Cornish Pasties.—Make a crust with 1 lb. flour, 2-3 oz. of suet or dripping, ½ teaspoonful baking powder and cold water. Roll it out and cut it in rounds ½ yd. or less in diameter; place on each round a suitable quantity of chopped potato, onion, turnips, herbs, and a small quantity of meat, cooked or uncooked, salt or fresh; season with salt pepper and close each round, leaving a ridge along the middle. Bake 1 hour or less according to size. These may be eaten cold or hot. The weight when baked will be that if the pasties are large. Boiled rice, leeks, vegetable marrow, currants, apples, sugar of the dry ingredients, or more and spice may be used instead of meat and vegetables.
Cottage Pie.—Mince any kind of cold meat together—beef, mutton, veal, pork, or lamb—put it about 1-1½ in. in a deep pie dish, and cover it with gravy; do not spare salt and pepper; cover it over with mashed potatoes smooth at the top, and cut it across in diamonds with a knife; bake till it is crisp and brown at the top. A little Worcester sauce may be considered an improvement if onions are not objected to.
Cottage Pudding.—Break some bread into very small pieces, sufficient to fill the pudding basin you wish to boil it in; then turn it out into a larger basin, and measure the milk in the same basin ¼ full; put on to boil, with enough sugar to sweeten. When taken off the fire, put a lump of butter in the hot milk, and, when melted, stir it well and pour over the bread; cover closely with a plate for 20 minutes; then beat it with a fork, and mix in some currants, raisins, candied peel, and some mixed spice; beat 2 eggs well, and add them last, stirring the whole vigorously with a fork. Boil in the same basin which the bread and milk were measured in, for 2 hours, the basin being well buttered, of course. Beating the bread with a fork keeps it from getting heavy or lumpy, and the bread should be torn to pieces, not cut, as the ragged edges of each morsel of bread absorb the milk better than when cut. Crusts can be used for this pudding, and if too hard to break they can be cut fine, and then pounded between a thick newspaper with a flat iron. The same ingredients make a good baked pudding; only more milk is required to make a softer batter of the bread.
Crab-Apple Cheese.—Wipe the apples in a clean dry cloth, and examine each one, to be sure that they are perfect. Any damaged ones should be cut with a fruit-knife, and only the sound part used. Put them in a covered jar in a slow oven till quite tender, then squeeze them through coarse canvas (called in some places “cheese-cloth”), allow ¾ lb. lump sugar to 1 lb. pulp, and boil for ½ hour, skimming well; put into moulds, and paper, as any other preserve. If the jelly is desired clear do not squeeze the fruit. Tie the canvas over a large jug, and lay the fruit on it, letting it drain. This is wasteful, however, unless the fruit is afterwards pressed and boiled separately; besides, the rich flavour of the apple core would be wanting in the jelly.
Cranberry Jelly.—Prepare the fruit as for tart. (a) To 1 qt. cranberries add 1 lb. sugar and ½ pint water; simmer them together for ½ hour; strain through a sieve, and when cool put by in pots.
(b) Soak ½ oz. gelatine in as much water as will cover it for ½ hour; boil ½ pint water and ¼ lb. sugar to a syrup; throw in 1 lb. cranberries, and simmer till the fruit is tender. Dissolve the gelatine, put it with the fruit, add 2 glasses sherry (or any other white wine), the juice of a lemon, and a few drops of cochineal; boil all together for 5 minutes. Place a jelly pot in the middle of a mould, pour the fruit round it; turn it out when cold on to a glass dish, and put cream in the centre.
Cranberry Tart.—Place 1 qt. cranberries in a pan of cold water, and let them remain 12 hours. Wash them in several waters till the salt flavour is quite gone; dry on a coarse cloth, and pick carefully. Mix in a basin with ¼ lb. finely powdered white sugar, and squeeze the juice of half a lemon over the fruit. A glass of white wine is a great improvement to the flavour. Put all into a pie-dish, with a light paste for the top, and bake. A small tin of American apples, cut up finely, with equal proportions of cranberries, is a nice variety of the ordinary apple pie.
Creams, Buttermilk.—Fresh buttermilk 1-2 qt., according to the size of the dish required; hang it up in a thick cloth, through which the whey can drip, for 2-3 days, then beat it well up with either fresh fruit or jam, or jelly, or rhubarb. The buttermilk must not be too much watered in the churn, else it will be too thin; some can be taken out at first, in case the butter requires much scalding.
Cream, Clotted or Scalded.—Set the afternoon’s milk in a large flat tin, or earthenware pan, leave it till 11 o’clock the next morning, then with great care and steadiness, so as not to disturb the cream, place it on a large saucepan or stewpan ⅔ full of water; let the water boil under it, simmering for more than half the day, till the first cream is thick, yellow, and crinkled like leather, and has receded from the edges of the pan all round, showing the second cream. When the latter looks thoroughly thick and set, remove the pan very carefully to a cool place till the following day, then skim it, allowing no milk to come with it, as that would inevitably thin the cream.
Cream, Whipped.—Rub 4 or 5 pieces sugar on a lemon, then add the juice to them with 1 good tablespoonful brandy; when the sugar is dissolved and sweetened to taste, put it into a basin; take ½ pint cream, and pour in, gently stirring it with the whip, then continue to whip steadily, not too fast, until the cream becomes thick, but be careful not to turn it to butter. Put it away for a few hours into a cold larder, then it will become quite thick and ready to put over your jelly or trifle; it is best to whip it the day before it is wanted.