Harper's cook book encyclopædia

Banana Custard. — Dissolve half a package of gelatine in half a cupful of cold milk. Peel and grate pineapple enough to make three cupfuls. Beat light the yolks of six eggs, and add to them one cupful of sugar, a pinch of salt, and one gill of cold milk. When one pint of milk in a double boiler is at boiling-point, stir in the pineapple and the soaked gelatine, and then add the egg mixture. Cook for two minutes, stirring all the while; remove from the fire and stand the boiler in a pan of cold water, and stir until the mixture becomes cool. Turn into a mould and place in the refrigerator for three or four hours. Banana Trifle. — Peel and slice three bananas and lay them in a shallow glass dish in alternate layers, with four lady fingers split and broken in halves and four macaroons rolled fine. Put in a saucepan one cupful of milk, one teaspoonful of sugar, and a pinch of salt. When hot, add two teaspoonfuls of corn-starch dissolved in a little cold milk ; stir until it thickens. Boiled Custard. — To give a recipe for a dish so common may seem superfluous. But custard, which is delicious' if well made, has suffered greatly in reputation from ill-concocted fluids being served up in its much-abused name. By no means use the whites of eggs in making either baked or boiled custard, if you wish the flavor to be fine, and the yolks of eggs must be beaten thoroughly. Put on to boil one gallon of fresh milk. To this quantity allow the yolks of twelve eggs, beaten well. When the eggs are sufficiently light, add I % lbs. of powdered white sugar. The very minute the milk boils up, pour it gradually from the kettle into the bowl of eggs and sugar. Burned Custard Gooseberry Custard stirring constantly while so doing. When well mixed, return to the kettle immediately, and to the fire. Stir rapidly until the custard is properly thickened. Remove from the fire, and set in a cool place. It is good only when perfectly cold. Vanilla is the generally admired seasoning, but lemon is grateful to most tastes. Burned Custard. — Fill a glass bowl nearly full with three pints of nice, boiled custard. Beat until perfectly light the whites of six eggs. To each egg allow one table-spoonful of pulverized white sugar, which add gradually, beating all the time. Heap the bowl with this meringue, and with an iron plate or clean shovel, heated redhot, brown well all over until the delicate, much-admired flavor is imparted that gives this the name of burned custard. Burned Custard. — Make a custard of one quart of milk and five eggs. Put in a tin pan on the stove three and a half table-spoonfuls of brown sugar ; stir constantly until melted ; then spread around the sides of a baking-dish, pour in the custard, but do not stir it. Place the pan in one of boiling water, and bake in the oven. Chocolate Custard. — Break the chocolate in pieces, put in a double boiler with milk enough to barely cover it ; mash and stir perfectly smooth, then add one and a half pints of milk, one cupful of sugar, the beaten yolks of six eggs, a heaping table -spoonful of corn-starch dissolved in milk ; stir all slowly into the boiling milk in which the chocolate is dissolved, add a pinch of salt, and let cook a few minutes, stirring constantly.