Old Cookery Books and Ancient Cuisine

by William Carew Hazlitt

To make Hart's-Horn Jelly:—Take a large gallipot, and fill it full of hart's-horn, and then fill it full with spring-water, and tie a double paper over the gallipot, and set it in the baker's oven with household bread; in the morning take it out, and run it through a jelly-bag, and season it with juice of lemons, and double-refin'd sugar, and the whites of eight eggs well beaten; let it have a boil, and run it thro' the jelly-bag again into your jelly-glasses; put a bit of lemon-peel in the bag.

IV.—CHEESES.

The Queen's Cheese:—Take six quarts of the best stroakings, and let them stand till they are cold; then set two quarts of cream on the fire till 'tis ready to boil; then take it off, and boil a quart of fair water, and take the yolks of two eggs, and one spoonful of sugar, and two spoonfuls of runnet; mingle all these together, and stir it till 'tis blood warm: when the cheese is come, use it as other cheese; set it at night, and the third day lay the leaves of nettles under and over it: it must be turned and wiped, and the nettles shifted every day, and in three weeks it will be fit to eat. This cheese is made between Michaelmas and Alhallontide.

To make a Slip-coat Cheese:—Take new milk and runnet, quite cold, and when 'tis come, break it as little as you can in putting it into the cheese-fat, and let it stand and whey itself for some time; then cover it, and set about two pound weight on it, and when it will hold together, turn it out of that cheese-fat, and keep it turning upon clean cheese-fats for two or three days, till it has done wetting, and then lay it on sharp-pointed dock-leaves till 'tis ripe: shift the leaves often.

To make a New-market Cheese to cut at two Years old:—Any morning in September, take twenty quarts of new milk warm from the cow, and colour it with marigolds: when this is done, and the milk not cold, get ready a quart of cream, and a quart of fair water, which must be kept stirring over the fire till 'tis scalding hot, then stir it well into the milk and runnet, as you do other cheese; when 'tis come, lay cheese-cloths over it, and settle it with your hands; the more hands the better; as the whey rises, take it away, and when 'tis clean gone, put the curd into your fat, breaking it as little as you can; then put it in the press, and press it gently an hour; take it out again, and cut it in thin slices, and lay them singly on a cloth, and wipe them dry; then put it in a tub, and break it with your hands as small as you can, and mix with it a good handful of salt, and a quart of cold cream; put it in the fat, and lay a pound weight on it till next day; then press and order it as others.

V.—CAKES.

To make Shrewsbury Cakes:—Take to one pound of sugar, three pounds of the finest flour, a nutmeg grated, some beaten cinamon; the sugar and spice must be sifted into the flour, and wet it with three eggs, and as much melted butter, as will make it of a good thickness to roll into a paste; mould it well and roll it, and cut it into what shape you please. Perfume them, and prick them before they go into the oven.

To make Whetstone Cakes:—Take half a pound of fine flour, and half a pound of loaf sugar searced, a spoonful of carraway-seeds dried, the yolk of one egg, the whites of three, a little rose-water, with ambergrease dissolved in it; mix it together, and roll it out as thin as a wafer; cut them with a glass; lay them on flour'd paper, and bake them in a slow oven.

To make Portugal Cakes:—Take a pound and a quarter of fine flour well dried, and break a pound of butter into the flour and rub it in, add a pound of loaf-sugar beaten and sifted, a nutmeg grated, four perfumed plums, or some ambergrease; mix these well together, and beat seven eggs, but four whites, with three spoonfuls of orange-flower-water; mix all these together, and beat them up an hour; butter your little pans, and just as they are going into the oven, fill them half full, and searce some fine sugar over them; little more than a quarter of an hour will bake them. You may put a handful of currants into some of them; take them out of the pans as soon as they are drawn, keep them dry, they will keep good three months.

To make Jumbals:—Take the whites of three eggs, beat them well, and take off the froth; then take a little milk, and a little flour, near a pound, as much sugar sifted, a few carraway-seeds beaten very fine; work all these in a very stiff paste, and make them into what form you please bake them on white paper.