Cut up two pounds of chuck steak; put it on to stew with salt, pepper and a little nutmeg and the juice of a lemon. Cook a few forcemeat balls, made very small, and a few potatoes cut in small pieces. Make ready a crust as follows: Boil four or five large floury potatoes; when done, strain and mash with salt and pepper, a little chopped parsley and a little melted fat; mix it with two well-beaten eggs; then put a layer of it around the bottom and sides of a deep pie-dish; lay in the stew, cover with the balance of the potato; brush it over with the yolk of an egg and bake in a quick oven till brown.
Measure one cup of mashed, boiled sweet potatoes. Thin with one pint of sweet milk. Beat three whole eggs very light with one-half cup of sugar. Mix with sweet potatoes. Season with one-quarter of a nutmeg grated, one teaspoon of cinnamon, and one-half teaspoon of lemon extract. Line pie-plate with crust, fill with mixture, and bake in quick oven.
Cut up a celery root, one onion, and a sprig of parsley, tie the fish in a napkin and lay it on this bed of roots; pour in enough water to cover and add a dash of vinegar--the vinegar keeps the fish firm--then boil over a quick fire and add more salt to the water in which the fish has been boiled. Lay your fish on a hot platter and prepare the following sauce: set a cup of sweet cream in a kettle, heat it, add a tablespoon of fresh butter, salt and pepper, and thicken with a tablespoon of flour which has been wet with a little cold milk, stir this paste into the cream and boil about one minute, stirring constantly; pour over the fish. Boil two eggs, and while they are boiling, blanch about a dozen or more almonds and stick them into the fish, points up; cover the eggs with cold water, peel them, separate the whites from the yolks, chop each separately; garnish the fish, first with a row of chopped yolks, then whites, until all is used: lay chopped parsley all around the platter. Fresh cod and striped bass may be cooked in this way.
Sift together one pint of flour, one tablespoon of sugar, one-half teaspoon of salt, two teaspoons of baking-powder. Rub in two tablespoons of butter, mix with milk to soft dough. Roll out one-half inch thick, spread with soft butter, granulated sugar, and powdered cinnamon. Roll up like jelly roll, cut in inch slices, lay close together in greased pan, and bake in quick oven.
Line a gem or muffin-pan with rich pie dough; half fill each tart with any desired preserve, and bake in a quick oven. Beat the whites of three eggs to a stiff froth and add one-half pound of powdered sugar and stir about ten minutes or until very light, and gradually one-half pound of grated almonds. Divide this macaroon paste into equal portions. Roll and shape into strips, dusting hands with powdered sugar in place of flour. Place these strips on the baked tarts in parallel rows to cross each other diagonally. Return to oven and bake in a slow oven about fifteen minutes. Let remain in pans until almost cold.
Take two cups of sugar, one cup of butter, four eggs (yolks), one cup of milk, three cups of flour, and three teaspoons of baking-powder (scant). Cream the butter and sugar, and add the yolks of eggs. Then add the milk, flour, baking-powder, and the beaten whites of the eggs; flavor with lemon. To make the brown part; take a square of bitter chocolate and melt above steam, and mix with some of the white; flavor the brown with vanilla. Put first a tablespoon of brown batter in the pan, and then the white. Bake in quick oven thirty-five minutes.
For shortening; use drippings and mix with goose, duck or chicken fat. In the fall and winter, when poultry is plentiful and fat, save all drippings of poultry fat for pie-crust. If you have neither, use rendered beef fat. Take one-half cup of shortening, one and one-half cups of flour. Sifted pastry flour is best. If you have none at hand take two tablespoons of flour off each cup after sifting; add a pinch of salt. With two knives cut the fat into the sifted flour until the shortening is in pieces as small as peas. Then pour in six or eight tablespoons of cold water; in summer use ice-water; work with the knife until well mixed (never use the hand). Flour a board or marble slab, roll the dough out thin, sprinkle with a little flour and put dabs of soft drippings here and there, fold the dough over and roll out thin again and spread with fat and sprinkle with flour, repeat this and then roll out not too thin and line a pie-plate with this dough. Always cut dough for lower crust a little larger than the upper dough and do not stretch the dough when lining pie-pan or plate. If fruit is to be used for the filling, brush over top of the dough with white of egg slightly beaten, or sprinkle with one tablespoon of bread crumbs to prevent the dough from becoming soggy. Put in the filling, brush over the edge of pastry with cold water, lay the second round of paste loosely over the filling; press the edges together lightly, and trim, if needed. Cut several slits in the top crust or prick it with a fork before putting it in place. Bake from thirty-five to forty-five minutes until crust is a nice brown. A gas stove is more satisfactory for baking pies than a coal stove as pies require the greatest heat at the bottom. The recipe given above makes two crusts. Bake pies having a cooked filling in a quick oven and those with an uncooked filling in a moderate oven. Let pies cool upon plates on which they were made because slipping them onto cold plates develops moisture which always destroys the crispness of the lower crust.
Light the burners of the gas oven before beginning to mix the muffins and work rapidly. Place in a mixing-bowl one well-beaten egg, two tablespoons of butter, one tablespoon of sugar, one-half teaspoon of salt, one scant cup of milk and two teaspoons of baking-powder that have been sifted with sufficient flour to form a batter that will "ribbon" from the spoon. Beat the batter steadily for five minutes, stir in one tablespoon of melted butter and bake in muffin-pans in a quick oven. These muffins will bake in ten minutes if pans are only half filled.
To two pounds of chopped beef take three egg yolks, three tablespoons of parsley, three tablespoons of melted chicken-fat, four heaping tablespoons of soft bread crumbs, one-half teaspoon of kitchen bouquet, two teaspoons of lemon juice, grated peel of one lemon, one teaspoon of salt, one-half teaspoon of onion-juice and one teaspoon of pepper. Mix and bake twenty-five minutes in a quick oven with one-fourth cup of melted chicken-fat, and one-half cup of boiling water. Baste often.
Make a sponge cake batter, and bake in long tins, not too large. The batter should not exceed the depth of one-fourth of an inch, spread it evenly and bake it in a quick oven (line the tins with buttered paper). As each cake is taken from the oven, turn it upside down on a clean board or paper. Spread with a thin layer of currant or cranberry jelly, and lay the other cake on top of it. With a hot, sharp knife cut into strips like dominoes; push them with the knife about an inch apart, and ice them with ordinary white icing, putting a tablespoonful on each piece, the heat of the cake will soften it, and with little assistance the edges and sides may be smoothly covered. Set the cakes in a warm place, where the frosting will dry. Make a horn of stiff white paper with just a small opening; at the lower end. Put in one spoon of dark chocolate icing and close the horn at the top, and by pressing out the icing from the small opening, draw a line of it across the centre of each cake, and then make dots like those on dominoes. Keep the horn supplied with the icing.
