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To Pickle Mushrooms

Stew them in salted water, just enough to keep them from sticking. When tender, pour off the water, and pour on hot spiced vinegar. Then cork them tight if you wish to keep them long. Poison ones will turn black if an onion is stewed with them, and then all must be thrown away.

To Pickle Cucumbers

Wash the cucumbers in cold water, being careful not to bruise, or break them. Make a brine of rock, or blown salt (rock is the best), strong enough to bear up an egg, or potato, and of sufficient quantity to cover the cucumbers. Put them into an oaken tub, or stone-ware jar, and pour the brine over them. In twenty-four hours, they should be stirred up from the bottom with the hand. The third day pour off the brine, scald it, and pour it over the cucumbers. Let them stand in the brine nine days, scalding it every third day, as described above. Then take the cucumbers into a tub, rinse them in cold water, and if they are too salt, let them stand in it a few hours. Drain them from the water, put them back into the tub or jar, which must be washed clean from the brine. Scald vinegar sufficient to cover them, and pour it upon them. Cover them tight, and in a week they will be ready for use. If spice is wanted, it may be tied in a linen cloth, and put into the jar with the pickles, or scalded with the vinegar, and the bag thrown into the pickle jar. If a white scum rises, take it off and scald the vinegar, and pour it back. A small lump of alum added to the vinegar, improves the hardness of the cucumbers.

Pickled Walnuts

Take a hundred nuts, an ounce of cloves, an ounce of allspice, an ounce of nutmeg, an ounce of whole pepper, an ounce of race ginger, an ounce of horseradish, half pint of mustard seed, tied in a bag, and four cloves of garlic. Wipe the nuts, prick with a pin, and put them in a pot, sprinkling the spice as you lay them in; then add two tablespoonfuls of salt; boil sufficient vinegar to fill the pot, and pour it over the nuts and spice. Cover the jar close, and keep it for a year, when the pickles will be ready for use. Butternuts may be made in the same manner, if they are taken when green, and soft enough to be stuck through with the head of a pin. Put them for a week or two in weak brine, changing it occasionally. Before putting in the brine, rub them about with a broom in brine to cleanse the skins. Then proceed as for the walnuts. The vinegar makes an excellent catsup.

Mangoes

Take the latest growth of young muskmelons, take out a small bit from one side, and empty them. Scrape the outside smooth, and soak them four days in strong salt and water. If you wish to green them, put vine leaves over and under, with bits of alum, and steam them a while. Then powder cloves, pepper, and nutmeg in equal portions, and sprinkle on the inside, and fill them with strips of horseradish, small bits of calamus, bits of cinnamon and mace, a clove or two, a very small onion, nasturtions, and then American mustard-seed to fill the crevices. Put back the piece cut out, and sew it on, and then sew the mango in cotton cloth. Lay all in a stone jar, the cut side upward. Boil sharp vinegar a few minutes, with half a tea-cup of salt, and a tablespoonful of alum to three gallons of vinegar, and turn it on to the melons. Keep dried barberries for garnishes, and when you use them turn a little of the above vinegar of the mangoes heated boiling hot on to them, and let them swell a few hours. Sliced and salted cabbage with this vinegar poured on hot is very good.

Fine Pickled Cabbage

Shred red and white cabbage, spread it in layers in a stone jar, with salt over each layer. Put two spoonfuls of whole black pepper, and the same quantity of allspice, cloves, and cinnamon, in a bag, and scald them in two quarts of vinegar, and pour the vinegar over the cabbage, and cover it tight. Use it in two days after.

An excellent Way of Preparing Tomatoes to eat with Meat

Peel and slice ripe tomatoes, sprinkling on a little salt as you proceed. Drain off the juice, and pour on hot spiced vinegar.

To Pickle Martinoes

Gather them when you can run a pin head into them, and after wiping them, keep them ten days in weak brine, changing it every other day. Then wipe them, and pour over boiling spiced vinegar. In four weeks they will be ready for use. It is a fine pickle.

A convenient Way to Pickle Cucumbers

Put some spiced vinegar in a jar, with a little salt in it. Every time you gather a mess, pour boiling vinegar on them, with a little alum in it. Then put them in the spiced vinegar. Keep the same vinegar for scalding all. When you have enough, take all from the spiced vinegar, and scald in the alum vinegar two or three minutes, till green, and then put them back in the spiced vinegar.

Indiana Pickles

Take green tomatoes, and slice them. Put them in a basket to drain in layers, with salt scattered over them, say a tea-cup full to each gallon. Next day, slice one quarter the quantity of onions, and lay the onions and tomatoes in alternate layers in a jar, with spices intervening. Then fill the jar with cold vinegar. Tomatoes picked as they ripen, and just thrown into cold spiced vinegar, are a fine pickle, and made with very little trouble.

To Pickle Cauliflower, or Brocoli

Keep them twenty-four hours in strong brine, and then take them out and heat the brine, and pour it on scalding hot, and let them stand till next day. Drain them, and throw them into spiced vinegar.

Ice Cream

One quart of milk. One and a half tablespoonfuls of arrowroot. The grated peel of two lemons. One quart of thick cream. Wet the arrowroot with a little cold milk, and add it to the quart of milk when boiling hot; sweeten it very sweet with white sugar, put in the grated lemon peel, boil the whole, and strain it into the quart of cream. When partly frozen, add the juice of the two lemons. Twice this quantity is enough for thirty-five persons. Find the quantity of sugar that suits you by measure, and then you can use this every time, without tasting. Some add whites of eggs, others think it just as good without. It must be made _very_ sweet, as it loses much by freezing.

Directions for freezing Ice Cream

If you have no apparatus for the purpose (which is _almost_ indispensable), put the cream into a tin pail with a very tight cover, mix equal quantities of snow and blown salt (not the coarse salt), or of pounded ice and salt, in a tub, and put it _as high as the pail, or freezer_; turn the pail or freezer half round and back again with one hand, for half an hour, or longer, if you want it very nice. Three quarters of an hour steadily, will make it good enough. While doing this, stop four or five times, and mix the frozen part with the rest, the last time very thoroughly, and then the lemon juice must be put in. Then cover the freezer tight with snow and salt till it is wanted. The mixture must be perfectly cool before being put in the freezer. Renew the snow and salt while shaking, so as to have it kept tight to the sides of the freezer. A hole in the tub holding the freezing mixture to let off the water, is a great advantage. In a tin pail it would take much longer to freeze than in the freezer, probably nearly twice as long, or one hour and a half. A long stick, like a coffee stick, should be used in scraping the ice from the sides. Iron spoons will be affected by the lemon juice, and give a bad taste. In taking it out for use, first wipe off every particle of the freezing mixture dry, then with a knife loosen the sides, then invert the freezer upon the dish in which the ice is to be served, and apply two towels rung out of hot water to the bottom part, and the whole will slide out in the shape of a cylinder. If you wish to put it into moulds, pour it into them when the cream is frozen sufficiently, and then cover the moulds in the snow and salt till they are wanted. Dip the moulds in warm water to make the ice slip out easily. If you wish to have a freezer made, send the following directions to a tinner. Make a tin cylinder box, eighteen inches high and eight inches in diameter at the bottom, and a trifle larger at the top, so that the frozen cream will slip out easier. Have a cover made with a rim to lap over three inches, and fitted tight. Let there be a round handle fastened to the lid, an inch in diameter, and reaching nearly across, to take hold of, to stir the cream. This will cost from fifty to seventy-five cents. The tub holding the ice and freezer should have a hole in the bottom, to let the water run off, and through the whole process the ice must be close packed the whole depth of the freezer.

Philadelphia Ice Cream

Two quarts of milk (cream when you have it). Three tablespoonfuls of arrowroot. The whites of eight eggs well beaten. One pound of powdered sugar. Boil the milk, thicken it with the arrowroot, add the sugar, and pour the whole upon the eggs. If you wish it flavored with vanilla, split half a bean, and boil it in the milk.

Another Ice Cream

Three quarts of milk. Two pounds and a half of powdered sugar. Twelve eggs, well beaten. Mix all together in a tin pail, add one vanilla bean (split), then put the pail into a kettle of boiling water, and stir the custard all the time, until it is quite thick. After it is cooled, add two quarts of rich cream, and then freeze it.

Strawberry Ice Cream

Rub a pint of ripe strawberries through a sieve, add a pint of cream, and four ounces of powdered sugar, and freeze it.

Ice Cream without Cream

A vanilla bean, or a lemon rind, is first boiled in a quart of milk. Take out the bean or peel, and add the yolks of four eggs, beaten well. Heat it scalding hot, but do not boil it, stirring in white sugar till _very_ sweet. When cold, freeze it.

Fruit Ice Cream

Make rich boiled custard, and mash into it the soft ripe fruit, or the grated or cooked hard fruit, or grated pineapples. Rub all through a sieve, sweeten it very sweet, and freeze it. Quince, apple, pear, peach, strawberry, and raspberry, are all good for this purpose.

Rich Custards

One quart of cream. The yolks of six eggs. Six ounces of powdered white sugar. A small pinch of salt. Two tablespoonfuls of brandy. One spoonful of peach water. Half a tablespoonful of lemon brandy. An ounce of blanched almonds, pounded to a paste. Mix the cream with the sugar, and the yolks of the eggs well beaten, scald them together in a tin pail in boiling water, stirring all the time, until sufficiently thick. When cool, add the other ingredients, and pour into custard cups.

Wine Cream Custard

Sweeten a pint of cream with sifted sugar, heat it, stir in white wine till it curdles, add rose water, or grated lemon peel in a bag, heated in the milk. Turn it into cups. Or, mix a pint of milk with the pint of cream, add five beaten eggs, a spoonful of flour wet with milk, and sugar to your taste. Bake this in cups, or pie plates.

Almond Custard

Blanch and pound four ounces of sweet almonds, and a few of the bitter. Boil them five minutes in a quart of milk, sweeten to your taste, and when blood warm, stir in the beaten yolks of eight eggs, and the whites of four. Heat it, and stir till it thickens, then pour into cups. Cut the reserved whites to a stiff froth, and put on the top.

A Cream for Stewed Fruit

Boil two or three peach leaves, or a vanilla bean, in a quart of cream, or milk, till flavored. Strain and sweeten it, mix it with the yolks of four eggs, well beaten; then, while heating it, add the whites cut to a froth. When it thickens, take it up. When cool, pour it over the fruit, or preserves.

Currant, Raspberry, or Strawberry Whisk

Put three gills of the juice of the fruit to ten ounces of crushed sugar, add the juice of a lemon, and a pint and a half of cream. Whisk it till quite thick, and serve it in jelly glasses, or a glass dish.

Lemonade Ice, and other Ices

To a quart of lemonade, add the whites of six eggs, cut to a froth, and freeze it. The juices of any fruit, sweetened and watered, may be prepared in the same way, and are very fine.

Lemon and Orange Cream

Grate the outer part of the rind of eight oranges, or lemons, into a pint of cold water, and let it stand from night till morning. Add the juice of two dozen of the fruit, and another pint of cold water. Beat the yolks of six eggs, and add the whites of sixteen eggs, cut to a stiff froth. Strain the juice into the egg. Set it over the fire, and stir in fine white sugar, till quite sweet. When it begins to thicken, take it off, and stir till it is cold. Serve it in glasses, or freeze it.

Vanilla Cream

Boil a vanilla bean in a quart of rich milk, till flavored to your taste. Beat the yolks of eight eggs, and stir in, then sweeten well, and lastly, add the whites of the eggs, cut to a stiff froth. Boil till it begins to thicken, then stir till cold, and serve in glasses, or freeze it.

A Charlotte Russe

Half a pint of milk, and half a vanilla bean boiled in it, and then cooled and strained. Four beaten yolks of eggs, and a quarter of a pound of powdered loaf sugar stirred into the milk. Simmer five minutes, and cool it. An ounce of Russia isinglass boiled in a pint of water till reduced one half, and strained into the above custard. Whip a rich cream to a froth, and stir into the custard. The preceding is for the custard that is to fill the form. Prepare the form thus:--Take a large round, or oval sponge cake, three or four inches thick, with perpendicular sides. Cut off the bottom about an inch thick, or a little less, and then turn it bottom upwards into a form of the same size and shape. Then dig out the cake till it is a shell, an inch thick, or less. Fill the opening with the custard, and cover it with the slice cut from the bottom. Then set it into a tub of pounded ice and salt, for forty minutes, being careful not to get any on to the cake. When ready to use it, turn it out of the form on to a flat oval dish, and ornament the top with frosting, or syringe on it candy sugar, in fanciful forms. This can be made by fitting slices of sponge cake nicely into a form, instead of using a whole cake.

A Plainer Charlotte Russe

Half an ounce of Russia isinglass, or a little more. Half a pint of milk, and a pint of thick cream. Four eggs. Three ounces sifted white sugar. A gill and a half of white wine. Boil the isinglass in the milk, flavoring with vanilla or lemon. Stir the sugar into the yolks of the eggs. Put the wine to the cream, and beat them to a froth. Then strain the isinglass into the yolks, then add the cream and wine, and last of all the whites of the eggs cut to a stiff froth. Then line a dish with sponge cake, making the pieces adhere with whites of eggs, and pour in the above.

A Superior Omelette Souflée

Take eight eggs. Put the whites on one plate, and the yolks on another (two persons do it better than one); beat up the whites to a perfect froth, and at the same time stir the yolks with finely-powdered sugar, flavored with a little lemon peel, grated. Then, while stirring the whites, pour the yolks into the whites, _stir_ them a little (but not beat them). Then pour all on a round tin plate, and put it in the oven; when it begins to rise a little, draw it to the mouth of the oven, and with a spoon pile it up in a pyramidal shape, and leave it a few minutes longer in the oven. The whole baking requires but three or four minutes, and should be done just as wanted for the table.

Almond Cheese Cake

Three well-beaten eggs. A pint of new milk, boiling while the eggs are mixed in. Half a glass of wine, poured in while boiling. On adding the wine, take it from the fire, strain off the whey, and put to the curds sifted white sugar, to your taste, three eggs, well beaten, a teaspoonful of rose water, half a pound of sweet almonds, and a dozen of bitter ones, all blanched and pounded, and sixteen even spoonfuls of melted butter. Pour this into patties lined with thin pastry. Ornament the top with Zante currants, and almonds cut in thin slips. Bake as soon as done.

Flummery

Cut sponge cake into thin slices, and line a deep dish. Make it moist with white wine; make a rich custard, using only the yolks of the eggs. When cool, turn it into the dish, and cut the whites to a stiff froth, and put on the top.

Chicken Salad

Cut the white meat of chickens into small bits, the size of peas. Chop the white parts of celery nearly as small. Prepare a dressing thus:— Rub the yolks of hard-boiled eggs smooth, to each yolk put half a teaspoonful of mustard, the same quantity of salt, a tablespoonful of oil, and a wine-glass of vinegar. Mix the chicken and celery in a large bowl, and pour over this dressing. The dressing must not be put on till just before it is used. Bread and butter and crackers are served with it.

Gelatine, or American Isinglass Jelly

Two ounces of American isinglass, or gelatine. One quart of boiling water. A pint and a half of white wine. The whites of three eggs. Soak the gum in cold water half an hour. Then take it from the water, and pour on the quart of boiling water. When cooled, add the grated rind of one lemon, and the juice of two, and a pound and a half of loaf sugar. Then beat the whites of the eggs to a stiff froth, and stir them in, and let the whole boil till the egg is well mixed, but do not stir while it boils. Strain through a jelly-bag, and then add the wine. Wine jelly is made thus, except that half a pint more of wine is added. In cold weather, a pint more of water may be added. This jelly can be colored by beet juice, saffron, or indigo, for fancy dishes.

Oranges in Jelly

Peel and divide into halves several small-size oranges; boil them in water till a straw will pierce them, then put them into a syrup made of half a pound of sugar for each pound of fruit, and boil the oranges in it till clear. Then stir in an ounce, or more, of clarified isinglass, and let it boil a little while. Take the oranges into a dish, and strain the jelly over. Lemons may be done the same way.

Jelly Tarts

One pound of sifted flour. Three quarters of a pound of butter, rubbed in well. Wet it up with about a pint of cold water, in which a bit of sal volatile, the size of a large pea dissolved in a little cold water, has been put. Beat the whole with a rolling-pin, cut it into round cakes, wet the tops with beaten egg, and strew on fine white sugar. Bake in a quick oven, and when done put a spoonful of jelly in the centre of each.

Sweet Paste Jelly Tarts

A pint of dried and sifted flour. A pint of sifted sugar. Two-thirds of a pint of sweet butter. A bit of sal volatile, the size of two large peas, dissolved in a tablespoonful of cold water. Mix the butter and sugar to a cream, work in the flour, add the sal volatile, and cold water, if needed, for making a paste to roll. Beat the whole with a rolling-pin, roll it half an inch thick, cut it with a tumbler, wet the tops with milk, put them on buttered tins into a quick oven, and when done, heap a spoonful of jelly on the centre of each. They are excellent for a dessert, or for evening parties.

An Apple Lemon Pudding

Six spoonfuls of grated, or of cooked and strained apple. Three lemons, pulp, rind, and juice, all grated. Half a pound of melted butter. Sugar to the taste. Seven eggs, well beaten. Mix, and bake with or without paste. It can be made still plainer by using nine spoonfuls of apple, one lemon, two-thirds of a cup full of butter, and three eggs.

Buttermilk Pop

Rub an ounce of butter into a tea-cup of flour, wet it up to a thin paste with cold buttermilk, and pour it into two quarts of boiling fresh buttermilk. Salt to the taste.

Wheat Flour Blanc Mange

Wet up six tablespoonfuls of flour to a thin paste, with cold milk, and stir it into a pint of boiling milk. Flavor with lemon peel, or peach leaves boiled in the milk. Add a pinch of salt, cool it in a mould, and eat with sweetened cream and sweetmeats.

Orange Marmelade

Take two lemons, and a dozen oranges; grate the yellow part of all the oranges but five, and set it aside. Make a clear syrup of an equal weight of sugar. Clear the oranges of rind and seeds, and put them with the grated rinds into the syrup, and boil about twenty minutes, till it is a transparent mass. _A Simple Lemon Jelly_ (_easily made_). One ounce of cooper’s isinglass. A pound and a half of loaf sugar. Three lemons, pulp, skin, and juice, grated. Pour a quart of boiling water on to the isinglass, add the rest, mix and strain it, then add a glass of wine, and pour it to cool in some regular form. If the lemons are not fresh, add a little cream of tartar, or tartaric acid. _American gelatine_ is used for this.

Cranberry

Pour boiling water on them, and then you can easily separate the good and the bad. Boil them in a very little water till soft, then sweeten to your taste. If you wish a jelly, take a portion and strain through a fine sieve.

Fruits Preserved without Cooking

Pineapples peeled and cut in thin slices, with layers of sugar under and over each slice, will keep without cooking, and the flavor is fully preserved. Use a pound and a half of sugar for each pound of fruit. Quinces peeled and boiled soft, and then laid in sugar, pound to a pound, in the same way, are very beautiful. _Apple Ice_ (_very fine_). Take finely-flavored apples, grate them fine, and then make them _very_ sweet, and freeze them. It is very delicious. Pears, peaches, or quinces, also are fine either grated fine or stewed and run through a sieve, then sweetened _very_ sweet and frozen. The flavor is much better preserved when grated than when cooked.

Lemon, or Orange Ice Cream

Squeeze a dozen lemons, and make the juice thick with sugar; then stir in slowly three quarts of cream, and freeze it. Oranges require less sugar.

Cream Tarts

One pound of sifted flour, and a salt spoon of salt. A quarter of a pound of rolled sugar. A quarter of a pound of butter, and one beaten egg. Sal volatile the size of a nutmeg, dissolved in a spoonful of cold water. Mix the above, and wet up with cold water, and line some small patties, or tartlet pans. Bake in a quick oven, then fill with mock cream, sprinkle on powdered sugar, put them back into the oven a few minutes till a little browned.

Whip Syllabub

One pint of cream. Sifted white sugar to your taste. Half a tumbler of white wine. The grated rind and juice of one lemon. Beat all to a stiff froth.

Trifles

One well-beaten egg, and one tablespoonful of sugar. A salt spoonful of salt, and flour enough for a stiff dough. Cut it in thin round cakes, and fry in lard; when they rise to the surface and are turned over, they are done. Drain on a sieve, and put jam or jelly on the centre of each.

Nothings

Three well-beaten eggs, a salt spoonful of salt, and flour enough for a very stiff paste. Roll and cut into very thin cakes, fry them like trifles, and put two together with jam, or jelly between.

Apple Snow

Put twelve very tart apples in cold water over a slow fire. When soft, take away the skins and cores, and mix in a pint of sifted white sugar; beat the whites of twelve eggs to a stiff froth, and then add them to the apples and sugar. Put it in a dessert dish, and ornament with myrtle and box.

Iced Fruit

Take fine bunches of currants on the stalk, dip them in well-beaten whites of eggs, lay them on a sieve and sift white sugar over them, and set them in a warm place to dry.

Ornamental Froth

The whites of four eggs in a stiff froth, put into the syrup of preserved raspberries, or strawberries, beaten well together, and turned over ice cream, or blanc mange. Make white froth to combine with the colored in fanciful ways. It can be put on the top of boiling milk, and hardened to keep its form.

To Clarify Isinglass

Dissolve an ounce of isinglass in a cup of boiling water, take off the scum, and drain through a coarse cloth. Jellies, candies, and blanc mange should be done in brass, and stirred with silver.

Blanc Mange

A pint of cream, and a quart of boiled milk. An ounce and a half of clarified isinglass, stirred into the milk. Sugar to your taste. A teaspoonful of fine salt. Flavor with lemon, or orange, or rose water. Let it boil, stirring it well, then strain into moulds. Three ounces of almonds pounded to a paste and added while boiling, is an improvement. Or filberts, or hickory-nuts, can be skinned and used thus. It can be flavored by boiling in it a vanilla bean, or a stick of cinnamon. Save the bean to use again.

Calf’s Foot Blanc Mange

Take a pint of calf’s foot jelly, or American isinglass jelly, and put it in a sauce-pan, with the beaten yolks of six eggs, and stir till it _begins_ to boil. Then sweeten and flavor to your taste; set it in a pan of cold water, and stir it till nearly cold, to prevent curdling, and when it begins to thicken, put it into moulds.

Variegated Blanc Mange

For evening parties a pretty ornamental variety can be made thus. Color the blanc mange in separate parcels, red, with juice of boiled beets, or cochineal; yellow, with saffron; and blue, with indigo. Put in a layer of white, and when cool, a layer of another color, and thus as many as you like. You can arrange it in moulds thus, or in a dish, and when cold cut it in fanciful shapes.

Jaune Mange

Boil an ounce of isinglass in a little more than half a pint of water, till dissolved; strain it, add the juice and a little of the grated rind of two oranges, a gill of white wine, the yolks of four eggs, beaten and strained, and sugar to your taste. Stir over a gentle fire till it just boils, and then strain into a mould.

Ivory Dust Jelly

Boil a pound of the dust in five pints of water, till reduced to one quart, strain it, add a quart more of water, boil till a stiff jelly, then add lemon, or orange juice and rind, and sugar to your taste, and strain into moulds.

Apple Jelly

Boil tart, peeled apples in a little water, till glutinous, strain out the juice, and put a pound of white sugar to a pint of the juice. Flavor to your taste, boil till a good jelly, and then put it into moulds.

Another Lemon Jelly

Take the clear juice of twelve lemons, and a pound of fine loaf sugar, and a quart of water. For each quart of the above mixture, put in an ounce of clarified isinglass, let it boil up once, and strain into moulds. If not stiff enough, add more isinglass, and boil again.

Orange Jelly

The juice of nine oranges and three lemons. The grated rind of one lemon, and one orange, pared thin. Two quarts of water, and four ounces of isinglass, broken up and boiled in it to a jelly. Add the above, and sweeten to your taste. Then add the whites of eight eggs, well beaten to a stiff froth, and boil ten minutes, strain and put into moulds, first dipped in cold water. When perfectly cold, dip the mould in warm water, and turn on to a glass dish.

Floating Island

Beat the yolks of six eggs with the juice of four lemons, sweeten it to your taste, and stir it into a quart of boiling milk till it thickens, then pour it into a dish. Whip the whites of the eggs to a stiff froth, and put it on the top of the cream.

Another Syllabub

The juice and grated outer skin of a large lemon. Four glasses of white wine. A quarter of a pound of sifted white sugar. Mix the above, and let them stand some hours. Then whip it, adding a pint of thick cream, and the whites of two eggs cut to a froth.

An Ornamental Dish

Pare and core, without splitting, some small-sized tart apples, and boil them very gently with one lemon for every six apples, till a straw will pass through them. Make a syrup of half a pound of white sugar for each pound of apples, put the apples unbroken, and the lemons sliced, into the syrup, and boil gently till the apples look clear. Then take them up carefully, so as not to break them, and add an ounce, or more, of clarified isinglass to the syrup, and let it boil up. Then lay a slice of lemon on each apple, and strain the syrup over them. _Carrageen Blanc Mange_ (_Irish Moss_). Take one tea-cup full of Carrageen, or Irish moss, after it has been carefully picked over. Wash it thoroughly in pearlash water, to take out the saline taste; then rinse it in several waters, put it in a tin pail, and pour to it a quart of milk. Set the pail, closely covered, into a kettle of boiling water. Let it stand until the moss thickens the milk, then strain through a fine sieve, sweeten with powdered loaf sugar, and flavor with rose or lemon. Wet the moulds in cold water, then pour in the blanc mange, and set it in a cool place. In two, or three hours, or when quite firm, it may be used. Loosen the edges from the moulds, and then turn it out upon china or glass plates. It may be served with powdered sugar and cream.

A Dish of Snow

Grate the white part of cocoanut, put it in a glass dish and serve with currant or cranberry jellies.

To Clarify Sugar

Take four pounds of sugar, and break it up. Whisk the white of an egg, and put it with a tumblerful of water into a preserving pan, and add water gradually, till you have two quarts, stirring well. When there is a good frothing, throw in the sugar, boil moderately, and skim it. If the sugar rises to run over, throw in a little cold water, and then skim it, as it is then still. Repeat this, and when no more scum rises, strain the sugar for use.

To Prepare Sugar for Candies

Put a coffee cup of water for each pound of sugar, into a brass, or copper kettle, over a slow fire. Put in, for each pound, say half a sheet of isinglass, and half a teaspoonful of gum-arabic, dissolved together. Skim off all impurities, and flavor to your taste. All sugar for candy is prepared thus, and then boiled till, when drawn into strings and cooled, it snaps like glass. A little hot rum, or vinegar, must be put to loaf sugar candy, to prevent its being too brittle. Candies made thus, can be colored with boiled beet juice, saffron, and indigo, and it can be twisted, rolled, and cut into any forms. It can have cocoanut, almonds, hickory-nuts, Brazil, or peanuts, sliced, or chopped and put in. It can be flavored with vanilla, rose, lemon, orange, cloves, cinnamon, or anything you please.

Sugar Kisses

Whisk four whites of eggs to a stiff froth, and stir in half a pound of sifted white sugar, and flavor it as you like. Lay it, when stiff, in heaps, on white paper, each the shape and size of half an egg, and an inch apart. Place them on a board which is half an inch thick, and put them into a hot oven. When they turn a little yellowish, slip off the paper on to a table, and let them cool five minutes. Then slip off two of the kisses with a knife, and join the bottom parts together which touched the paper, and they, if pressed gently, will adhere. Then lay them on a plate, and continue till all are thus prepared. These look handsomely, and are very delicate and good.

Almond Macaroons

Half a pound of almonds blanched, and pounded with a teaspoonful of essence of lemon till a smooth paste. Add an equal quantity of sifted white sugar, and the beaten whites of two eggs. Work well together with a spoon. Dip your hand in water, and work them into balls the size of a nutmeg, lay them on white paper, an inch apart; then dip your hand in water, and smooth them. Put them in a cool oven for three quarters of an hour. Cocoanut can be grated and used in place of the almonds, and thus make cocoanut macaroons.

Filbert Macaroons

Heat a quarter of a pound of filbert meats till the skin will rub off, and when cold pound them, and make a paste with a little white of an egg, add a quarter of a pound of white sifted sugar, and the white of an egg; when well mixed, bake them like almond macaroons. Flour macaroons look as well, and are nearly as good. To make them, work a pint of sifted white sugar into one beaten egg, till a smooth paste, and add a little sifted flour, so as to mould it in your hands. Flavor with essence of lemon, or rose water, and proceed as with almond macaroons.

Cocoanut Drops

The white part of a cocoanut, grated. The whites of four eggs, well beaten. Half a pound of sifted white sugar. Flavor with rose water, or essence of lemon. Mix all as thick as can be stirred, lay in heaps an inch apart, on paper, and on a baking tin; put them in a quick oven, and take them out when they begin to look yellowish.

Candied Fruits

Preserve the fruit, then dip it in sugar boiled to candy thickness, and then dry it. Grapes and some other fruits may be dipped in uncooked, and then dried, and they are fine.

Another Way

Take it from the syrup, when preserved, dip it in powdered sugar, and set it on a sieve in an oven to dry.

To make an Ornamental Pyramid for a Table

Boil loaf sugar as for candy, and rub it over a stiff form, made for the purpose, of stiff paper, which must be well buttered. Set it on a table, and begin at the bottom, and stick on to this frame, with the sugar, a row of macaroons, kisses, or other ornamental articles, and continue till the whole is covered. When cold, draw out the pasteboard form, and set the pyramid in the centre of the table with a small bit of wax candle burning with it, and it looks very beautifully.

Ginger Beer Powders, and Soda Powders

Put into blue papers, thirty grains to each paper, of bicarbonate of soda, five grains of powdered ginger, and a drachm of white powdered sugar. Put into white papers, twenty-five grains to each, of powdered tartaric acid. Put one paper of each kind to half a pint of water. The common soda powders of the shops are like the above, when the sugar and ginger are omitted. Soda powders can be kept on hand, and the water in which they are used can be flavored with any kind of syrup or tincture, and thus make a fine drink for hot weather.

Currant Ice Water

Press the juice from ripe currants, strain it, and put a pound of sugar to each pint of juice. Put it into bottles, cork and seal it, and keep it in a cool, dry place. When wanted, mix it with ice water for a drink. Or put water with it, make it _very_ sweet, and freeze it. Freezing always takes away much of the sweetness. The juices of other acid fruits can be used in the same way.

Sarsaparilla Mead

One pound of Spanish sarsaparilla. Boil it in four gallons of water five hours, and add enough water to have two gallons. Add sixteen pounds of sugar, and ten ounces of tartaric acid. To make a tumbler of it, take half a wine-glass of the above, and then fill with water, and put in half a teaspoonful of soda.

Effervescing Fruit Drinks

Very fine drinks for summer are prepared by putting strawberries, raspberries, or blackberries into good vinegar and then straining it off, and adding a new supply of fruit till enough flavor is secured, as directed in Strawberry Vinegar. Keep the vinegar bottled, and in hot weather use it thus. Dissolve half a teaspoonful or less of saleratus, or soda in a tumbler, very little water till the lumps are all out. Then fill the tumbler two-thirds full of water, and then add the fruit vinegar. If several are to drink, put the soda, or saleratus into the pitcher, and then put the fruit vinegar into each tumbler, and pour the alkali water from the pitcher into each tumbler, as each person is all ready to drink, as delay spoils it.

Effervescing Jelly Drinks

When jams or jellies are too old to be good for table use, mix them with good vinegar, and then use them with soda, or saleratus, as directed above.

Summer Beverage

Ten drops of oil of sassafras. Ten drops of oil of spruce. Ten drops of oil of wintergreen. Two quarts of boiling water poured on to two great spoonfuls of cream tartar. Then add eight quarts of cold water, the oils, three gills of distillery yeast (or twice as much home-brewed), and sweeten it to the taste. In twenty-four hours, bottle it, and it is a delicious beverage.

Simple Ginger Beer

One great spoonful of ginger and one of cream tartar. One pint of home-brewed yeast and one pint of molasses. Six quarts of water. When it _begins_ to ferment bottle it, and it will be ready for use in eight hours.

Orange, or Lemon Syrup

Put a pound and a half of white sugar to each pint of juice, add some of the peel, boil ten minutes, then strain and cork it. It makes a fine beverage, and is useful to flavor pies and puddings.

Acid Fruit Syrups

The juice of any acid fruit can be made into a syrup by the above receipt, using only a pound of sugar for each pint of juice, and kept on hand for summer drink.

Imitation Lemon Syrup

Four ounces tartaric acid, powdered. Two drachms oil of lemon. This can be kept in a vial for a month, and then must be renewed. A tablespoonful put to water sweetened with loaf sugar, makes six glasses of lemonade.

Superior Ginger Beer

Ten pounds of sugar. Nine ounces of lemon juice. Half a pound of honey. Eleven ounces bruised ginger root. Nine gallons of water. Three pints of yeast. Boil the ginger half an hour in a gallon and a half of water, then add the rest of the water and the other ingredients, and strain it when cold, add the white of one egg beaten, and half an ounce of essence of lemon. Let it stand four days then bottle it, and it will keep good many months.

Lemon Sherbet

Dissolve a pound and a half of loaf sugar in one quart of water, add the juice of ten lemons, press the lemons so as to extract not only the juice, but the oil of the rind, and let the skins remain a while in the water and sugar. Strain through a sieve, and then freeze it like ice cream.

Orange Sherbet

Take the juice of a dozen oranges, and pour a pint of boiling water on the peel, and let it stand, covered, half an hour. Boil a pound of loaf sugar in a pint of water, skim, and then add the juice and the water in the peel to the sugar. Strain it and cool it with ice, or freeze it. The juice of two lemons and a little more sugar improves it.

Sham Champagne

One lemon sliced. A tablespoonful of tartaric acid. One ounce of race ginger. One pound and a half of sugar. Two gallons and a half of boiling water poured on to the above. When blood warm, add a gill of distillery yeast, or twice as much of home-brewed. Let it stand in the sun through the day. When cold in the evening, cork and wire it. In two days it is ready for use.

Coffee

Mocha and Old Java are the best, and time improves all kinds. Dry it a long time before roasting. Roast it quick, stirring constantly, or it will taste raw and bitter. When roasted, put in a bit of butter the size of a chestnut. Keep it shut up close, or it loses its strength and flavor. Never grind it till you want to use it, as it loses flavor by standing. To prepare it, put two great spoonfuls to each pint of water, mix it with the white, yolk, and shell of an egg, pour on hot, but not boiling water, and boil it not over ten minutes. Take it off, pour in half a tea-cup of cold water, and in five minutes pour it off without shaking. When eggs are scarce, clear with fish skin, as below. Boiled milk improves both tea and coffee, but must be boiled separately. Much coffee is spoiled by being burned black instead of brown, and by being burned unequally, some too much and some too little. Constant care and stirring are indispensable.

Fish Skin for Coffee

Take the skin of a mild codfish which has not been soaked, rinse and then dry it in a warm oven, after bread is drawn. Cut it in inch squares. One of these serves for two quarts of coffee, and is put in the first thing.

Chocolate

Allow three large spoonfuls of scraped chocolate to each pint of water, or take off an inch of the cake for each quart of water, boil it half an hour, and do not boil the milk in it, but add it when wanted.

Cocoa and Shells

Dry the nut in a warm oven after bread is drawn, pound it, and put an ounce to each pint of water. Boil an hour, and do not add milk till it is used. If shells are used, soak them over night, then boil them an hour in the same water. Put in as much as you like. Boil cocoa and chocolate the day before, cool and take off the oil, and then heat for use, and it is as good, and more healthful.

Tea

The old-fashioned rule to put one teaspoonful for each person, is not proper, as thus fifty persons would require fifty teaspoonfuls, which is enormous. Every person must be guided by taste in this matter. Tea is spoilt unless the water is boiling when it is made. Black tea improves by boiling, but green is injured by it.

Ochra

It is said that the seeds of ochra burnt like coffee, make a beverage almost exactly like it.

Children’s Drinks

There are drinks easily prepared for children, which they love much better than tea and coffee, for no child at first loves these drinks till trained to it. As their older friends are served with _green_ and _black_ tea, there is a _white_ tea to offer them, which they will always prefer, if properly trained, and it is _always_ healthful.

White Tea

Put two teaspoonfuls of sugar into half a cup of good milk, and fill it with boiling water.

Boy’s Coffee

Crumb bread, or dry toast, into a bowl. Put on a plenty of sugar, or molasses. Put in one half milk and one half boiling water. To be eaten with a spoon, or drank if preferred. Molasses for sweetening is preferred by most children.

Strawberry Vinegar

Put four pounds very ripe strawberries, nicely dressed, to three quarts of the best vinegar, and let them stand three, or four days. Then drain the vinegar through a jelly-bag, and pour it on to the same quantity of fruit. Repeat the process in three days a third time. Finally, to each pound of the liquor thus obtained, add one pound of fine sugar. Bottle it and let it stand covered, but not tight corked, a week; then cork it tight, and set it in a _dry_ and cool place, where it will not freeze. Raspberry vinegar can be made in the same way.

Royal Strawberry Acid

Take three pounds of ripe strawberries, two ounces of citric acid, and one quart of spring water. Dissolve the acid in the water and pour it on to the strawberries, and let them stand in a cool place twenty-four hours. Then drain the liquid off and pour it on to three pounds more of strawberries, and let it stand twenty-four hours. Then add to the liquid its own weight of sugar, boil it three or four minutes (in a porcelain lined preserve kettle, lest metal may affect the taste), and when cool, cork it in bottles lightly for three days, and then tight, and seal them. Keep it in a dry and cool place, where it will not freeze. It is very delicious for the sick, or the well.

Delicious Milk Lemonade

Pour a pint of boiling water on to six ounces of loaf sugar, add a quarter of a pint of lemon juice, and half the quantity of good sherry wine. Then add three quarters of a pint of cold milk, and strain the whole, to make it nice and clear.

Portable Lemonade

Mix strained lemon juice with loaf sugar, in the proportion of four large lemons to a pound, or as much as it will hold in solution; grate the rind of the lemons into this, and preserve this in a jar. If this is too sweet, add a little citric acid. Use a tablespoonful to a tumbler of water.

General Remarks on the Preparation of Articles for the Sick

Always have everything you use very sweet and clean, as the sense of taste and smell are very sensitive in sickness. Never cook articles for the sick over a smoke or blaze, as you will thus impart a smoky taste. When the mixture is thick, stir often to prevent burning. Be very careful, in putting in seasoning, not to put in _too much_, as it is easy to add, but not to subtract. The nicest way to flavor with orange or lemon peel, is to rub loaf sugar on the peel till the oil is absorbed into it, and then use the sugar to flavor and sweeten. Herbs and spice, when boiled to flavor, should be tied in a rag, as they will not then burn on to the vessel at the edges. Always have a shawl at hand, also a clean towel, a clean handkerchief, and a small waiter when you present food or drink. Many of the articles for desserts and evening parties are good for the sick.

An Excellent Relish for a Convalescent

Cut some codfish to bits the size of a pea, and boil it a minute in water to freshen it. Pour off all the water, and add some cream and a little pepper. Split and toast a Boston cracker, and put the above upon it. Milk with a little butter may be used instead of cream. Ham or smoked beef may be prepared in the same way. For a variety, beat up an egg and stir it in, instead of cream, or with the cream. These preparations are also good for a relish for a family at breakfast or tea.