Butter Sauce (Mrs. Youmans).
Ingredients: Three-quarters of a cupful of butter, one and a half cupfuls of powdered sugar, four table-spoonfuls of boiling-hot starch, made of flour or corn starch, with either brandy, maraschino, wine, lemon-juice and zest, vanilla, or other flavoring preferred. Stir the butter with a fork to a light cream; add the sugar, and continue to beat it for one or two minutes. Just before serving, stir in with an egg-whisk the boiling starch and the flavoring.
Sirup Sauces.
Boil two cupfuls of sugar with two or three table-spoonfuls of water, until it thickens slightly; take it from the fire; stir in a piece of butter the size of a hickory-nut, and either lemon-juice, fruit-juice, or, in winter, fruit sirups, wine, brandy, or any of the flavoring extracts.
A Plain and Cheap Sauce.
Ingredients: Three and a half cupfuls of water, one cupful of sugar, a small piece of butter, a table-spoonful of either corn starch or flour, flavoring of either brandy, vanilla, lemon, or wine (with or without a little nutmeg), or zest and cinnamon.
When the water boils, stir in the corn starch or flour (rubbed smooth with a little cold water), sugar, and, if used, the yellow rind of a lemon and the cinnamon, and cook well for two or three minutes; take the pan from the fire, and stir in the butter and flavoring (if the lemon and cinnamon are not used).
Same Sauce, Richer (Mrs. Osborne).
Ingredients: One pint of water, three table-spoonfuls of flour or corn starch, half a cupful of butter, two cupfuls of sugar, two eggs, half of a nutmeg, half a pint of Madeira or sherry.
Beat the butter and sugar to a cream; add the eggs well beaten, then the nutmeg; heat the wine as hot as possible without boiling; bring the water to a boil in another vessel, and stir in the corn starch or flour (rubbed smooth with a little cold water), and cook it well for about two minutes. Mix well the ingredients off the fire.