It can, of course, be made in a smaller quantity than that given in the above receipt; and also at any time in the winter; fresh cider not being an ingredient, as in the most usual way of making apple butter.
AN APPLE POT PIE.—
Make a paste, allowing a pound of butter, or of chopped suet to two pounds and a quarter of flour. Have ready a sufficient quantity of fine juicy acid apples, pared, cored, and sliced. Mix with them brown sugar enough to sweeten them, a few cloves, and some slips of lemon-peel. Butter the sides of an iron pot, and line them with paste. Then put in the apples, interspersing them with thin squares of paste, and add a very little water. Cover the whole with a thick lid of paste, cutting a slit in the centre for the water to bubble up, and let it boil two hours. When done, serve it up on a large dish, and eat it with butter and sugar.
PUDDING CATCHUP.—
Mix together half a pint of noyau; a pint of sherry or other white wine; the yellow peel of four lemons, pared thin; and half an ounce of mace. Put the whole into a large bottle, and let it stand for two or three weeks. Then strain it, and add half a pint of capillaire or strong sugar syrup; or of Curaçoa. Bottle it, and it will keep two or three years. It may be used for various sweet dishes, but chiefly for pudding-sauce mixed with melted butter.
CURAÇOA.—
Grate as much fresh orange-peel as will make two ounces when done; the peel of fresh shaddock will be still better. Mix it with a pint of orange juice. Put it into a quart of the strongest and clearest rectified spirit; shake it, let it infuse for a fortnight, and strain it. Then make a syrup by dissolving a pound of the best loaf-sugar in a pint of cold water, adding to it the beaten white of an egg, and boiling and skimming it till the scum ceases to rise. Mix the syrup with the strained liquor. Let it stand till next day, and then filter it through white blotting paper fastened to the bottom of a sieve. Curaçoa is a great improvement to punch; also a table-spoonful of it in a tumbler of water makes a very refreshing summer drink.
PATENT YEAST.—
Boil half a pound of fresh hops in four quarts of water, till the liquid is reduced to two quarts. Strain it, and mix in sufficient wheat flour to make a thin batter; adding half a pint of strong fresh yeast, (brewer's yeast, if it can be procured.) When it is done fermenting, pour it into a pan, and stir in sufficient Indian meal to make a moderately stiff dough. Cover it, and set it in a warm place to rise. When it has become very light, roll it out into a thick sheet, and cut it into little cakes. Spread them out on a dish, and let them dry gradually in a cool place where there is no sun. Turn them five or six times a day while drying; and when they are quite dry, put them into paper bags, and keep them in a jar or box closely covered, in a place that is not in the least damp.
When you want the yeast for use, dissolve in a little warm water one or more of the cakes, (in proportion to the quantity of bread you intend making,) and when it is quite dissolved, stir it hard, thicken it with a little flour, cover it, and place it near the fire to rise before you use it. Then mix it with the flour in the usual manner of preparing bread.