A Little Cook Book for a Little Girl by Caroline French Benton (most interesting books to read TXT) 📖

All pies cooked in a baking-dish, with no crust on the bottom or sides of the dish, are called tarts by the English. They are the best kind of pie.

Peach Pie

Line a pie-plate with crust, lay in the peaches, peeled and sliced, sprinkle with flour, and then cover with sugar; put on a top crust, cut some little slits in it to let out the steam, and cook till brown. Or, make a deep peach tart.

French Peach Pie

Put the crust in the pie-pan as before; boil a cup of sugar with two tablespoonfuls of water till it threads. Lay quarters of peaches in the paste, around and around, evenly, no one on top of the other. Break ten peach-stones and arrange evenly on top; the pour the syrup over, and put a few narrow strips of crust across the pie, four each way, and bake.

Pumpkin Pie

1 small pumpkin. 2 1/2 cups of pulp. 2 cups of milk. 1 tablespoonful molasses. 2 eggs. 1 teaspoonful each of salt, ginger, cinnamon, and butter. 2 heaping tablespoonfuls of sugar.

Cut the pumpkin in small pieces and take out the seeds and remove the peel. Put the good part over the kettle and steam it till it is tender, keeping it covered. Then you take off the cover, and stand the steamer you have cooked it in on the back of the stove, till the heat makes the pumpkin nice and dry. Then mash it and put it through the colander. While it is warm, mix in everything in the rule except the eggs; let it cool, and put these in last, beating them till light. Line the pie-tin with crust, and pour in the filling and bake. This rule is a very nice one; it makes two pies.

Cranberry Pie

Cook a quart of cranberries till tender, with a small cup of water; when they have simmered till rather thick, put in a heaping cup of sugar and cook five minutes more. When as thick as oatmeal mush, take them off the fire and put through the colander; line a tin with crust, fill with berries, put strips of crust across, and bake. A nice plan is to take half a cup of raisins and a cup of cranberries for a pie, chopping together and cooking with water as before, adding a sprinkling of flour and a little vanilla when done.

Orange Pie

1 orange. 1 cup of water. 1 small cup of sugar. 2 teaspoonfuls corn-starch. Butter the size of a hickory-nut. Yolk of one egg.

Grate the rind of the orange, and then squeeze out the juice. Beat the yolk of the egg, add the water, with the corn-starch stirred in, orange juice and rind and butter, and cook till it grows rather thick. Bake your crust first; then bake the orange filling in it; then beat the white of your egg with a tablespoonful of granulated sugar, and put over it and brown. This is an especially nice rule.

Lemon Pie

Make exactly as you did the orange-pie, but put in a good-sized cup of sugar instead of a small one, with a lemon in place of the orange.

Tarts

Whenever Margaret made pie she always saved all the bits of the crust and rolled them out, and lined patty-pans with them and baked them. She often filled them with raw rice while they baked, to keep them in shape, saving the rice when they were done. She filled the shells with jelly, and used the tarts for lunch.

CANDY

Margaret did not wait till she reached the recipes for candy at the back of her book before she began to make it. She made it all the way along, whenever another little girl came to spend the afternoon, or it was such a rainy day that she could not go out. Nearly always she made molasses candy, because it was such fun to pull it, and she used the same rule her mother used when she was a little girl.

Molasses Candy

2 cups New Orleans molasses. 1 cup white sugar. 1 tablespoonful butter. 1 tablespoonful vinegar. 1 small teaspoonful soda.

Boil hard twenty minutes, stirring all the time, and cool in shallow pans. If you double the rule you must boil the candy five minutes longer.

The best thing about this candy is that it does not stick to the fingers, if you let it get quite cool before touching it, and pull it in small quantities. Do not put any butter on your fingers, but work fast.

Maple Wax

Boil two cups of maple syrup till it hardens when dropped in cold water. Fill a large pan with fresh snow, pack well; keep the kettle on the back of the stove, where the syrup will be just warm, but will not cook, and fill a small pitcher with it, and pour on the snow, a little at a time. Take it off in small pieces with a fork. If there is no snow, use a cake of ice.

Peanut Brittle

Make the molasses candy given above, and stir in a large cup of shelled peanuts just before taking it from the fire. Put in shallow, buttered pans.

Peppermint Drops

1 cup sugar. 2 tablespoonfuls of water. 3 teaspoonfuls of peppermint essence.

Boil the sugar and water till when you drop a little in water it will make a firm ball in your fingers. Then take it off the fire and stir in the peppermint, and carefully drop four drops, one exactly on top of another, on a buttered platter. Do not put these too near together.

Pop-corn Balls

Make half the rule for molasses candy. Pop a milk-can full of corn, and pour in a little candy while it is hot; take up all that sticks together and roll in a ball; then pour in more, and so on.

Maple Fudge

3 cups brown sugar. 2 cups maple syrup. 1 cup of milk. 1/2 cup of water. Butter the size of an egg. 1 cup English walnut meats, or hickory-nuts.

Boil the sugar and maple syrup till you can make it into a very soft ball when you drop it in water; only half as hard as you boil molasses candy. Then put in the milk, water, and butter, and boil till when you try in water it makes quite a firm ball in your fingers. Put in the nuts and take off the fire at once, and stir till it begins to sugar. Spread it quickly on buttered pans, and when partly cool mark in squares with a knife.

Chocolate Fudge

1 cup of milk. 1 cup of sugar. 1 pinch of soda. 3 squares Baker's chocolate. Butter the size of an egg.

Put the soda in the milk and scrape the chocolate. Mix all together until when you drop a little in water it will make a ball in your fingers. Take off the fire then, and beat until it is a stiff paste, and then spread on a buttered platter. Sometimes Margaret added a cup of chopped nuts to this rule, putting them in just before she took the fudge off the fire.

Cream Walnuts

2 cups of light brown sugar. Two-thirds cup of boiling water. 1 small saltspoonful of cream of tartar. 1 cup chopped walnuts.

Boil till the syrup makes a thread, then cool till it begins to thicken, and stir in the walnuts and drop on buttered paper.

Cream Made from Confectioners' Sugar

Take the white of one egg, and measure just as much cold water; mix the two well, and stir stiff with confectioners' sugar; add a little flavoring, vanilla, or almond, or pistache, and, for some candies, color with a tiny speck of fruit paste. This is the beginning of all sorts of cream candy.

Candy Potatoes

Make the plain white candy just given, and to it add a tablespoonful of cocoanut, and flavor with vanilla. Make into little balls, rather long then round, and with a fork put eyes in them like potato eyes. Roll in cinnamon. These candies are very quickly made, and are excellent for little girls' parties.

Chocolate Creams

Make the cream candy into balls, melt three squares of Baker's chocolate; put a ball on a little skewer or a fork, and dip into the chocolate and lay on buttered paper.

Nut Candy

Chop a cup of almonds and mix with the cream candy; make into bars, and when cold cut in slices.

Walnut Creams

Press two walnut halves on small balls of cream candy, one on either side.

Creamed Dates

Wash, wipe, and open the dates; remove the stones and put a small ball of cream candy into each one.

Butter Scotch

3 tablespoonfuls sugar. 3 tablespoonfuls of molasses. 2 tablespoonfuls of water. 1 tablespoonful of butter. 1 saltspoonful of soda.

Boil all together without stirring till it hardens in water; then put in a small teaspoonful of vanilla and pour at once on a buttered platter. When hard break up into squares.

Pinoche

1 cup light brown sugar. 1 cup cream. 1 cup walnuts, chopped fine. Butter the size of a walnut. 1 teaspoonful vanilla.

Cook the sugar and cream till it makes a ball in water; then put in the butter, vanilla, and nuts, and beat till creamy and spread on a platter.

Betty's Orange Candy

Betty was Margaret's particular friend, so this was her favorite rule:

2 cups sugar. Juice of one orange.

Boil till it hardens in water, and then pull it.

Creamed Dates, Figs, and Cherries

Make the plain cream candy, as before; wash the dates well, open at one side, and take out the stones and press in a ball of the candy; leave the side open. You can sprinkle with granulated sugar if you choose.

Cut figs in small pieces, and roll each piece in the cream candy till it is hidden.

For the cherries, color the cream candy light pink and make into little balls. On top of each press a candied cherry.

Dates with Nuts

Wash and wipe the dates dry, and take out the stones. Put half an English walnut in each and press the edges together; roll in granulated sugar. Small figs may be prepared in the same way.

MARGARET'S SCHOOL LUNCHEONS

As Margaret had to take her luncheon to school with her sometimes, she had to learn how to make a good many kinds of sandwiches, because she soon grew tired of one or two sorts.

Cut the bread very thin and spread lightly with butter, and after they are done trim off the crusts neatly, not taking off all the crust, but making the two pieces even. For plain meat sandwiches, chop the meat very fine, sprinkle with salt, and spread on the bread; if it is too dry, put in a very little cream as you chop the meat.

Egg Sandwiches

Make a very little French dressing,—about a teaspoonful of oil, a sprinkling of salt, and four drops of lemon juice, or vinegar. Chop a hard-boiled egg very fine, mix with the dressing, and spread.

Lettuce Sandwiches

Spread the bread, lay on a lettuce-leaf and cover with French dressing, or with mayonnaise. These sandwiches are about the best for school, as they do not get dry.

Celery Sandwiches

Chop the celery fine, mix with a French or mayonnaise dressing, and spread.

Olive Sandwiches

Chop six olives fine, mix with a tiny bit of mayonnaise and spread.

Chicken and Celery Sandwiches

Mix chopped celery and chopped chicken, as much of one as the other, wet with French or mayonnaise dressing and spread.

Nut Sandwiches

Chop the nuts fine and add just enough cream to moisten; sprinkle with salt and spread.

Sardine Sandwiches

Scrape off all the skin from the sardines, and take out the bones and drain them by laying them on brown paper; mash them with a fork, and sprinkle with lemon juice, and spread.

Tomato and Cheese Sandwiches

Slice a small, firm tomato very thin indeed, and take out all the seeds and soft pulp, leaving only the firm part; put one slice on the bread, and one thin shaving of