Blanch some almonds, soak them in cold water, and then pound them to a smooth paste in a marble mortar; adding at intervals a little rose water.
Thick cream will communicate a white colour.
These preparations may be used for jellies, ice creams, blanc-mange, syllabubs, icing for cakes; and for various articles of confectionary.
FOOTNOTES:
- You may make the stock for blanc-mange without isinglass, by boiling four calves' feet in two quarts of water till reduced one half, and till the meat is entirely to rags. Strain it, and set it away till next day. Then clear it from the fat and sediment; cut it into pieces, and boil it with the cream and the other ingredients. When you take it from the fire, and strain it into the pitcher, keep stirring it till it gets cold.
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[CAKES, ETC.]
GENERAL OBSERVATIONS.
Unless you are provided with proper and convenient utensils and materials, the difficulty of preparing cakes will be great, and in most instances a failure; involving disappointment, waste of time, and useless expense. Accuracy in proportioning the ingredients is indispensable; and therefore scales and weights, and a set of tin measures (at least from a quart down to a jill) are of the utmost importance. A large sieve for flour is also necessary; and smaller ones for sugar and spice. There should be a marble mortar, or one of lignum vitæ, (the hardest of all wood;) those of iron (however well tinned) are apt to discolour the articles pounded in them. Spice may be ground in a mill kept exclusively for that purpose. Every kitchen should be provided with spice-boxes. You should have a large grater for lemon, cocoa-nut, &c., and a small one for nutmeg. Butter and sugar cannot be stirred together conveniently without a spaddle or spattle, which is a round stick flattened at one end; and a deep earthen pan with sides nearly straight. For beating eggs, you should have hickory rods or a wire whip, and broad shallow earthen pans. Neither the eggs, nor the butter and sugar should be beaten in tin, as the coldness of the metal will prevent them from becoming light.