a THERE IS NO GRIEF LIKE THE GRIEF WHICH DOES NOT SPEAK. 261 bands. Pass the left one through the aperture to the right, and throw it into brass or bell-metal skillet of BOILING lard, or beef or mutton dripping. You may cook three or four at a time. In about two minutes turn them with a fork, and you will find them browned, and swollen or risen in two or three minutes more. Remove them from the pan to a dish, when they will dry and cool. 1876. MUFFINS.—Add a pint and a half of good ale yeast (from pale malt, if possible) to a bushel of the very best white flour; let the yeast lie all night in water, then pour off the water quite clear; heat two gallons of water just milk-warm, and mix the water, yeast, and two ounces of salt well together for about a quarter of an hour. Strain the whole, and mix up your dough as light as possible, letting it lie in the trough an hour to rise; next roll it with your hand, pulling it into little pieces about the size of a large walnut. These must be rolled out thin with a rolling-pin, in a good deal of flour, and if covered immediately with a piece of flannel, they will rise to a proper thickness; but if too large or small, dough must be added accordingly, or taken away; meanwhile, the dough must be also covered with flannel. Next begin baking; and when laid on the iron, watch carefully, and when one side changes colour, turn the other, taking care that they do not burn or become discoloured. Be careful also that the iron does not get too hot. In order to bake muffins properly, you ought to have a place built as if a copper were to be set; but instead of copper a piece of iron must be put over the top, fixed in form like the bottom of an iron pot, under neath which a coal fire is kindled when required. Toast the muffins crisp on both sides with a fork; pull them open with your hand, and they will be like a honeycomb; lay in as much butter as you intend, then clap them together, and set by the fire: turn them once, that both sides may be buttered alike. When quite done, cut them across with a knife; but if you use a knife either to spread or divide them, they will be as heavy as lead. Some kinds of flour will soak up more water than others; when this occurs, add water; or if too moist, add flour: for the dough must be as light as possible. 1877. Unfermented Cakes, &c. -The retail price of soda is 8d. per pound avoirdupois; and the acid, known under the more common name of spirits of salts, is 4d. per pound avoirdupois. The price of the acid and soda, each, by the ounce, is one penny. 1878. TEA CAKES.-Take of flour one pound; sugar, one ounce; butter, one ounce; muriatic acid, two drachms; bicarbonate of soda, two drachms; milk, six ounces; water, six ounces. Rub the butter into the flour; dissolve the sugar and soda in the milk, and the acid in the water. First add the milk, &c., to the flour, and partially mix then the water and acid, and mix well together; divide into three portions, and bake twenty-five minutes. Flat round tins or earthen pans are the best to bake them in. If the above be made with baking powder, a teaspoonful may be substituted for the acid and soda in the foregoing receipt, and all the other directions carried out as before stated. If buttermilk is used, the acid, milk, and water, must be left out. 1879. UNFERMENTED CAKE.-Take of flour one pound and a half; bicarbonate of soda, three drachms; muriatic acid, three drachms; sugar, one ounce and a half; butter, one ounce and a half; milk, twenty ounces; currants, six ounces, more or less. Mix the soda and butter into the flour by rubbing them together; next dissolve the sugar in the milk, and diffuse the acid through it by stirring; then mix the whole intimately, adding fruit at discretion; and bake in a tin or earthen pan. 1880. LUNCHEON CAKES.-Take of flour one pound; muriatic acid, two drachms: bicarbonate of soda, two drachms; sugar, three ounces; butter, three ounces; currants, four ounces; 264 THE EARLY BIRD CATCHES THE WORM. out sticky, put it in the oven again; if not, it is ready. 1896. Pic-Nic Biscuits.-Take two ounces of fresh butter, and well work it with a pound of flour. Mix thoroughly with it half a saltspoonful of pure carbonate of soda, two ounces of sugar; mingle thoroughly with the flour, make up the paste with spoonfuls of milk; it will require scarcely a quarter of a pint. Knead smooth, roll a quarter of an inch thick, cut in rounds about the size of the top of a small wineglass; roll these out thin, prick them well, lay them on lightly floured tins, and bake in a gentle oven until crisp. When cold put into dry canisters. Thin cream used instead of milk, in the paste, will enrich the biscuits. Carraway seeds or ginger can be added, to vary these, at pleasure. 1897. Ginger Biscuits and Cakes. Work into small crumbs three ounces of butter, two pounds of flour, and three ounces of powdered sugar and two of ginger, in fine powder; knead into a stiff paste, with new milk; roll thin, cut out with a cutter: bake in a slow oven until crisp through; keep of a pale colour. Additional sugar may be used when a sweeter biscuit is desired. For good ginger cakes, butter six ounces, sugar eight, for each pound of flour; wet the ingredients into a paste with eggs: alittle lemon-peel grated will give an agreeable flavour. 1898. Sugar Biscuits.-Cut the butter into the flour. Add the sugar and carraway seeds. Pour in the brandy, and then the milk. Lastly, put in the pearlash. Stir all well with a knife, and mix it thoroughly, till it becomes a lump of dough. Flour your pasteboard, and lay the dough on it. Knead it very well. Divide it into eight or ten pieces, and knead each piece separately. Then put them all together, and knead them very well into one lump. Cut the dough in half, and roll it out into sheets, about half an inch thick. Beat the sheets of dough very hard on both sides with the rolling pin. Cut them out into round cakes with the edge of a tumbler. Butter iron pans and lay the cakes in them. Bake them of a very pale brown. If done too much, they will lose their taste. Let the oven be hotter at the top than at the bottom. These cakes kept in a stone jar, closely covered from the air, will continue perfectly good for several months. 1899. Lemon Sponge. For a quart mould-dissolve two ounces of isinglass in a pint and three quarters of water; strain it, and add three quarters of a pound of sifted loaf sugar, the juice of six lemons and the rind of one; boil the whole for a few minutes, strain it again, and let it stand till quite cold and just beginning to stiffen; then beat the whites of two eggs, and put them to it, and whisk till it is quite white; put it into a mould, which must be first wetted with cold water,-or salad oil is a much better substitute for turning out jelly, blancmange, &c., great care being taken not to pour it into the mould till quite cool, or the oil will float on the top, and after it is turned out it must be carefully wiped over with a clean cloth. Thic plan only requires to be tried once to be invariably adopted. 1900. Almond Custards. Blanch and pound fine, with half a gill of rose water, six ounces of sweet and half an ounce of bitter almonds; boil a pint of milk, with a few coriander seeds, a little cinnamon and lemon peel; sweeten it with two ounces and a half of sugar, rub the almonds through a fine sieve, with a pint of cream; strain the milk to the yolks of eight eggs, and the whites of three well beaten; stir it over a fire till it is of a good thickness, take it off the fire, and stir it till nearly cold, to prevent its curdling. 1901. Arrowroot Blancmange. - A teacupful of arrowroot to a pint of milk; boil the milk with twelve sweet and six bitter almonds, blanched and beaten; sweeten with loaf sugar, and strain it; break the arrowroot with a little of the milk as smooth as possible; pour the boiling milk upon it by degrees, stir the while; put it back into the pan. MAKE HAY WHILE THE SUN SHINES. 265 and boil a few minutes, still stirring; | a hair sieve, and to every pint of juice dip the shape in cold water before you put it in, and turn it out when cold. 1902. Red Currant Jelly. With three parts of fine ripe red currants mix one of white currants; put them into a clean preserving-pan, and stir them gently over a clear fire until the juice flows from them freely; then turn them into a fine hair sieve, and let them drain well, but without pressure. Pass the juice through a folded muslin, or a jelly bag; weigh it, and then boil it fast for a quarter of an hour; add for each pound, eight ounces of sugar coarsely powdered, stir this to it off the fire until it is dissolved, give the jelly eight minutes more of quick boiling, and pour it out. It will be firm, and of excellent colour and flavour. Be sure to clear off the scum as it rises, both before and after the sugar is put in, or the preserve will not be clear. Juice of red currants, three pounds; juice of white currants, one pound: fifteen minutes. Sugar, two pounds: eight minutes. An excellent jelly may be made with equal parts of the juice of red and of white currants, and of raspberries, with the same proportion of sugar and degree of boiling as mentioned in the foregoing receipt. 1903. White Currant Jelly.White currant jelly is made in the same way as red currant jelly, only it should have double refined sugar, and not be boiled above ten minutes. White currant jelly should be put through a lawn sieve. 1904. ANOTHER RECEIPT FOR WHITE CURRANT JELLY.-After the fruit is stripped from the stalks, put it into the pan, and when it boils, run it quickly through a sieve: take a pound of sugar to each pint of juice, and let it boil twenty minutes. allow a pound of loaf or raw sugar: boil it ten minutes. 1906. Apricot Jelly.-Pare the fruit thin, and stone it; weigh an equal quantity of sugar in fine powder, and strew over it. Let it stand one day, then boil very gently till it is clear, move it into a bowl, and pour the liquor over. The next day pour the liquor to a quart of codling liquor; let it boil quickly till it will jelly; put the fruit into it, and boil; skim well, and put into small pots. 1907. Ox-heel Jelly is made in the same manner. 1908. Arrowroot Jelly. - A tablespoonful of arrowroot, and cold water to form a paste; add a pint of boiling water; stir briskly, boil for a few minutes. A little sherry and sugar may be added. For infants, a drop or two of the essence of car raway seed or cinnamon is preferable. 1909. An Excellent Jelly. (FOR THE SICK-гOOM.) - Take rice, sago, pearl barley, hartshorn shavings, each one ounce; siminer with three pints of water to one, and strain it. When cold it will be a jelly, of which give, dissolved in wine, milk, or broth, in change with the other nourishment. 1910. Calves' Feet Jelly.-It is better to buy the feet of the butcher, than at the tripe-shop ready boiled, because the best portion of the jelly has been extracted. Slit them in two, and take every particle of fat from the claws; wash well in warm water, put them in a large stewpan, and cover with water; skim well, and let them boil gently for six or seven hours, until reduced to about two quarts, then strain and skim off any oily substance on the surface. It is best to boil the feet the day before making the jelly, as, when the liquor is cold, the oily part being at the top, and the other being firm, with pieces of kitchen paper applied to it, you may remove every particle of the oily substance without wasting the liquor. Put the liquor in a stewpan 1905. Black Currant Jelly.-To each pound of picked fruit allow one gill of water; set them on the fire in the preserving-pan to scald, but do not let them boil; bruise them well with a silver fork, or wooden beater; take them off and squeeze them through to melt, with a pound of lump sugar, K 206 : BE A FRIEND TO VIRTUE-A STRANGER TO VICE. boiled with the other parts; scrape clean all the pith, or inside, from them; lay them in folds, and cut them into thin slices of about an inch long. Clarify your sugar; then throw your peels and pulp into it, stir it well, and let it boil about half an hour. If the sugar is broken into small pieces, and boiled with the fruit, it will answer the purpose of clarifying, but it must be well skimmed when it boils. Marmalade should be made at the end of March, or the beginning of April, as Seville oranges are then in their best state. 1912. Apple Marmalade.-Peel and core two pounds of sub-acid apples, and put them in an enamelled saucepan with one pint of sweet cider, or half a pint of pure wine, and one pound of crushed sugar. Cook them by a gentle heat three hours, or longer, until the fruit is very soft, then squeeze it first through a cullender and then through a sieve. If not sufficiently sweet, add powdered sugar to suit your taste, and put away in jars made air tight by a piece of wet bladder. It is delicious when eaten with milk, and still better with cream. the peel of two and the juice of six lemons, six whites and shells of eggs beat together, and a bottle of sherry or Madeira; whisk the whole together until it is on the boil, then put it by the side of the stove, and let it simmer a quarter of an hour; strain it through a jelly-bag what is strained first must be poured into the bag again, until it is as bright and clear as rock water; then put the jelly in moulds, to be cold and firm; if the weather is too warm, it requires some ice. When it is wished to be very stiff, half an ounce of isinglass may be added when the wine is put in. It may be flavoured by the juice of various fruits and spices, &c., and coloured with saffron, cochineal, red beet juice, spinach juice, claret, &c., and it is sometimes made with cherry brandy, red noyeau, curaçoa, or essence of punch. 1911. Orange Marmalade.Choose the largest Seville oranges, as they usually contain the greatest quantity of juice, and choose them with clear skins, as the skins form the largest part of the marmalade. Weigh the oranges, and weigh also an equal quantity of loaf sugar. Peel the oranges, dividing the peels into quarters, and 1913. Plum or Apricot Jam.put them into a preserving-pan; cover After taking away the stones from the them well with water, and set them on apricots, and cutting out the fire to boil: in the meantime pre- they may have, put them over a slow pare your oranges; divide them into fire, in a clean stewpan, with half a pint gores, then scrape with a teaspoon all of water; when scalded, rub them the pulp from the white skin; or, in- through a hair sieve; to every pound of stead of peeling the oranges, cut a hole pulp put one pound of sifted loaf sugar, in the orange and scoop out the pulp; put it into a preserving-pan over a brisk remove carefully all the pips, of which fire, and when it boils skim it well, and there are innumerable small ones in the throw in the kernels of the apricots Seville orange, which will escape obser- and half an ounce of bitter almonds, vation unless they are very minutely blanched; boil it a quarter of an hour examined. Have a large basin near fast, and stirring it all the time; reyou with some cold water in it, to move it from the fire, fill it into pots, throw the pips and peels into a pint is and cover them. Greengages may be sufficient for a dozen oranges. A great done in the same way. deal of glutinous matter adheres to 1914. Almond Flavour. (Esthem, which, when strained through a SENCE OF PEACH KERNELS QUINTsieve, should be boiled with the other ESSENCE OF NOYEAU.) Dissolve one parts. When the peels have boiled ounce of essential oil of bitter almonds till they are sufficiently tender to in one pint of spirit of wine. Use it admit of a fork being stuck into them, as flavouring for cordials, and for per any blemishes strain them; some of which may be fuming pastry. In large quantities it PLEASURE IS PRECARIOUS, BUT VIRTUE IS IMMORTAL. is exceedingly poisonous. A few drops | only should be used to several pounds of syrups, pastry, &c. Cost: oil of bitter almonds, 1s. per ounce; spirit, 2s. 6d. per pint. Usually sold in quarter or half-ounce bottles at 1s. 1915. Syrup of Orange or Lemon Peel.-Of fresh outer rind of Seville orange, or lemon peel, three ounces, apothecaries' weight; boiling water, a pint and a half; infuse them for a night in a close vessel; then strain the liquor; let it stand to settle; and having poured it off clear from the sediment, dissolve in it two pounds of double refined loaf sugar, and make it into a syrup with a gentle heat. 1916. Indian Syrup. (A delicious summer drink.)-Five pounds of lump sugar, two ounces of citric acid, a gallon of boiling water: when cold add half a drachm of essence of lemon and half a drachm of spirit of wine; stir it well, and bottle it. About two tablespoonfuls to a glass of cold water. 1917. Apples in Syrup for Immediate Use.-Pare and core some hard round apples, and throw them into a basin of water; as they are done, clarify as much loaf sugar as will cover them; put the apples in along with the juice and rind of a lemon, and let them simmer till they are quite clear; great care must be taken not to break them. Place them on the dish they are to appear upon at table, and pour the syrup over. 1918. Pounding Almonds. They should be dried for a few days after being blanched. Set them in a warm place, strewn singly over a dish or tin. A little powdered lump sugar will assist the pounding. They may be first chopped small, and rolled with a rolling pin.-ALMOND PASTE may be made in the same manner. 267 1920. Freezing without Ice or Acids.-The use of ice in cooling depends upon the fact of its requiring a vast quantity of heat to convert it from a solid into a liquid state, or in other words, to melt it; and the heat so required is obtained from those objects with which it may be in contact. A pound of ice requires nearly as much heat to melt it as would be sufficient to make a pound of cold water boiling hot; hence its cooling power is extremely great. But ice does not begin to melt until the temperature is above the freezing point, and therefore it cannot be employed in freezing liquids, &c., but only in cooling them. If, however, any substance is mixed with ice which is capable of causing it to melt more rapidly, and at a lower temperature, a still more intense cooling effect is the result; such a substance is common salt, and the degree of cold produced by the mixture of one part of salt with two parts of snow or pounded ice, is greater than thirty degrees below freezing. In making ice-creams and dessert ices, the following articles are required:- Pewter ice-pots with tightly-fitting lids, furnished with handles; wooden ice-pails, to hold the rough ice and salt, which should be stoutly made, about the same depth as the ice-pots, and nine or ten inches more in diameter,-each should have a hole in the side, fitted with a good cork, in order that the water from the melted ice may be drawn off as required. In addition, a broad spatula, about four inches long, rounded at the end, and furnished with a long wooden handle, is necessary to scrape the frozen cream from the sides of the ice-pot, and for mixing the whole smoothly together. When making ices, place the mixture of cream and fruit to be frozen, in the ice-pot, cover it with the lid, and put the pot in the ice-pail, which proceed to fill up with coarsely-pounded ice and salt, in the proportion of about one part of salt to three of ice; let the whole remain a few minutes (if covered by a blanket, so much the better), then whirl |