pouring it into the basin, more perfectly to mix the egg and butter, until they shall be hot without boiling.

Serve on toasted bread; or in a basin, to eat with salt fish, or red herrings.

Scotch Eggs.

Boil hard five pullets' eggs, and without removing the white, cover completely with a fine relishing forcemeat, in which, let scraped ham, or chopped anchovy, bear a due proportion. Fry of a beautiful yellow brown, and serve with a good gravy in the dish.

Cold Butter

May be served in various forms: --Sent up in small, pats;-rolled in the form of a pine, making the roughness with the handle of a silver spoon;-done in crimping rollers, and curled ;-worked through a colander; or scooped in shell-forms with the bowl of a tea-spoon. It may be served in the centre or round grated beef or grated tongue; or with anchovies, and garnished with curled parsley; or with alternate radishes, &c.

PART X.

CAKES, BREAD, &c.

Observations on making and baking Cakes.

CURRANTS should be very nicely washed, dried in a cloth, and then set before the fire. If damp, they will make cakes or puddings heavy. Before they are added, a dust of dry flour should be thrown among them, and a shake given to them, which causes the thing that they are put to to be lighter.

Eggs should be very long beaten, whites and yolks apart, and always strained. Sugar should be rubbed to a powder on a clean board, and sifted through a very fine hair or lawn sieve. Lemon-peel should be pared very thin, and with a little sugar beaten in a marble mortar, to a paste, and then mixed with a little wine, or cream, so as to divide easily among the other ingredients.

After all the articles are put into the pan, they should be thoroughly and long beaten, as the lightness of the cake depends much on their being well incorporated.

Whether black or white plum-cakes, they require less butter and eggs for having yest, and eat equally light and rich. If the leaven be only of flour, milk and water, and yest, it becomes more tough, and is less easily divided, than if the butter be first put with those ingredients, and the dough afterwards set to rise by the fire.

The heat of the oven is of great importance for cakes, especially those that are large. If not pretty quick, the batter will not rise. Should you fear its catching by being too quick, put some paper over the cake to prevent its being burnt. If not long enough lighted to have a body of heat, or it is become slack, the cake will be heavy. To know when it is soaked, take a broadbladed knife that is very bright, and plunge into the very centre; draw it instantly out, and if the least stickiness adheres, put the cake immediately in, and shut up the oven.

If the heat was sufficient to raise, but not to soak, I have with great success had fresh fuel quickly put in, and kept the cakes hot until the oven was fit to finish the soaking, and they turned out extremely well. But those who are employed ought to be particularly careful that no mistake occur from negligence when large cakes are to be baked.

Bread and cakes wetted with milk eat best when new; but become stale sooner than others.

Cakes kept in drawers or wooden boxes have a disagreeable taste. Earthen pans and covers, or tin boxes, preserve them best.

CAKES, &c.

Iceing for Cakes.

For a large one, beat and sift eight ounces of fine sugar, put into a mortar, with four spoonsful of rose

water, and the whites of two eggs beaten and strained; whisk it well, and when the cake is almost cold, dip a feather in the iceing, and cover the cake well; set it in the oven to harden, but do not let it stay to discolour. Put the cake into a dry place.

To ice a very large Cake.

Beat the whites of twenty fresh eggs; then by degrees beat a pound of double-refined sugar sifted through a lawn sieve; mix these well in a deep earthen pan; add orange-flower water, and a piece of fresh lemon-peel; of the former enough to flavour, and no more. Whisk it for three hours till the mixture is thick and white; then with a thin broad bit of board spread it all over the top and sides, and set it in a cool oven, and an hour will harden it.

A common Cake.

Mix three quarters of a pound of flour with half a pound of butter, four ounces of sugar, four eggs, half an ounce of caraways, and a glass of raisin-wine. Beat it well, and bake in a quick oven. Fine Lisbon sugar will do.

A very good common Cake.

Rub eight ounces of butter in two pounds of dried flour; mix it with three spoonsful of yest, that is not bitter, to a paste. Let it rise an hour and a half; then mix in the yolks and whites of four eggs beaten apart, one pound of sugar, some milk to make it a proper thickness (about a pint will be sufficient), a glass of sweet wine, the rind of a lemon, and a tea-spoonful of ginger. Add either a pound of currants, or some caraways, and beat well.

An excellent Cake.

Rub two pounds of dry fine flour, with one of butter, washed in plain and rose-water; mix it with three spoonsful of yest in a little warm milk and water. Set it to rise an hour and a half before the fire; then beat into it two pounds of currants, one pound of sugar sifted, four ounces of almonds, six ounces of stoned raisins,

Y

chopped fine, half a nutmeg, cinnamon, allspice, and a few cloves, the peel of a lemon chopped as fine as possible, a glass of wine, ditto of brandy, twelve yolks and whites of eggs beat separately and long, orange, citron, and lemon. Beat exceedingly well, and butter the pan. A quick oven..

A very fine Cake.

Wash two pounds and a half of fresh butter in water first, and then in rose-water, beat the butter to a cream; beat twenty eggs, yolks and whites separately, half an hour each. Have ready two pounds and a half of the finest flour, well dried, and kept hot, likewise a pound and a half of sugar pounded and sifted, one ounce of spice in finest powder, three pounds of currants nicely cleaned and dry, half a pound of almonds blanched, and three quarters of a pound of sweetmeats cut not too thin. Let all be kept by the fire, mix all the dry ingredients; pour the eggs strained to the butter; mix half a pint of sweet wine with a large glass of brandy, pour it to the butter and eggs, mix well, then have all the dry things put in by degrees; beat them very thoroughly; you can hardly do it too much. Having half a pound of stoned jar-raisins chopped as fine as possible, mix them carefully, so that there should be no lumps, and add a tea-cupful of orange-flower water. Beat the ingredients together a full hour at least. Have a hoop well buttered, or, if you have none, a tin or copper cake-pan; take a white paper, doubled and buttered, and put in the pan round the edge; if the cake batter, fill it more than three parts, for space should be allowed for rising. Bake in a quick oven. It will require three hours.

Rout Drop-Cakes.

Mix two pounds of flour, one ditto butter, one ditto sugar, one ditto currants, clean and dry; then wet into a stiff paste, with two eggs, a large spoonful of orangeflower water, ditto rose-water, ditto sweet wine, ditto brandy, drop on a tin plate floured: a very short time bakes them.

Flat Cakes, that will keep long in the house good. Mix two pounds of flour, one pound of sugar, and one ounce of caraways, with four or five eggs, and a few spoonsful of water, to make a stiff paste; roll it thin. and cut it into any shape. Bake on tins lightly floured, While baking, boil a pound of sugar in a pint of water to a thin syrup; while both are hot, dip each cake into it, and put them on tins into the oven to dry for a short time; and when the oven is cooler still, return them there again, and let them stay four or five hours.

Little white Cakes.

Dry half a pound of flour, rub into it a very little pounded sugar, one ounce of butter, one egg, a few caraways, and as much milk and water as to make a paste; roll it thin, and cut it with the top of a canister or glass. Bake fifteen minutes on tin plates.

Little short Cakes.

Rub into a pound of dried flour four ounces of butter, four ounces of white powder sugar, one egg, and a spoonful or two of thin cream to make it into a paste. When mixed, put currants into one half, and caraways into the rest. Cut them as before, and bake on tins.

Marlborough Cakes.

Beat eight eggs and a pound of pounded sugar three quarters of an hour; then by degrees mix in twelve ounces of fine flour well dried; add two ounces of caraway seeds, and bake in soup plates, or tin pans, in a brisk oven.

Plum Cake.

Mix thoroughly a quarter of a peck of fine flour, well dried, with a pound of dry and sifted loaf-sugar, three pounds of currants washed and very dry, half a pound of raisins stoned and chopped, a quarter of an ounce of mace and cloves, twenty Jamaica peppers, a grated nutmeg, the peel of a lemon cut as fine as possible, and half a pound of almonds blanched and beaten with