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Pound, as for potting (see page 305), and with the same
proportion of butter and of seasonings, some half-roasted veal,
chicken, or turkey. Make some forcemeat by the receipt No. 1,
Chapter VI., and form it into small rolls, not larger than a finger; wrap
twice or thrice as much of the pounded meat equally round each of
these, first moistening it with a teaspoonful of water; fold them in
good puff-paste, and bake them from fifteen to twenty minutes, or
until the crust is perfectly done. A small quantity of the lean of a
boiled ham may be finely minced and pounded with the veal, and
very small mushrooms, prepared as for a partridge (page 329), may
be substituted for the forcemeat.
SMALL VOLS-AU-VENTS, OR PATTY-CASES.
These are quickly and easily made with two round paste-cutters,
of which one should be little more than half the size of the other: to
give the pastry a better appearance, they should be fluted. Roll out
some of the lightest puff-paste to a half-inch of thickness, and with
the larger of the tins cut the number of patties required; then dip the
edge of the small shape into hot water, and press it about half
through them. Bake them in a moderately quick oven from ten to
twelve minutes, and when they are done, with the point of a sharp
knife, take out the small rounds of crust from the tops, and scoop all
the crumb from the inside of the patties, which may then be filled
with shrimps, oysters, lobster, chicken, pheasant, or any other of the
ordinary varieties of patty meat, prepared with white sauce. Fried
crumbs may be laid over them instead of the covers, or these last
can be replaced.
For sweet dishes, glaze the pastry, and fill it with rich whipped
cream, preserve, or boiled custard; if with the last of these put it back
into a very gentle oven until the custards are set.
ANOTHER RECEIPT FOR TARTLETS.
Pour boiling, a pint of rich, clear, pale veal gravy on six fresh eggs,
which have been well beaten and strained: sprinkle in directly the
grated rind of a fine lemon, a little cayenne, some salt if needed, and
a quarter-teaspoonful of mace. Put a paste border round a dish, pour
in, first two ounces of clarified butter, and then the other ingredients;
bake the Sefton in a very slow oven from twenty-five to thirty
minutes, or until it is quite firm in the middle, and send it to table with
a little good gravy. Very highly flavoured game stock, in which a few
mushrooms have been stewed, may be used for this dish with great
advantage in lieu of veal gravy; and a sauce made of the smallest
mushroom buttons, may be served with it in either case. The mixture
can be baked in a whole paste, if preferred so, or in well buttered
cups; then turned out and covered with the sauce before it is sent to
table.
Rich veal or game stock, 1 pint; fresh eggs, 6; rind, 1 lemon; little
salt and cayenne; pounded mace, 1/4 teaspoonful; butter, 2 oz.:
baked, 25 to 30 minutes, slow oven.
APPLE CAKE, OR GERMAN TART.
Work together with the fingers, ten ounces of butter and a pound
of flour, until they resemble fine crumbs of bread; throw in a small
pinch of salt, and make them into a firm smooth paste with the yolks
of two eggs and a spoonful or two of water. Butter thickly, a plain tin
cake, or pie mould (those which open at the sides, see plate, page
344, are best adapted for the purpose); roll out the paste thin, place
the mould upon it, trim a bit to its exact size, cover the bottom of the
mould with this, then cut a band the height of the sides, and press it
smoothly round them, joining the edge, which must be moistened
with egg or water, to the bottom crust; and fasten upon them, to
prevent their separation, a narrow and thin band of paste, also
moistened. Next, fill the mould nearly from the brim with the following
marmalade, which must be quite cold when it is put in. Boil together,
over a gentle fire at first, but more quickly afterwards, three pounds
of good apples with fourteen ounces of pounded sugar, or of the
finest Lisbon, the strained juice of a large lemon, three ounces of
fresh butter, and a teaspoonful of pounded cinnamon, or the lightly
grated rind of a couple of lemons: when the whole is perfectly
smooth and dry, turn it into a pan to cool, and let it be quite cold
before it is put into the paste. In early autumn, a larger proportion of
sugar may be required, but this can be regulated by the taste. When
the mould is filled, roll out the cover, lay it carefully over the
marmalade that it may not touch it; and when the cake is securely
closed, trim off the superfluous paste, add a little pounded sugar to
the parings, spread them out very thin, and cut them into leaves to
ornament the top of the cake, round which they may be placed as a
sort of wreath.[121] Bake it for an hour in a moderately brisk oven;
take it from the mould, and should the sides not be sufficiently
coloured put it back for a few minutes into the oven upon a baking
tin. Lay a paper over the top, when it is of a fine light brown, to
prevent its being too deeply coloured. This cake should be served
hot.
121. Or, instead of these, fasten on it with a little white of egg, after it is taken from
the oven, some ready-baked leaves of almond-paste (see page 355), either
plain or coloured.
Paste: flour, 1 lb.; butter, 10 oz.; yolks of eggs, 2; little water.
Marmalade: apples, 3 lbs.; sugar, 14 oz. (more if needed); juice of
lemon, 1; rinds of lemons, 2; butter, 3 oz.: baked, 1 hour.
TOURTE MERINGUÉE, OR TART WITH ROYAL ICING.[122]
122. The limits to which we are obliged to confine this volume, compel us to omit
many receipts which we would gladly insert; we have, therefore, rejected
those which may be found in almost every English cookery book, for such as
are, we apprehend, less known to the reader: this will account for the small
number of receipts for pies and fruit tarts to be found in the present chapter.
Lay a band of fine paste round the rim of a tart-dish, fill it with any
kind of fruit mixed with a moderate proportion of sugar, roll out the
cover very evenly, moisten the edges of the paste, press them
together carefully, and trim them off close to the dish; spread equally
over the top, to within rather more than an inch of the edge all round,
the whites of three fresh eggs beaten to a quite solid froth and mixed
quickly at the moment of using them with three tablespoonsful of dry
sifted sugar. Put the tart into a moderately brisk oven, and when the
crust has risen well and the icing is set, either lay a sheet of writing-
paper lightly over it, or draw it to a part of the oven where it will not
take too much colour. This is now a fashionable mode of icing tarts,
and greatly improves their appearance.
Bake half an hour.
A GOOD APPLE TART.
A pound and a quarter of apples weighed after they are pared and
cored, will be sufficient for a small tart, and four ounces more for one
of moderate size. Lay a border of English puff-paste, or of cream-
crust round the dish, just dip the apples into water, arrange them
very compactly in it, higher in the centre than at the sides, and strew
amongst them from three to four ounces of pounded sugar, or more
should they be very acid: the grated rind and the strained juice of
half a lemon will much improve their flavour. Lay on the cover rolled
thin, and ice it or not at pleasure. Send the tart to a moderate oven
for about half an hour. This may be converted into the old-fashioned
creamed apple tart, by cutting out the cover while it is still quite hot,
leaving only about an inch-wide border of paste round the edge, and
pouring over the apples when they have become cold, from half to
three-quarters of a pint of rich boiled custard. The cover divided into
triangular sippets, was formerly stuck round the inside of the tart, but
ornamental leaves of pale puff-paste have a better effect. Well-
drained whipped cream may be substituted for the custard, and be
piled high, and lightly over the fruit.
TART OF VERY YOUNG GREEN APPLES. (GOOD.)
Take very young apples from the tree before the cores are formed,
clear off the buds and stalks, wash them well, and fill a tart-dish with
them after having rolled them in plenty of sugar, or strew layers of
sugar between them; add a very small quantity of water and bake
the tart rather slowly, that the fruit may be tender quite through. It will
resemble a green apricot-tart if carefully made. We give this receipt
from recollection, having had the dish served often formerly, and
having found it very good.
BARBERRY TART.
Barberries, with half their weight of fine brown sugar, when they
are thoroughly ripe, and with two ounces more when they are not
quite so, make an admirable tart. For one of moderate size, put into
a dish bordered with paste three quarters of a pound of barberries
stripped from their stalks, and six ounces of sugar in alternate layers;
pour over them three tablespoonsful of water, put on the cover, and
bake the tart for half an hour. Another way of making it is, to line a
shallow tin pan with very thin crust, to mix the fruit and sugar well
together with a spoon before they are laid in, and to put bars of paste
across instead of a cover; or it may be baked without either.[123]
123. The French make their fruit-tarts generally thus, in large shallow pans.
Plums, split and stoned (or if of small kinds, left entire), cherries and currants
freed from the stalks, and various other fruits, all rolled in plenty of sugar, are
baked in the uncovered crust; or this is baked by itself, and then filled
afterwards with fruit previously stewed tender.
THE LADY’S TOURTE, AND CHRISTMAS TOURTE À LA
CHÂTELAINE.
Make some nouilles (see page 5), with the yolks of four fresh
eggs, and when they are all cut as directed there, drop them lightly
into a pint and a half of boiling cream (new milk will answer quite as
well, or a portion of each may be used), in which six ounces of fresh
butter have been dissolved. When these have boiled quickly for a
minute or two, during which time they must be stirred to prevent their
gathering into lumps, add a small pinch of salt, and six ounces of
sugar on which the rinds of two lemons have been rasped; place the
saucepan over a clear and very gentle fire, and when the mixture
has simmered from thirty to forty minutes take it off, stir briskly in the
yolks of six eggs, and pour it out upon a delicately clean baking-tin
which has been slightly rubbed in every part with butter; level the
nouilles with a knife to something less than a quarter of an inch of
thickness, and let them be very evenly spread; put them into a
moderate oven, and bake them of a fine equal brown: should any air-
bladders appear, pierce them with the point of a knife. On taking the
paste from the oven, divide it into two equal parts; turn one of these,
the underside uppermost, on to a clean tin or a large dish, and
spread quickly over it a jar of fine apricot-jam, place the other half
upon it, the brown side outwards, and leave the paste to become
cold; then stamp it out with a round or diamond-shaped cutter, and
arrange the genoises tastefully in a dish. This pastry will be found
delicious the day it is baked, but its excellence is destroyed by
keeping. Peach, green-gage, or magnum bonum jam, will serve for it
quite as well as apricot. We strongly recommend to our readers this
preparation, baked in pattypans, and served hot; or the whole
quantity made into a pudding. From the smaller ones a little may be
taken out with a teaspoon, and replaced with some preserve just
before they are sent to table; or they may thus be eaten cold.
Nouilles of 4 eggs; cream or milk, 1-1/2 pint; butter, 6 oz.; sugar 6
oz.; rasped rinds of lemons, 2; grain of salt: 30 to 40 minutes. Yolks
of eggs, 6: baked from 15 to 25 minutes.
ALMOND PASTE.
Butter slightly the smallest-sized pattypans, and line them with the
almond-paste rolled as thin as possible; cut it with a sharp knife
close to their edges, and bake or rather dry the tartlets slowly at the
mouth of a very cool oven. If at all coloured, they should be only of
the palest brown; but they will become perfectly crisp without losing
their whiteness if left for some hours in a very gently-heated stove or
oven. They should be taken from the pans when two-thirds done,
and laid, reversed, upon a sheet of paper placed on a dish or board,
before they are put back into the oven. At the instant of serving, fill
them with bright-coloured whipped cream, or with peach or apricot
jam; if the preserve be used, lay over it a small star or other
ornament cut from the same paste, and dried with the tartlets. Sifted
sugar, instead of flour, must be dredged upon the board and roller in
using almond paste. Leaves and flowers formed of it, and dried
gradually until perfectly crisp, will keep for a long time in a tin box or
canister, and they form elegant decorations for pastry. When a fluted
cutter the size of the pattypans is at hand, it will be an improvement
to cut out the paste with it, and then to press it lightly into them, as it
is rather apt to break when pared off with a knife. To colour it,
prepared cochineal, or spinach-green, must be added to it in the
mortar.
FAIRY FANCIES.
(Fantaisies de Fées.)
A small, but very
inexpensive set of
tin cutters must be
had for this pretty
form of pastry,
which is, however,
quite worthy of so slight a cost. The short crust, of page 349,
answers for it better than puff paste. Roll it thin and very even, and
with the larger tin, shaped thus, cut out a dozen or more of small
sheets; then, with a couple of round cutters, of which one should be
about an inch in diameter, and the other only half the size, form four
times the number of rings, and lay them on the sheets in the manner
shown in the engraving. The easier mode of placing them regularly,
is to raise each ring without removing the small cutter from it, to
moisten it with a camel’s hair brush dipped in white of egg, and to lay
it on the paste as it is gently loosened from the tin When all the
pastry is prepared, set it into a very gentle oven, that it may become
crisp and yet remain quite pale. Before it is sent to table, fill the four
divisions of each fantaisie with preserve of a different colour. For
example: one ring with apple or strawberry jelly, another with apricot
jam, a third with peach or green-gage, and a fourth with raspberry
jelly. The cases may be iced, and ornamented in various ways
before they are baked. They are prettiest when formed of white
almond-paste, with pink or pale green rings: they may then be filled,
at the instant of serving, with well-drained whipped cream.
MINCEMEAT.
(Author’s Receipt.)
To one pound of an unsalted ox-tongue, boiled tender and cut free
from the rind, add two pounds of fine stoned raisins, two of beef
kidney-suet, two pounds and a half of currants well cleaned and
dried, two of good apples, two and a half of fine Lisbon sugar, from
half to a whole pound of candied peel according to the taste, the
grated rinds of two large lemons, and two more boiled quite tender,
and chopped up entirely, with the exception of the pips, two small
nutmegs, half an ounce of salt, a large teaspoonful of pounded
mace, rather more of ginger in powder, half a pint of brandy, and as
much good sherry or Madeira. Mince these ingredients separately,
and mix the others all well before the brandy and the wine are
added; press the whole into a jar or jars, and keep it closely covered.
It should be stored for a few days before it is used, and will remain
good for many weeks. Some persons like a slight flavouring of
cloves in addition to the other spices; others add the juice of two or
three lemons, and a larger quantity of brandy. The inside of a tender
and well-roasted sirloin of beef will answer quite as well as the
tongue.
Of a fresh-boiled ox-tongue, or inside of roasted sirloin, 1 lb.;
stoned raisins and minced apples, each 2 lbs.; currants and fine
Lisbon sugar, each 2-1/2 lbs.; candied orange, lemon or citron rind, 8
to 16 oz.; boiled lemons, 2 large; rinds of two others, grated; salt, 1/2
oz.; nutmegs, 2 small; pounded mace, 1 large teaspoonful, and
rather more of ginger; good sherry or Madeira, 1/2 pint; brandy, 1/2
pint.
Obs.—The lemons will be sufficiently boiled in from one hour to
one and a quarter.
SUPERLATIVE MINCEMEAT.
Take four large lemons, with their weight of golden pippins pared
and cored, of jar-raisins, currants, candied citron and orange-rind,
and the finest suet, and a fourth part more of pounded sugar. Boil the
lemons tender, chop them small, but be careful first to extract all the
pips; add them to the other ingredients, after all have been prepared
with great nicety, and mix the whole well with from three to four
glasses of good brandy. Apportion salt and spice by the preceding
receipt. We think that the weight of one lemon, in meat, improves
this mixture; or, in lieu of it, a small quantity of crushed macaroons
added just before it is baked.
MINCE PIES. (ENTREMETS.)
Butter some tin pattypans well, and line them evenly with fine puff
paste rolled thin; fill them with mincemeat, moisten the edges of the
covers, which should be nearly a quarter of an inch thick, close the
pies carefully, trim off the superfluous paste, make a small aperture
in the centre of the crust with a fork or the point of a knife, ice the
pies or not, at pleasure, and bake them half an hour in a well-heated
but not fierce oven: lay a paper over them when they are partially
done, should they appear likely to take too much colour.
1/2 hour.