MINCE PIES ROYAL. (ENTREMETS.)
Add to half a pound of good mincemeat an ounce and a half of pounded sugar, the grated rind and the strained juice of a large lemon, one ounce of clarified butter, and the yolks of four eggs; beat these well together, and half fill, or rather more, with the mixture, some pattypans lined with fine paste; put them into a moderate oven, and when the insides are just set, ice them thickly with the whites of the eggs beaten to snow, and mixed quickly at the moment with four heaped tablespoonsful of pounded sugar; set them immediately into the oven again, and bake them slowly of a fine light brown.
Mincemeat, 1/2 lb.; sugar, 1-1/2 oz.; rind and juice, 1 large lemon; butter, 1 oz.; yolks, 4 eggs. Icing: whites, 4 eggs; sugar, 4 tablespoonsful.
THE MONITOR’S TART, OR TOURTE À LA JUDD.
Put into an enamelled stewpan, or into a delicately clean saucepan, three quarters of a pound of well-flavoured apples, weighed after they are pared and cored; add to them from three to four ounces of pounded sugar, an ounce and a half of fresh butter cut small, and half a teaspoonful of pounded cinnamon, or the lightly grated rind of a small lemon. Let them stand over, or by the side of a gentle fire until they begin to soften, and toss them now and then to mingle the whole well, but do not stir them with a spoon; they should all remain unbroken and rather firm. Turn them into a dish, and let them become cold. Divide three-quarters of a pound of good light paste into two equal portions; roll out one quite thin and round, flour an oven-leaf and lay it on, as the tart cannot so well be moved after it is made; place the apples upon it in the form of a dome, but leave a clear space of an inch or more round the edge; moisten this with white of egg, and press the remaining half of the paste (which should be rolled out to the same size, and laid carefully over the apples) closely upon it: they should be well secured, that the syrup from the fruit may not burst through. Whisk the white of an egg to a froth, brush it over the tart with a paste brush or a small bunch of feathers, sift sugar thickly over, and then strew upon it some almonds blanched and roughly chopped; bake the tart in a moderate oven from thirty-five to forty-five minutes. It may be filled with peaches, or apricots, half stewed like the apples, or with cherries merely rolled in fine sugar; or with the pastry cream of page [173].
Light paste, 1/2 to 3/4 lb.; apples, 12 oz.; butter, 1-1/2 oz.; sugar, 4 oz.; glazing of egg and sugar; some almonds: 35 to 45 minutes.
PUDDING PIES. (ENTREMETS.)
This form of pastry (or its name at least) is, we believe, peculiar to the county of Kent, where it is made in abundance, and eaten by all classes of people during Lent. Boil for fifteen minutes three ounces of ground rice[[126]] in a pint and a half of new milk, and when taken from the fire stir into it three ounces of butter and four of sugar; add to these six well-beaten eggs, a grain or two of salt, and a flavouring of nutmeg or lemon-rind at pleasure. When the mixture is nearly cold, line some large pattypans or some saucers with thin puff paste, fill them with it three parts full, strew the tops thickly with currants which have been cleaned and dried, and bake the pudding-pies from fifteen to twenty minutes in a gentle oven.
[126]. Or rice-flour.
Milk, 1-1/2 pint; ground rice, 3 oz.: 15 minutes. Butter, 3 oz.; sugar, 1/4 lb.; nutmeg or lemon-rind; eggs, 6; currants, 4 to 6 oz.: 15 to 30 minutes.