Page:Peterson's Magazine 1862.pdf/100

 94

RECEIPTS.

Rice Custards.-Sweeten a pint of milk with loaf-sugar, boil it with a stick of cinnamon, stir in sifted ground rice till quite thick. Take it off the fire; add the whites of three eggs well beaten; stir it again over the fire for two or three minutes, then put it into cups that have lain in cold water; do not wipe them. When cold, turn them out, and put them into the dish in which they are to be served ; pour round them a custard made of the yolks of the eggs and little more than a half-pint of milk. Put on the top a little red currant jelly or raspberry jam. A pretty supper dish. Dumplings Quickly Made.- Beat four eggs and strain them ; mix four ounces of flour very smoothly with a pint of milk; add to it the eggs, strain it again, and flavor the batter with sugar and nutmeg ; butter some teacups, fill them three parts full, and put them into an oven : they will take a quarter of an hour, and, if well mixed, will be equal to custard. Or:-These ingredients will make an excellent batter pudding, if boiled for half an hour in a cloth. French Flummery.-Boil slowly two ounces of isinglass shavings in a quart of cream fifteen minutes. Stir all the time, and sweeten it with loaf-sugar, not pounded, lest any dust should be in it ; add a spoonful of rose-water and the same of orange-flower water. Strain it into a basin or form, and serve with baked pears round it. wwwm RECEIPTS FOR CAKES, ETC. To Make a Tea Cake.- Rub into a quart of dried flour of the finest kind a quarter of a pound of butter; then beat up two eggs with two teaspoonfuls of sifted sugar, and two tablespoonfuls of washed brewer's, or unwashed distiller's yeast ; pour this liquid mixture into the center of the flour, and add a pint of warm milk as you mix it; beat it up with the hand until it comes off without sticking; set it to rise before the fire, having covered it with a cloth; after it has remained there an hour, make it up into goodsized cakes an inch thick ; set them in tin plates to rise before the fire during ten minutes, then bake them in a slow oven. These cakes may be split and buttered hot from the oven, or split, toasted, and buttered after they are cold. To Make Rusks.-Beat up seven eggs, mix them with half a pint of warm, new milk, in which a quarter of a pound of butter has been melted, add a quarter of a pint of yeast and three ounces of sugar ; put them gradually into as much flour as will make a light paste nearly as thin as batter; let it rise before the fire half an hour, add more flour to make it a little stiffer, work it well, and divide it into small loaves, or cakes, about five or six inches wide, and flatten them. When baked and cold, put them in the oven to brown a little. These cakes, when first baked, are very good buttered for tea; if they are made with caraway seeds, they eat very nice cold. Icing for Cakes.-Break almost to a powder a fewpounds of ice, and throw in among it a large handful and a half of salt; the ice and salt being in a bucket, put your cream into an ice-pot and cover it ; immerse it in the ice, and draw that round the pot so that it may cover every part; in a few minutes put a spatula or spoon in, and stir it well to remove the parts that are round the edges to the center. If the ice-cream or water be in form, shut the bottom close and move the whole in the ice ; as you cannot use a spoon to this without danger of waste, there should be holes in the bucket to let the ice off as it thaws. Rice Custards.-Put a blade of mace and a quartered nutmeg into a quart of cream; boil and strain it, and add to it some boiled rice and a little brandy. Sweeten it to faste, stir it till it thickens, and serve it up in cups or in a dish. It may be used either hot er cold.

MISCELLANEOUS RECEIPTS. Invisible Inks.-These are preparations used for writing on paper, the marks of which are invisible until acted upon by some reagent. They are frequently employed in playful or secret correspondence. We give receipts for five which we have tested or seen, and at different times. 1. Solution of acetate of cobalt, to which a little nitre has been added, becomes rose-colored when heated, and disappears again when cool. 2. Aquafortis, spirits of salts, oil ofvitriol, common salt, or saltpetre, dissolved in a large quantity of water, turn yellow or brown when heated. 3. The diluted solutions of nitrate of silver and terchloride of gold, darken when exposed to the sunlight. 4. Solution of nitromuriate of cobalt turns green when heated, and disappears again on cooling. 5. Sulphate of copper and sal-ammoniac, equal parts, dissolved in water, writes colorless, but turns yellow on becoming heated. To Restore Hangings, Curtains, Chairs, etc.- Beat the dust out of them as clean as possible, then rub them over with a dry brush, and make a good lather of Castile soap, and rub them well over with a hard brush ; then take clean water, and with it wash off the froth ; make a water with alum, and wash them over with it, and when dry, most of the colors will be restored in a short time ; and those that are yet too faint must be touched up with a pencil dipped in suitable colors : it may be run all over in the same manner with water-colors mixed well with gum -water, and it will look at a distance like new. Fire and Water-Proof Cement.- To half a pint of milk put an equal quantity of vinegar, in order to curdle it: then separate the curd from the whey, and mix the whey with the whites of four or five eggs, beating the whole together. When it is well mixed, add a little quick- limo through a sieve, until it has acquired the consistency of thick paste. With this cement, broken vessels and cracks of all kinds can be mended. It dries quickly, and resists the action of fire and water. Varnish for Brass Work.-To a pint of spirits of wine, put one ounce of turmeric powder, two drachms of best annatto, and two drachms of saffron. Let it stand ten days, shaking the bottle often, and filter through coarse muslin into a clean bottle : add then three ounces of clean seedlac, and shake the bottle often for fourteen days. The brass, if large, must be first warmed, so as to heat the hand, and the varnish then applied with a brush. The varnish gives the brass rails of desks, etc., a beautiful appearance. To Make Red Sealing- Wax.-Take of shellac, well powdered, two parts ; of resin and vermilion, powdered, each one part; mix them well together, and melt them over a gentle fire, and when the ingredients seem thoroughly incorporated, work the wax into sticks. Where shellac cannot be procured, seed-lac may be substituted for it. To Make Paper Fire-Proof.- Nothing more is necessary than to dip the paper in a strong solution of alum-water, and when thoroughly dry it will resist the action of flame. Some paper requires to imbibe more of the solution than it will take up at a single immersion, and the process must bo repeated until it becomes thoroughly saturated. Dr. Johnson's Receipt for Rheumatism.- Take of flowers of sulphur, flour of mustard, each half an ounce ; honey or molasses, a sufficient quantity to form an electuary. Tho size of a nutmeg to be taken several times a day, drinking after it a quarter of a pint of the decoction of lovage root. To Glaze or Varnish Drawings.-One ounce of Canada balsam, two ounces of oil of turpentine, well dissolved. Tho drawing should be previously washed over with a solution of isinglass. Birdsnest Pudding.- Peel apples, and cover the bottom of a pie-dish with them whole ; pour over them a batter, or custard, more or less rich according to circumstances, and bake in a quick oven.