a profession.
“ A specialty, if you prefer the word,” she said;
“since I earnestly hope you will not be called upon to
practice it fora livelihood. While papa’s strength and
health last, he finds no more delightful use for his
earnings than to purchase comfort and luxury for us.
Were he to die, or to be unfortunate in business, or
become incurably diseased—and such things are of
almost daily occurrence—our style of living would be
at once and entirely altered. You would be driven to
the study of small, minute economies and false appear-
ances, such as must rasp and narrow the souls of those
who resort to them ; to escape these by a marriage of
convenience, or the lucky accident of a love-match, or
to engage, in earnest, in some business that would,
thanks to your previous training, continue to you the
elegancies, with the decencies of life.”
This was the preamble to an abstract of the conver-
sation with her husband, the troubled reverie and eal-
culations that succeeded it.
“Of artists in music and painting, there are, perhaps,
dls
418 BREAKFAST, LUNCHEON AND TEA.
twenty in this city,” she observed. “Of pretenders and
drudges in these arts, there are more than a thousand.
Since not one of you has developed any decided talent
for such pursuits, or for hterature, and, since teaching
for a living has become but another name for bondage
and starvation, my plan is this: You, Emma, shall
learn bookkeeping; Imogen, dressmaking ; Blanche,
millinery. Don’t look horrified! I shall not expose
you to the uncongenial associations or unwholesome
atmosphere of the crowded shop or work-room. All
that affection and money can do to make the term of
your novitiate pleasant shall be done. You shall fit up
the old nursery as your academy of the useful arts, if
you choose to call it by so dignified a name. I shall
engage competent instructors for you and pay well for
the lessons. But there must be no play-work, no su-
perficial, amateur performance on either side. When
your trades are learned, I shall expect you to keep
yourselves in practice, and up with the latest improve-
ments and fashions by practice in domestic manufac-
tures. Milliners’ and dressmakers’ bills shall be among
the things that were. Emma shall have charge of the
housekeeping accounts and papa’s books. He will pay
her as he would any other skilful accountant, and what —
you, Imogen and Blanche, shall adjudge to be a reas-
onable price for every dress and bonnet made for your-
selves, your sister, or for me.”
The, for once, dumb trio found simultaneous voice
at this.
“Mamma! would that be right? Would it not be
an imposition ?”
“Tt is his own proposal. We talked it all over last
PRACTICAL—OR UTOPIAN 2? 419
night after he came home, and again this morning. I
need not tell you that he is the best, most indulgent
father that ever loved and spoiled three loving daugh-
ters. I had some difficulty in persuading him to let
me try the experiment. The tears stood in his dear
eyes, while he debated the pros and cons of the case.
“¢ My bonnie bairns!’ he said. ‘If I could, I would
be their shield always. They should never dream of
privation ; never ink or prick their pretty fingers except
for amusement, if I were sure of ten years more of life
and prosperity.’”
She stopped to steady her voice.
Imogen was crying outright ; Emma’s oray eyes were
cloudy. Blanche broke forth, half-laughing, half-sob-
bing :— |
“The angelic old papa! isn’t he a born seraph? ~ I
would peddle rags with a lean mule, and a string of
bells across the cart, to save him an hour’s anxiety. I
wish Ae would wear French hats—all flowers and moon-
shine! And have four every season. Would not I
furnish them for nothing, kisses thrown into the bar-
gain ?” .
The others had to laugh at the vision of papa’s six
feet of stature, broad shoulders, strong features, and
iron-gray hair crowned with a fancy hat of the prevail-
ing mode, Mrs. Hiller went on :—
“