Cassell's dictionary of cookery

My Own Cakes. — Beat well six fresh eggs, and remove the specks ; have ready baked eight ounces of flour. Put the flour into a bowl with eight ounces of finely-sifted sugar, of sweet almonds, blanched and pounded, and of citron, minced, each two ounces; moisten with the eggs, and flavour with thirty drops of the essence of vanilla, and half a small wine-glassful of curaçoa, first mixed with eight ounces of dissolved butter, and then with the ingredients in the bowl, which must be beaten for several minutes. During the beating process add, sprinkling them in from time to time, three or four ounces of clean well-dried currants. Butter small fluted moulds, but do not fill them ; leave space for rising. The oven should be quick, and the cakes put in as quickly as possible. When nearly done, ice over the tops, flavouring the icing with a few drops of vanilla ; make the icing by beating the white of an egg, with two table-spoonfuls of pounded sugar ; add five drops of vanilla. These cakes may be eaten hot or cold. Time, about twenty minutes to bake ; ten minutes to beat the mixture. N Nanterre, Gateau de («ff Gateau de Nanterre) . Naples, or Finger. Biscuits.— Take eight eggs. Divide the whites from the yolks, and put them into separate bowls. Beat the yolks thoroughly, and mix with these haK a pound of finely-sifted loaf sugar, a small pinch of salt, two or three di-ops of almond, lemon, or any other flavouring, two ounces of best flour, and two ounces and a haK of corn-flour. Beat thoroughly to a thick smooth batter. Whisk the whites to a solid froth, add them a little at a time to the rest, beating briskly all the while. Place them on a baking sheet, in fingers four inches long and three-quarters of an inch wide, sift a little sugar over them, and bake in a moderate oven. They should not be allowed to brown. Time to bake, a quarter of an hour. Probable cost. Is. 6d. per pound. Naples Sauce for Fish.— Take one-eighth of a pint of freshly boiled shrimps, remove the shells, and put them into an enamelled saucepan, and with them a large anchovy, freed entirely from skin and bone, two shallots finely minced, a dessert- spoonful of bruised capers, and three dessert-spoonfuls of strained lemon -juice : a little piece of garlic not larger than a small pea can also be put in if the flavour is liked. Stir over the fire for six or seven minutes, pour in a quarter of a pint of good stock, and add a smaU pinch of cayenne and half a blade of mace. Simmer gently for a quarter of an hour, thicken the sauce with a piece of butter, the size of a large egg, rolled thickly in flour, and boil ten minutes longer. WAS ( 453 ) NEA Strain the sauce, adding another dessert-spoonful of lemon-juice ; make it as hot as possible without letting it boil, then draw it from the fire, and stir in a quarter of a pint of thick cream. S. rve at once. Time, three-quarters of an hour to prepare. Probable cost, lOd. Sufficient for half a dozen persons.