GELATINE CUSTARD.—Soak half an ounce of gelatine for three or four hours in a pan of cold water. Have ready a quart of milk. Boil in half a pint of it a bunch of peach-leaves, or a handful of bitter almonds broken up; also, a stick of cinnamon broken in pieces. When it is highly flavoured, strain this milk into the pan that contains the rest. Beat four eggs very light, and mix them gradually with the milk, adding, by degrees, the gelatine, (well drained,) and four heaping table-spoonfuls of sugar. Set it over a slow fire and boil it, stirring it frequently. As soon as the gelatine is entirely dissolved, and thoroughly mixed, the custard will be done. Transfer it to a deep dish or to cups, and set it on ice or in a cold place till wanted.
INDIAN PUFFS.—Boil a quart of milk; and when it has come to a boil, stir into it, gradually, eight large table-spoonfuls of Indian meal; four large table-spoonfuls of powdered sugar; and a grated nutmeg. Stir it hard; letting it boil a quarter of an hour after all the Indian meal is in. Then take it up, and set it to cool. While cooling, beat eight eggs as light as possible, and stir them, gradually, into the batter when it is quite cold. Butter some large tea-cups; nearly fill them with the mixture; set them into a moderate oven; and bake them well. Send them to table warm, and eat them with butter and molasses; or with butter, sugar, lemon-juice, and nutmeg stirred to a cream. They must be turned out of the cups.
SWEETMEAT DUMPLINGS.—Make a paste of half a pound of fresh butter, or finely minced suet, and a pound of flour, moistened with a very little cold water. Beat the lump of paste on all sides with a rolling-pin. Then roll it out into a sheet, and divide it into equal portions. Lay on the middle of each two halves (laid on each other) of preserved peaches, or quinces, or large preserved plums. Then close the paste round the sweetmeat, so as to form a dumpling. Have ready a pot of boiling water. Throw the dumplings into it, tied up in little cloths, and let them boil twenty-five minutes or half an hour. Try one first, to see if they are done. When quite done, take them up, dip them in cold water, turn them out of the cloths, and send the dumplings to table immediately. Eat them with sugar only, or with sweetened cream.
These dumplings may be made with jam or marmalade, formed into a heap or lump, and laid in the centre of each piece of paste.
ALTONA FRITTERS.—Pare some fine pippin or bell-flower apples that are quite ripe, and of the largest size. Then extract the cores with a tin apple-corer, so as to leave the hole in the centre smooth and even. Spread the sliced apples on a large flat dish, and squeeze on each slice some lemon-juice. Then sprinkle them thickly with powdered white sugar. Prepare a batter, made in the proportion of eight eggs to a quart of rich milk, and a pint and a half of sifted flour. Having beaten the eggs till very light and thick, add them gradually to the milk in turn with the flour, a little at a time of each, and stir the whole very hard. Have ready, over hot coals, a skillet with a plentiful portion of the best fresh butter, melted and boiling hard. Dip the slices of apple twice into the batter, and then put them into the skillet of butter; as many at a time as it will contain without danger of running into each other as they spread. While they are frying, keep shaking the skillet about, holding it by the handle. They will puff up very light, and must be done of a bright brown. Take them out with a perforated skimmer, that will drain off the butter. Have ready some powdered sugar, flavoured with nutmeg or cinnamon. Roll the fritters in this, and send them to table hot. This is a German preparation of fritters, and will be found excellent on trial. They may be made of large peaches instead of apples; paring the peaches, and cutting them in two, having removed the stones. Allow half a peach (well sugared) to each fritter.
You may fry these fritters in lard, but they will not be so nice as if done in fresh butter.