Page:The Lady's Receipt-book.djvu/138

132 bag filled with alkanet. Instead of green sweet-meats, use preserved cherries, strawberries, or raspberries.

Alkanet is to be bought at the druggists, is very cheap, perfectly innoxious, and is now much used for colouring confectionary. The colour it imparts is more beautiful than any other red.

You may obtain a good red colouring by pounding boiled beets in a mortar. Pounded beet-leaves will also furnish a juice for colouring red.

GELATINE CUSTARD.—Soak half an ounce of gelatine for three or four hours in a pan of cold water. Have ready a quart of milk. Boil in half a pint of it a bunch of peach-leaves, or a handful of bitter almonds broken up; also, a stick of cinnamon broken in pieces. When it is highly flavoured, strain this milk into the pan that contains the rest. Beat four eggs very light, and mix them gradually with the milk, adding, by degrees, the gelatine, (well drained,) and four heaping table-spoonfuls of sugar. Set it over a slow fire and boil it, stirring it frequently. As soon as the gelatine is entirely dissolved, and thoroughly mixed, the custard will be done. Transfer it to a deep dish or to cups, and set it on ice or in a cold place till wanted.

INDIAN PUFFS.—Boil a quart of milk; and when it has come to a boil, stir into it, gradually, eight large table-spoonfuls of Indian meal; four large table-spoonfuls of powdered sugar; and a grated nutmeg. Stir it hard; letting it boil a quarter of an hour after all the Indian meal is in. Then take it up, and set it to cool. While cooling, beat eight eggs as light as possible, and stir them, gradually, into the batter when it is quite cold. Butter some large tea-cups; nearly fill them with the mixture; set them into a moderate oven; and bake them well.