Eliza Leslie

“ A large tea-spoonful of mixed spice, nutmeg, mace and cinnamon.
Blanch and pound your almonds, beat them very smooth, and mix the bitter and sweet together; do them, if you can, the day before you make the macaroons. Pound and sift your spice. Beat the whites of three eggs till they stand alone; add to them, very gradually, the powdered sugar, a spoonful at a time, bet it in very hard, and put in, by degrees, the rose-water and spice. Then stir in, gradually, the almonds. The mixture must be like a soft dough; if too thick, it will be heavy; if too thin, it will run out of shape. ”

“ Salt oysters will not do for pies. They should be fresh, and as large and fine as possible.
Drain off part of the liquor from the oysters. Put them into a pan, and season them with pepper, salt and spice. Stir them well with the seasoning. Have ready the yolks of eggs, chopped fine, and the grated bread. Pour the oysters (with as much of their liquor as you please) into the dish that has the paste in it. Strew over them the chopped egg and grated bread.
Roll out the lid of the pie, and put it on, crimping the edges handsomely.
Take a small sheet of paste, cut it into a square. ”

“ As soon as the flour is all in, begin to bake it, as setting will injure it.
Put it in small tins, well buttered, on in one large tin pan. The thinner the pans, the better for spunge-cake. Fill the small tins about half full. Grate loaf-sugar over the top of each, before you set them in the oven.
Sponge-cake requires a very quick oven, particularly at the bottom. It should be baked as fast as possible, or it will be tough and heavy, however light it may have been before it went into the oven. It is of all cakes the most liable to be spoiled in baking. ”

“ Fill the dish with the mixture of the pudding, and bake it in a moderate oven. The paste should be of a light brown colour. If the oven is too slow, it will be soft and clammy; if too quick, it will not have time to rise as high as it ought to do.
In making the best puff-paste, try to avoid using more flour to sprinkle and roll with, than the small portion which you have laid aside for that purpose at the beginning. If you make the dough too soft at first, by using too much water, it will be sticky, and require more flour, and will eventually be tough when baked. ”

“ One decided improvement on former works has been adopted by Mrs. Dalgairns: it consists in prefixing to each chapter of her work the useful preliminary remarks relative to the subject of the chapter, instead of giving all these remarks in the shape of an introduction at the beginning of the book."—Scots Times.
"We must say Mrs. Dalgairns has succeeded in combining two things, which we never before found united in any work of this description,—we mean the pleasures of sense, with a just and proper regard to economy. Extravagance is the rock upon which all her predecessors have split. ”

“ If you choose to make it without calf's feet, you can substitute an ounce of the best and clearest isinglass, or if in summer, an ounce and a quarter boiled with the other ingredients. If made with isinglass, you must use two ounces of sweet, and an ounce of bitter almonds, with the addition of the grated rind of a large lemon, and a large stick of cinnamon, broken up, a glass of wine, and half a glass of rose-water. These ingredients must be all mixed together, with a quart of cream, and boiled hard for five minutes. The mixture must then be strained through a napkin, into a large bowl. ”

“ In the mean time, make a batter as if for a pudding, of eight table-spoonfuls of sifted flour stirred gradually into a quart of milk, six eggs well beaten and added by degrees to the mixture, and a very little salt.—Put a layer of chicken in the bottom of a deep dish, and pour over it some of the batter ”

“ Put into a kettle, two ounces of powdered ginger, (or more if it is not very strong,) half an ounce of cream of tartar, two large lemons cut in slices, two pounds of broken loaf-sugar, and one gallon of soft water. Simmer them over a slow fire for half an hour. When the liquor is nearly cold, stir into it a large table-spoonful of the best yeast. ”

“ Should the cakes stick, they cannot be got out without breaking.
For queen-cakes, &c. the small tins of a round or oval shape are most convenient. Fill them but little more than half.
After the mixture is completed, set it in a cool place till all the cakes are baked.
In rolling oat cakes made of dough, use as little flour as possible. When you lay them in the pans, do not place them too close together, lest they run into each other.
When you are cutting them out, dip the cutter frequently in flour, to prevent its sticking.
QUEEN CAKE.
One pound of powdered white sugar. ”

“ When the dough gets into a lump, sprinkle on the middle of the board some of the flour that you laid aside, and lay the dough upon it, turning it out of the pan with the knife.
Rub the rolling-pin with flour, and sprinkle a little on the lump of paste. Roll it out thin, quickly, and evenly, pressing on the rolling-pin very lightly. Then take the second of the four pieces of butter, and, with the point of your knife, stick it in a little bits at equal distances all over the sheet of paste. Sprinkle on some flour, and fold up the dough. Flour the paste-board and rolling-pin again ”

“ When the peaches are done, stick a kernel into the hole of every peach, before you put them into the jars. Large fruit will keep best in broad shallow stone pots. ↑ Plums, for common use, are very good done in molasses. Put your plums into an earthen vessel that holds a gallon, having first slit each plum with a knife. To three quarts of plums put a pint of molasses. Cover them and set them on hot coals in the chimney corner. Let them stew for twelve hours or more, occasionally stirring them, and renewing the coals. Next day put them up in jars. ”

“ Make some rich puff-paste, and bake it in very small tin patty-pans. When cool, turn them out upon a large dish.
Stew some large fresh oysters with a few cloves, a little mace and nutmeg some yolk of egg boiled hard and grated, a little butter, and as much of the oyster liquor as will cover them. ”

“ When it is perfectly congealed, dip the mould for an instant in boiling water to loosen the jelly. Turn it out on a glass dish.
This quantity of ingredients will make a quart of jelly when finished. In cool weather it may be made a day or two before it is wanted.
You may increase the seasoning, (that is, the wine, lemon, and cinnamon,) according to your taste, but less than the above proportion will not be sufficient to flavour the jelly.
BLANCMANGE
Four calf's-feet. ”

“ Mrs Dalgairns is more practical, more varied, and more suited to what we may call the practical readers of such works, than either Dr. Kitchener's Oracle, or our friend of the Cleikum Inn. It is this character of utility which appears to us to constitute its value, and we have no doubt will prove its passport to extensive circulation. ”