Cookery for Little Girls

by Olive Hyde Foster

CHAPTER XVII

A Few More Desserts

Before closing, let us consider some simple every day desserts that every little cook should know how to make. And first comes

BREAD PUDDING

For a small family, take a quart baking dish, cover the bottom with broken bread, sprinkle with raisins or currants, dot with tiny lumps of butter, and then repeat the process. Over this second layer pour a custard made by beating very light two eggs, adding two cups of milk, a pinch of salt, half a cupful of sugar, and a little grated nutmeg. Bake until a light brown on top, and serve with cream and sugar.

BROWN BETTY

Butter thin slices of bread, line the bottom of the pudding dish, add a layer of sliced apples, sprinkle with sugar and cinnamon, and repeat these layers until the dish is full. Cover with a tin lid and bake twenty minutes, then remove lid and leave until brown on top. The cover is necessary to keep in the moisture, as the juice of the apples is the only liquid. Serve with cream and sugar, or hot sauce.

COTTAGE PUDDING

Cream one-third of a cup of butter with three-fourths of a cup of sugar, add one egg, beaten very light, one cup of milk, and two cups of flour sifted with two teaspoonfuls of baking powder. Stir thoroughly and bake in a shallow pan. Cut in squares and serve hot, with hot chocolate or lemon sauce.

LEMON SAUCE

Make a syrup by boiling for five minutes one cup of sugar with one-quarter cup of water and a teaspoonful of butter. Removing from the fire, add the strained juice of half a lemon.

FRUIT BATTER PUDDING

Take one cup of flour, half a teaspoonful of salt, and one-half teaspoonful baking-powder, sifted well, half a cupful of sugar, and stir to a smooth batter with half cup of milk. Add one tablespoonful of melted butter, and two eggs, beaten light, then pour into a buttered pudding dish over two cupfuls of fresh fruit, either berries, sliced apples, bananas or peaches, and bake slowly half an hour. Serve immediately with hot pudding sauce, flavored with nutmeg.

SPONGE CAKE

Beat very light the yolks of three eggs, add one cup of sugar, half a cup of cold water, one and one-half cups of flour sifted several times with two scant teaspoonfuls of baking powder, flavor with half a teaspoonful of lemon extract, and lastly fold in the stiff whites. Bake in a sheet from thirty to forty minutes.

CHARLOTTE RUSSE

Cut sponge cake into narrow strips, or use lady fingers, to line a glass bowl or individual glass cups as preferred. Fill center with whipped cream, for which directions are given elsewhere, and garnish top with Maraschino cherries. Prepare at the last moment before dinner, as the cake is apt to become soaked if left standing long.

MARSHMALLOW CREAM

Whip thick half a pint of cream, add two tablespoonfuls of confectioner's sugar, one white of egg, beaten stiff, one-quarter of a pound of marsh-mallows cut in small pieces, two tablespoonfuls of chopped nuts, and half a teaspoonful of vanilla. Mix up lightly, and pile on the split halves of little cakes baked in heart-shaped pans. Place a Maraschino cherry in the center of each, pierce with a candy arrow, and pour a thickened cherry syrup around for a sauce. This dessert might also be called Bleeding Hearts.

APPLE DUMPLINGS

Sift two cups of flour with two teaspoonfuls of baking powder and half a teaspoonful of salt, work into it two tablespoonfuls of lard until "mealy," add one cup of milk, and stir with a fork as little as possible to make a smooth dough. Turn out on a floured board, roll out thin, cut in squares, place in the center of each half of a sour apple, sprinkle with a little sugar and ground cinnamon, cover with the dough, place in a pie pan and bake slowly half an hour. Serve with cream and sugar or hot sauce as preferred.

STRAWBERRY SHORTCAKE INDIVIDUAL

Make crust as directed for apple dumplings, turn on to a floured board, cut out with a biscuit cutter and bake twenty minutes in a hot oven. On removing, break each biscuit in half, butter, place the lower piece in a saucer, cover with sweetened crushed berries, put on the top half, and pour the crushed berries over all. Or, if preferred for a nice company dessert, drop a big spoonful of whipped cream on top of each biscuit, and stick a fine whole berry in the center.

PRUNE WHIP

Soak half a pound of prunes over night, then stew half an hour and sweeten with half a cupful of sugar. When cool, cut in small pieces or put through the colander, and stir in to the stiffly beaten whites of five eggs, with half a cupful of granulated sugar. Pour into a buttered pudding dish, bake half an hour in a slow oven, and serve at once, before it begins to go down, with thick cream.

LEMON PIE

Make paste as directed before, line a deep pie pan, prick the bottom to keep from blistering, and bake in a hot oven about ten minutes. Remove and fill immediately with the following preparations:

Mix three tablespoonfuls of cornstarch with one cup of sugar, add two-thirds of a cup of boiling water, and one teaspoonful of butter, and cook five minutes, stirring all the time. Then pour on to the beaten yolks of two eggs, flavor with the strained juice and grated rind of one lemon, and fill the shell. Bake until the crust is brown, then cover with the meringue, and set back long enough to color lightly.

MERINGUE

Beat two whites very stiff, stir in slowly half a cupful of powdered sugar, and spread on with a knife or apply through a pastry tube. It will take some time to stir in the sugar slowly enough, but it must be well mixed, then baked until a delicate brown.

APPLE PIE

Line a pie tin with the crust, fill with sliced sour apples, sprinkle thickly with sugar, flavor with nutmeg, cover with the crust, making an opening in the center to emit the steam, press closely together and trim around the edge, and bake in a moderate oven about three-quarters of an hour.

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