Desserts
Escalloped Apples—Butter a deep dish. Sprinkle with cinnamon, sugar, and small bits of butter, and cover with layer of peeled, sliced apples. Another layer of the cinnamon, sugar, and butter; adding a little flour sprinkled over. Continue this process until dish is full; cover, and bake one hour. Serve hot or cold.
Apple Tapioca—Take one-half cup pearl tapioca, three apples, pared and cored, one-fourth cup of sugar, one pint water, one-half teaspoon salt, cinnamon and grated nutmeg.
Cover tapioca with one and one-half cups warm water, and soak five or six hours. Pack apples in deep dish, filling cores with sugar, and pour over them the tapioca, water, cinnamon, and nutmeg. Bake one hour, or until apples are soft. Serve hot, with cream or hard sauce.
Apple Snow—One large apple, peeled and grated; sprinkle over it one cup of powdered sugar. Into this break the whites of two eggs and beat in large bowl constantly for half an hour. Heap in glass dish and pour over it a fine, smooth custard.
Baked Custard—Beat four eggs light and mix well with one quart of milk. Add sugar and salt to taste, one teaspoon vanilla, and grate nutmeg on top. Bake in moderate oven until a rich brown.
Chocolate Blanc Mange—Heat one quart of milk in a double-boiler with one ounce of gelatine, dissolved first in cold water; add four tablespoons grated chocolate and three-fourths cup of sugar; mix all until smooth. Cook until dissolved; then boil five minutes and strain into mold, adding one teaspoon vanilla. Serve with whipped cream. Individual molds are very pleasing for children.
Floating Island—Heat one quart of milk in a double-boiler; stir in two tablespoons of cornstarch dissolved in a little cold milk. Add sugar and vanilla to taste, together with one whole egg and the yolks of three eggs; when the custard is thick like cream turn into dish to cool. When ready to serve beat the whites of three eggs into stiff froth and drop spoonfuls on the top of the custard.
Bread and Butter Pudding—Take six thin slices of buttered bread and place in a dish; pour over the bread three gills of milk and three eggs beaten together with sugar and nutmeg added to taste—a few raisins or currants may be added if desired. Bake in slow oven one hour. Serve with or without sauce.
Prune Pudding—One pound of prunes cooked until tender. Remove stones and pick into small pieces. Dissolve two tablespoons of gelatine and two-thirds cup of powdered sugar in one cup of cold water, and stir into prunes. Add the whites of four eggs beaten to a froth. Bake twenty minutes. Serve with cream.
Prune Pulp—Cook one pound of prunes slowly in a little water until they are quite soft. Strain and rub through a coarse sieve.
Junket—One quart of fresh hot milk, sweetened to taste, and allowed to cool slightly; add two tablespoons liquid rennet. Place on the ice in wet molds. Do not stir or strain it. Serve cold with sweetened cream.
Whey—One pint of fresh milk warmed, but not above 100° F. Add two teaspoons liquid rennet or essence of pepsin; stir slightly, then allow it to stand until jellied; break up the curd with a fork and strain off the whey through muslin. Place on ice.
Bran Biscuits—One pint of flour, one quart of bran, one teaspoon baking soda, twelve tablespoons molasses, one teaspoon salt, one pint of milk. Mix and bake in muffin rings.
Good Luncheon Dish—Butter a small baking dish lightly; spread over bottom of dish finely broken crackers (not cracker dust) and moisten slightly with rich milk; break an egg carefully on this, and then cover with more broken crackers moistened with the milk, and salted. Bake a couple of minutes in oven so that the egg is about as firm as a well poached egg. This is a most nourishing dish.
The mother who guards her child’s diet not only during that danger period of teething and weaning but during those years when he seems to sprout like a young human weed, demanding the very highest form of nourishment, may feel assured that she is laying the foundation for his future health and happiness. You cannot make good citizens out of dyspeptics. You cannot rear a generation of sturdy mothers from girls who drink soda-water instead of milk, who eat candy instead of custards, rich fried potatoes instead of nourishing baked ones, fancy dishes of meat, gravy, and pastry instead of wholesome beefsteak and mutton chops. It is a mistake to think because a child who is growing will eat almost anything, that almost anything will nourish a growing body.
Better babies mean better children in the public schools; but neglect in the matter of diet will soon turn those better children into sickly citizens.
The vigilance of the mother in the matters of diet, hours of sleep, bathing, and fresh air should not relax until after her children have passed successfully through the period of adolescence and have been launched into strong, sturdy men and women, with their habits so firmly fixed that the maternal influence in food as in morals goes out into the world with them.