Another very fine candy to be made without heat, and therefore convenient for hot weather, is made as follows:
Punch Drops.—Sift some powdered sugar. Have ready some fine white gum-arabic, put a tablespoonful with the sugar (say half a pound of sugar), and make it into a firm paste; if too wet, add more sugar, flavor with lemon and a tiny speck of tartaric acid or a very little lemon juice. Make the paste into small balls, then take more sugar and make it into icing with a spoonful of Santa Cruz rum and half the white of an egg. Try if it hardens, if not, beat in more sugar and color it a bright pink, then dip each ball in the pink icing and harden on wax paper. These are very novel, beautiful to look at, and the flavors may vary to taste.
To make Cochineal Coloring which is quite Harmless.—Take one ounce of powdered cochineal, one ounce of cream of tartar, two drachms of alum, half a pint of water; boil the cochineal, water, and cream of tartar till reduced to one half, then add the alum, and put up in small bottles for use. Yellow is obtained by the infusion of Spanish saffron in a little water, or a still better one from the grated rind of a ripe orange put into muslin, and a little of the juice squeezed through it.
Be careful in boiling the sugar for fondant, not to stir it after it is dissolved; stirring causes it to become rough instead of creamy.
CHAPTER XIV.
a chapter for people of very small means.
I am sorry to say in these days this chapter may appeal to many, who are yet not to be called "poor people," who may have been well-to-do and only suffering from the pressure of the times, and for whose cultivated appetites the coarse, substantial food of the laboring man (even if they could buy it) would not be eatable, who must have what they do have good, or starve. But, as some of the things for which I give recipes will seem over-economical for people who can afford to buy meat at least once a day, I advise those who have even fifty dollars a month income to skip it; reminding them, if they do not, "that necessity knows no law."
A bone of soup meat can be got at a good butcher's for ten or fifteen cents, and is about the best investment, for that sum I know of, as two nourishing and savory meals, at least, for four or five persons can be got from it.