Page:The White House Cook Book.djvu/485

 COLORING FOR FRUIT, ETC. 445

as it rises, and mix it with the article you intend to color. If you wish to keep it a few days, take the juice when you have pressed out a teacupful, and adding to it a piece of alum the size of a pea, give it a boil in a saucepan. Or make the juice very strong and add a quart of alcohol. Bottle it air-tight.

SUGAR GRAINS.

THESE are made by pounding white lump sugar in a mortar and shaking it through sieves of different degrees of coarseness, thus ac- cumulating grains of different sizes. They are used in ornamenting cake.

SUGAR GRAINS. COLORED.

STIR a little coloring as the essence of spinach, or prepared cochi- neal, or liquid carmine, or indigo, rouge, saffron, etc., into the sugar grains made as above, until each grain is stained, then spread them on a baking-sheet and dry them in a warm place. They are used in orna- menting cake.

CARAMEL OR BURNT SUGAR.

PUT one cupful of sugar and two teaspoonfuls of water in a sauce- pan on the fire ; stir constantly until it is quite a dark color, then add a half cupful of water and a pinch of salt ; let it boil a few minutes and when cold, bottle.

For coloring soups, sauces or gravies.

TO CLARIFY JELLY.

THE white of egg is, perhaps, the best substance that can be em- ployed in clarifying jelly, as well as some other fluids, for the reason that when albumen (and the white of egg is nearly pure albumen) is put into a liquid that is muddy, from substances suspended in it, on boiling coagulates in a flocculent manner, and, entangling with the im- purities, rises with them to the surface as a scum, or sinks to the bot- tom, according to their weight.

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