Twentieth century home cook book

Frozen Custard. — This is a nice dish for dessert, and very easily prepared: Boil two quarts of rich milk. Beat eight eggs and a teacupful of sugar together, and after the milk has boiled, pour it over the eggs and sugar, stirring all the while. Pour the whole mixture into your kettle, and let it come to a boil, stirring it constantly. Then take it off the fire, and let it become cold. Flavor it with whatever essence you prefer. Then freeze it. Chocolate Custard. — Scrape half a cake of good chocolate, and put it into a stew-pan, and moisten by degrees with a pint of warm milk and cream ; when well dissolved, mix with the yolks of eggs, and finish the same as for other custards. Bohemian Cream. — Take four ounces of any kind of fruit, stone it, and sweeten. Pass it through a sieve, adding one ounce and a half of melted or dissolved isinglass to each half pint of fruit. Mix well, then whip a pint of rich cream, and add the isinglass and fruit gradually to it. Pour all into a mould, set it on ice or where it is very cool, and when set, dip the mould a moment into water, and then turn it out ready for the table. Whipped Cream. — Sweeten one pint of sweet cream, and add essence of lemon. Beat up the whites of four eggs until they are very light, adding them to the cream. Whip both together. As fast as the froth rises, skim it off, put in glasses, and continue until they are full. CHAPTER III. CAKE AN ECONOMICAL FOOD. II. GENERAL RULES FOR MAKING CAKE. III. ICING, GLAZING AND ORNAMENTING. IV. RECIPES FOR FROSTING. V. ORNAMENTING CAICE. VI. SPECIAL PREP- ARATIONS. VII. FRUIT CAKE, DARK. VIII. RICH POUND-CAKE. IX. MISCELLANEOUS CAKES. X. MORE GOOD CAKES. XI. GINGERBREAD AND OTHER "HOMELY" CAKES. XXL THE HOUSE-WIFE'S TABLE OF EQUIVALENTS. I. Cake an Economical Food. We have known persons begrudge their families cake, on the ground that it was J expensive. This is a mistake. Milk, eggs, butter, flour and sugar are the ingredients of most cakes. The three first all farmers have, or should have plenty of, and sugar is no longer costly. As a condensed food, cake is cheaper than the best beefsteak, even in the country, and more than twice as nourishing. Eggs are more nourishing, pound for pound, than fresh meat, and a quart of good milk contains as much nourishment as a pound of fresh beef. II. General Rules for Making Cake. There are some general rules for making cake that must be observed : 1. The ingredients must be of the best, for the best are most economical. 2. Never allow butter to get oily before mixing it in the cake. 3. Always have an earthen or other enameled dish to mix and work the materials for cake. Tin, if not new, is apt to discolor the material. Remember that eggs will tarnish even silver. Hence always use a clean wooden spoon. 4. As a rule, in mixing cake, first beat the sugar and butter together to a cream ; then add the yolks of the eggs. If spices or liquors are used, these come in with the yolks of eggs ; then comes milk ; and last, the thoroughly whisked whites of the eggs and the flavor. If fruit is a portion, this is put in with the flour. 5 . For small cakes the oven should be pretty hot ; for larger cakes only moderately so. If a broom-straw, pushed through the thick part of the cake, comes out clean and free from dough, the cake is done. [38] BEATING BOWL. 6. When you take the cake from the oven, do not remove from the pans until it is somewhat cool — not sooner than fifteen minutes. When you take it from the pans, do not turn it over; set it down on a clean cloth, on its bottom, and cover with another clean cloth. These directions have as many parts as an old-fashioned sermon. Fortunately they are not so long. III. Icing, Glazing and Ornamenting. 1. A GLAZED shallow earthen dish should be used in making the icing.