Take half a pound of curds and press the curds in a napkin to extract the moisture. Take also six ounces of lump sugar, and rub the sugar on the outside of a couple of oranges or lemons. Dissolve this sugar in two ounces of butter made hot in a tin in the oven; mix this with the curds, with two ounces of powdered ratafias and a little grated nutmeg--about half a nutmeg to this quantity will be required; add also six yolks of eggs. Mix this well together, and fill the tartlet cases, made from puff paste, and bake them in the oven. It is often customary to place in the centre of each cheese-cake a thin strip of candied peel. As soon as the cheese-cakes are done, take them out of the oven, and if the mixture be of a bad colour finish it off with a salamander, but do not let them remain in the oven too long, so that the pastry becomes brittle and dried up. These cheese-cakes can be made on a larger scale than the ordinary one so familiar to all who have looked into a pastry-cook's window. Suppose we make them of the size of a breakfast saucer, a very rich and delicious cheese-cake can be made by adding some chopped dried cherries to the mixture. Sometimes ordinary grocer's currants are added and the ratafias omitted. Sultana raisins can be used instead of currants, and by many are much preferred. This mixture can be baked in a shallow pie-dish and time edge of the dish lined with puff paste, but cheese-cakes made from curds are undoubtedly expensive.
Cheese-cakes can be sent to table in two forms, the one some rich kind of custard or cream placed in little round pieces of pastry, or we can have a so-called cheese-cake baked in a pie-dish, the edges only of which are lined with puff paste. We can also have cheese-cakes very rich and cheese-cakes very plain. The origin of the name cheese-cake is that originally they were made from curds used in making cheese. Probably most people consider that the cheese-cakes made from curds are superior, and in the North of England, and especially in Yorkshire, where curds are exposed for sale in the windows at so much a pound, very delicious cheese- cakes can be made, but considerable difficulty will be experienced if we attempt to make home-made curds from London milk. Curds are made by taking any quantity of milk and letting it nearly boil, then throw in a little rennet or a glass of sherry. The curds must be well strained.
This is a nice dish when you require a lot of white of eggs for other purposes, such as iceing a wedding-cake, or making light vanilla or almond biscuits. Take six hard-boiled yolks, powder them, flavour with a little pepper and salt, and mix in three raw yolks; mix this well together, and roll them into shapes like very small sausages, pointed at each end like a foreign cigar. Flour these on the outside, and throw them into boiling water. These can be used for garnishing purposes for the vast majority of vegetarian dishes. They can be flavoured if wished with grated nutmeg, chopped parsley, and a few savoury herbs.
4 eggs, the weight of 3 in fine wheatmeal, and the weight of 4 in castor sugar, any flavouring to taste. Beat the eggs, sift in the sugar and meal, stirring all the time, add the flavouring, and pour the mixture into one or two greased cake tins, only filling them half full. Bake in a moderate oven for about an hour, until a knitting needle comes out clean.
6 oz. each of Allinson fine wheatmeal and white flour, 4-1/2 oz. of butter, 1 egg, a little cold water, 1-1/2 lbs. of apples, 1 heaped-up teaspoonful of cinnamon, and 3 oz. of castor sugar. Rub the butter into the meal and flour, beat up the egg and add it, and as much cold water as is required to make a smooth paste; roll out the greater part of it 1/4 inch thick, and line a flat buttered tin with it. Pare, core, and cut the apples into thin divisions, arrange them in close rows on the paste point down, leaving 1 inch of edge uncovered; sift the sugar and cinnamon over the apples; roll out thinly the rest of the paste, cover the apples with it, turn up the edges of the bottom crust over the edges of the top crust, make 2 incisions in the crust, and bake the cake until brown in a moderately hot oven; when cold sift castor sugar over it, slip the cake off the tin, cut into pieces, and serve.
This is a very nice method of serving cauliflower as a course by itself. The cauliflower or cauliflowers should first be boiled till thoroughly tender, very carefully drained, and then placed upright in a vegetable-dish with the flower part uppermost. The whole of the flower part should then be masked (i.e., covered over) with some thick white sauce. Allemande sauce or Dutch sauce will do. This is then sprinkled over with grated Parmesan cheese and the dish put in the oven for the top to brown. As soon as it begins to brown take it out of the oven and finish it off neatly with a salamander (a red-hot shovel will do), the same way you finish cheese-cakes made from curds.
6 eggs, 2 oz. of Allinson fine wheatmeal, 2 oz. of butter, 2 oz. of castor sugar, the grated rind of 1/2 lemon, 1/2 pint of milk, 3 oz. of ratafias. Melt the butter in a saucepan, stir in the flour, mix well, and then add the milk, stirring all until the mixture is quite smooth and thick and comes away from the sides of the saucepan. Let it cool a little, then stir in the yolks of the eggs well beaten, the lemon rind, the sugar, and lastly, the whites of the eggs whipped to a stiff froth. Turn the mixture into a buttered pie-dish or cake tin, with alternate layers of ratafias. Bake from 1/2 an hour to 3/4 of an hour in a moderately hot oven, and serve immediately with stewed fruit.
12 small sponge cakes, 1/2 lb. jam, 1 pint of custard made with Allinson custard powder. Soak the sponge cakes in a little raisin wine, arrange them on a deep glass dish in four layers, spread a little jam on each layer and pour the custard round, decorate the top with candid cherries and almonds blanched and split.
A 1/4 lb. of potato flour, the same quantity of very fine wheatmeal (sift the latter through a sieve if not very fine), 4 oz. of castor sugar, 4 oz. of butter, the juice of 1/2 a lemon, 1 dessertspoonful of ground bitter almonds, and 1 egg. Cream the butter, which is done by beating the butter round the sides of the pan with a wooden spoon until it is quite creamy, add the egg well beaten, the lemon juice, then the sugar, meal, potato flour, and bitter almonds. Beat the mixture from 20 minutes to 1/2 an hour, then drop small lumps of it on floured tins, and bake the little cakes from 10 to 15 minutes.
Like most soups that are either sweet or sour, this is a German recipe. Put a piece of butter, the size of a large egg, into a saucepan. Let it melt, then mix it with a tablespoonful of flour, and stir smoothly until it is lightly browned. Add gradually two pints of water, a pound of black cherries, picked and washed, and a few cloves. Let these boil until the fruit is quite tender, then press the whole through a sieve. After straining, add a little port, if wine is allowed--but the soup will be very nice without this addition--half a teaspoonful of the kernels, blanched and bruised, a tablespoonful of sugar, and a few whole cherries. Let the soup boil again until the cherries are tender, and pour all into a tureen over toasted sippets, sponge-cakes, or macaroons.
