A SEFTON, OR VEAL CUSTARD.
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.