Fever patients may use cider jelly when wine is forbidden, and they will find this both refreshing and nutritious.
Bird’s Nest in Jelly. ✠
- 1 quart of jelly, made according to either of the receipts just given, but with a cup less of boiling water, that it may be very firm.
- 3 cups of white blanc-mange.
- 9 empty eggshells.
- Fresh rinds of two oranges.
- 1 cup of sugar.
Cut the rind from the oranges in long narrow strips, and stew these gently in enough water to cover them until they are tender. Add to them a cup of sugar, and simmer fifteen minutes longer in the syrup. Lay them out upon a dish to cool, taking care not to break them. If you have preserved orange-peel in the house, it will save you the trouble of preparing this.
The blanc-mange should be made the day before you want it, and the eggshells filled. The original contents, yolk and white, should be poured out through a hole, not larger than a half-dime, in the small end, and the interior washed with pure water, shaken around well in them. Then fill with blanc-mange and set in a pan of flour or sugar—the open end up—that they may not be jostled or overturned.
Next morning fill a glass dish two-thirds full of the jelly, which should be very clear, reserving a large cupful. Break the shells from about the blanc-mange, and lay the artificial eggs upon the jelly so soon as the latter is firm enough to bear them. Pile them neatly, but not too high in the middle, bearing in mind that what is the top now will be the bottom when the jelly is turned out. Lay the orange peel which represents straw, over these and around them. Warm the reserved jelly, so that it will flow readily, but do not get it hot; pour over the straw and eggs, and set away in a cold place to form. When firm, turn out upon a glass dish or salver.
This pretty and fanciful dish is yet easily made. The materials are so simple and inexpensive, and the effect of the work, if deftly done, so pleasing, that I have no hesitation in calling the attention even of novices to it.
Wine Jelly (boiled.)
- 1 box Coxe’s gelatine, soaked in 1 pint of cold water one hour.
- 1 quart of boiling water poured over this, and stirred until the gelatine is dissolved.
- 1½ lb. white sugar.
- 2 lemons—juice and peel.
- 1 pint of wine.
Put all over the fire, boil up once well, and strain through a double flannel bag into moulds.