The complete servant / Being a practical guide to the peculiar duties and business of all descriptions of servants, from the housekeeper to the servant of all-work, and from the land steward to the foot-boy. With useful receipts and tables

by servant Samuel Adams; Sarah Adams

OBSERVATIONS ON PASTRY.

An adept in making pastry, never leaves any part of it adhering to the board used in making it. It is best when rolled on marble or slate. In hot weather the butter should be put in cold water to make it firm; and if the pastry be made early in the morning, and preserved from the air till baked, it will be the better. Salt butter, if good and well washed, makes a fine flaky crust.

Preserved fruit for pastry need not be baked; but the crust should be baked in a tin shape, or on a tin and cut out according to taste.

ON MAKING CAKES.

Currants should be nicely washed, dried in a cloth, and then set before the fire. If not quite dry they will make the cake heavy. The cake will be the lighter if a dust of flour be thrown on the currants and then shaken.

Eggs should be beaten very long, the whites and the yolks apart, after which, they must be strained.—Sugar should be rubbed to a powder, on a clean board, and sifted through a fine hair or lawn sieve. Lemon-peel should be pared quite thin, and beaten, with a little sugar, in a marble mortar, to a paste; and then mixed with a little wine or cream, so as to mix easily with the other ingredients. After all the articles are put together in the pan, they should be thoroughly beaten for a long while, as the lightness of the cake greatly depends on their being well incorporated. Yeast, in either black or white plum cakes, makes them require less butter and eggs, and yet be equally light and rich. The dough when made should be set to rise by the fire. If the oven be not quick the batter will not rise, and the cake will be heavy: if you think it too quick, put some paper over the cake to prevent its being burnt.

1. A RICH PLUM CAKE.

Take one pound of fresh butter, one pound of sugar, one pound and a half of flour, two pounds of currants, a glass of brandy, one pound of sweatments, two ounces of sweet almonds, ten eggs, a quarter of an ounce of allspice, and a quarter of an ounce of cinnamon.

Melt the butter to a cream, and put in the sugar. Stir it till quite light, adding the allspice, and pounded cinnamon; in a quarter of an hour take the yolks of the eggs, and work them in, two or three at a time; and the whites of the same must by this time be beaten into a strong snow quite ready to work in; as the paste must not stand to chill the butter, or it will be heavy, work in the whites gradually; then add the orange-peel, lemon, and citron, cut in fine stripes, and the currants, which must be mixed in well, with the sweet almonds. Then add the sifted flour and glass of brandy. Bake this cake in a tin hoop in a hot oven for three hours, and put twelve sheets of paper under it to keep it from burning.

2. A GOOD PLAIN CAKE.