The household gas cookery book

Jéna Jelly. — Take four new sponge cakes, one pint of any kind of jelly, and one pint of custard. Place the sponge cakes into a glass bowl, and pour over them the jelly made hot. When cold and set, pour the custard over the cake and jelly. Now beat up the white of an egg and a little white sugar into a froth, and place it in little heaps upon the custard and jelly, and finish by putting a teaspoonful of jam in the centre of each little heap. Pancakes. — Put \ lb. flour into a basin, make a bay in the centre, add two eggs, a pinch of salt, and by degrees a quarter of a pint of milk ; beat all together five or ten minutes, add another quarter of a pint of milk, and should it be lumpy strain into a jug. Melt some lard in a small saucepan, pour a little into a small frying-pan. When quite hot pour in enough to thinly cover the bottom of the pan; don’t use the gas too fiercely; when brown on one side toss or turn over with a knife and fry on the other side. Dust a little castor sugar, and squeeze a few drops of lemon juice over each pancake. Roll up and keep warm until all the batter has been used. Serve with small pieces of lemon. Pancakes may be cooked over the grill burners in a pan, and will need no tossing or turning, for when half cooked the pan may be placed under the grill to cook and brown the top of the pancake. Fritter Batter. — J lb. flour, i gill of warm water, i oz. butter, or salad oil, i egg. Put the flour through a sieve into a basin, make a well in the centre and drop in the yolk of the egg. Melt the butter in the warm water, or add the salad oil and mix this gradually with the flour and egg. Whip up the white of egg to a strong froth and mix in lightly. For savouries, add a little cayenne and salt. For sweets, castor sugar should be sprinkled over just as the fritters are going to be served. Fish, meat and tripe, etc., may be used, or any kind of fruit, such as bananas, apples, oranges, apricots, or pineapples. CONFECTIONERY. Marrons Glacés or Sugared Chestnuts. These make a very nice dessert for Christmas time, and are easily made. Take some good Spanish chestnuts and put them into boiling water; then remove the outer skins; boil them till just tender, but not soft, take off the woolly inner skin, but do not break it. Put a pound of fine white sugar into half a pint of water, and boil for one minute; put the chestnuts into this, with a large pod of vanilla, and let them boil slowly till they are clear, then take them out, put them on a sieve in a warm place till next day; then dip each nut, mounted on a thin wooden skewer, into a candy made by boiling a pound of sugar to what is called feather degree, which is that when the candy begins to boil. Dip a silver fork into it, let the syrup run off the end, and then blow suddenly against it; if only a few beads blow out, let it boil a minute longer, then, on blowing again, if bubbles float from the fork, wait only a second, then blow again. The bubbles should not break after they leave the fork, but run one into the other, and drop to the ground in a rough resemblance to a feather. The juice of a small lemon should be squeezed into it. Work it with a spoon against the side of a saucepan till it is whitish and a little grainy.