Take a quart of stewed pumpkin. Put it into a sieve, and press and strain it as dry as possible. Then set it away to get cold. Beat eight eggs very light, and stir them gradually into the pumpkin, a little at a time, in turn with a quart of rich cream and a pound of sugar. Mix together a quarter of an ounce of powdered mace, two powdered nutmegs, and a table-spoonful of ground ginger, and stir them into the other ingredients. When all is mixed, stir the whole very hard. Cover the bottom of your pie-dishes with a thin paste, and fill them nearly to the top with the mixture. Cut out narrow stripes of paste with your jagging-iron, and lay them across the tops of your pies. Bake them from an hour to an hour and a quarter. Send them to table cool. They are best the day they are baked. Some persons prefer them without any paste beneath, the dishes being filled entirely with the mixture; and if they have broad edges, a border of thick puff-paste may be laid along the edge, and handsomely notched. We think this the best way; as paste that is baked under any mixture that has milk and eggs in it, is liable, in consequence of the moisture, to become clammy and heavy, and is therefore unwholesome.
WEST INDIA COCOA-NUT PUDDING.—
Cut up and skin a large ripe cocoa-nut, and grate it fine. Then put the grated cocoa-nut into a clean cloth, and squeeze and press it till all the moisture is taken out. Spread it on a broad tin pan, and stand it up to dry, either in the sun or before the fire, stirring it up occasionally with your hands. When quite dry weigh a pound of it. Beat very light sixteen eggs (omitting the whites of four) and then beat into them, gradually, a pound of powdered loaf-sugar, and a wine glass of rose-water. Then give the whole a hard stirring. Put the mixture into deep dishes, and lay puff-paste round their edges handsomely notched. Bake them about half an hour. Send them to table cold with white sugar grated over the top.
YANKEE TEA CAKES.—
Cut up half a pound of fresh butter in a pint of milk, and warm it a little, so as to soften but not melt the butter. Add, gradually, half a pound of powdered white sugar, in turn with three well-beaten eggs, and a pound of sifted flour, finishing with half a jill of strong fresh yeast. Set the mixture in a warm place to rise. It will most probably be five hours before it is light enough to bake, and it should therefore be made in the forenoon. When it has risen high, and the top is covered with bubbles, butter some cups, and bake it in them about twenty minutes. When done, turn the cakes out on large plates; send them to table hot, and split and butter them. To open these cakes, pull them apart with your fingers.
GELATINE JELLY.—
Gelatine is used as a substitute for calves feet in making jelly. It is prepared in light yellowish sheets, and can be purchased at the druggists'. The chief advantage in gelatine is, that by keeping it in the house, you can always have it ready for use, and the jelly made with it may be commenced and finished the same day: while, if you use calves' feet, they must be boiled the day before. Also, you may chance to live in a place where calves' feet cannot at all times be procured, and then a box of gelatine, always at hand, may be found very convenient. The cost is about the same, whether the jelly is made of calves' feet or of gelatine. That of calves' feet will generally be the firmest, and will keep two or three days in a cold place or when set on ice; that of gelatine, if not used on the day that it is made, will sometimes melt and become liquid again. Its greatest recommendations are convenience and expedition. The following receipt for gelatine jelly will be found a very good one, if exactly followed.
Soak two ounces of gelatine, for twenty-five minutes, in as much cold water as will cover it. Then take it out, lay it in another vessel, pour on it two quarts of boiling water, and let it thoroughly dissolve. Afterwards set it to cool. Having rolled them under your hand on a table, pare off very thin the yellow rind of four lemons, and cut it into small bits. Break up, into little pieces, two large sticks of the best cinnamon (that of Ceylon is far preferable to any other) and a pound of the best double refined loaf-sugar. Mix together in a large bowl, the sugar, the lemon-rind, and the cinnamon; adding the juice of the lemons, the beaten white of an egg, and a pint of Malaga or any other good white wine. Add to these ingredients the dissolved gelatine, when it is cool but not yet cold. Mix the whole very well, put it into a porcelain kettle, or a very clean bell-metal one, and boil it fifteen minutes. Then pour it warm into a white flannel jelly-bag, and let it drip into a large glass bowl. On no account squeeze or press the bag, or the jelly will be dull and cloudy. After it has congealed in the bowl, set it on ice; but the sooner it goes to table the better. A warm damp day is unfavourable for making any sort of jelly.
You may flavour it with four or five oranges instead of lemons.