CAKES, BREAD, PIES, AND PUDDINGS

1194. _Wine Crust for Cakes or Pastry--a foreign Receipt._--Pour gradually to the well-beaten yolks of three fresh eggs, cleared from the specks, a quarter of a pint of light white wine (Marsala will serve for the purpose well enough), stirring them briskly as it is added; throw in half a salt-spoonful of salt, and an ounce and a half of pounded sugar; and when this last is dissolved, or nearly so, add the mixture to as much flour as will be required to form a smooth, firm paste: about three-quarters of a pound will be sufficient, unless the eggs should be of an unusual size. Roll it out, cut it asunder, and spread one half with eight ounces of butter, cut small; lay the other half of the paste upon it, and roll them together as lightly as possible; turn the paste on the board, and fold the two ends over each other, so as to make the whole of equal thickness; roll it quite thin, and repeat the folding once or twice, touching the paste in doing it as little as can be, and rolling it _very_ lightly. It may be used for any kind of sweet pastry; or it may be served in the form of cakes, either iced or plain; these again may be adapted to the second course, by spreading the under-sides of one half with rich preserve, and pressing the others on them.

1195. _Pic-nic Biscuits._--Work, very small, two ounces of fresh butter into a pound of flour; reduce to the finest powder, and mix, intimately, half a salt-spoonful of very pure carbonate of soda (Howard's is the best), with two ounces of sugar; mingle these thoroughly with the flour, and make up the paste with a few spoonfuls of milk; it will require scarcely a quarter of a pint. Knead it very smooth, roll it a quarter of an inch thick, cut it in rounds about the size of the top of a _small_ wine-glass; roll these out thin, prick them well, lay them on lightly-floured tins, and bake them in a gentle oven until they are crisp quite through. As soon as they are cold put them into dry canisters. The sugar can be omitted at pleasure. If thin cream be used instead of milk, in making the paste, it will much enrich the biscuits; but this would often not be considered an improvement, as plain simple biscuits are generally most in favor.

Carraway seeds or ginger can be added, to vary these at pleasure. The proportion of soda used should be too small to be perceptible, even to the taste: it will be no disadvantage to use milk with it which is slightly acid.

1196. _A good Soda Cake._--Rub half a pound of good butter into a pound of fine dry flour, and work it very small; mix well with these half a pound of sifted sugar, and pour to them first a quarter of a pint of boiling milk, and next three well-whisked eggs; add some grated nutmeg, or fresh lemon-rind, and eight ounces of currants; beat the whole well and lightly together, and the instant before the cake is moulded and set into the oven, stir to it a tea-spoonful of carbonate of soda in the finest powder. Bake it from an hour to an hour and a quarter, or divide it in two, and allow from half to three-quarters of an hour for each cake.

Flour, one pound; butter, three ounces; sugar, eight ounces, milk, full quarter-pint; eggs, three; currants, half a pound; carbonate of soda, one tea-spoonful; one hour to one and a half. Or, divided, a half to three-quarters of an hour--moderate oven.

_Obs._--This, if well made, resembles a pound-cake, but is much more wholesome. It is very good with two ounces less of butter, and with caraway-seeds or candied orange or citron substituted for the currants.

1197. _To make Fine Pancakes, Fried without Butter or Lard._--Take a pint of cream and six new-laid eggs; beat them well together; put in a quarter of a pound of sugar and one nutmeg or a little beaten mace--which you please, and so much as will thicken--almost as much as ordinary pancake flour batter; your pan must be heated reasonably hot, and wiped with a clean cloth; this done, spread your batter thin over it, and fry.

1198. _To make Loaves of Cheese-curd._--Take a porringer full of curds, and four eggs, whites and yolks, and as much flour as will make it stiff; then take a little ginger, nutmeg, and some salt; make them into loaves, and set them into an oven with a quick heat; when they begin to change color, take them out, and put melted butter to them, and some sack, and good store of sugar; and so serve.

1199. _Cheap Ginger Biscuits._--Work into quite small crumbs three ounces of good butter, with two pounds of flour; then add three ounces of pounded sugar and two of ginger, in fine powder, and knead them into a stiff paste, with new milk. Roll it thin, cut out the biscuits with a cutter, and bake them in a slow oven until they are crisp quite through, but keep them of a pale color. A couple of eggs are sometimes mixed with the milk for them, but are no material improvement; an additional ounce of sugar may be used when a sweeter biscuit is liked. To make good ginger _cakes_, increase the butter to six ounces, and the sugar to eight, for each pound of flour, and wet the ingredients into a paste with eggs; a little lemon-grate will give it an agreeable flavor.

Biscuits--flour, two pounds; butter, three ounces; pounded sugar, three ounces; ginger, two ounces.

Cakes--flour, one pound; butter, six ounces; sugar, eight ounces; ginger, one ounce; three to four eggs; rind of half a lemon.

1200. _Ginger Snaps._--Beat together half a pound of butter, and half a pound of sugar; mix with them half a pint of molasses, half a tea-cupful of ginger, and one pound and a half of flour.

1201. _Gingerbread._--Mix together three and a half pounds of flour; three-quarters of a pound of butter; one pound of sugar; one pint of molasses; a quarter of a pound of ginger, and some ground orange-peel.

1202. _Raspberry Cakes._--Take any quantity of fruit you please, weigh and boil it, and when mashed, and the liquor is washed, add as much sugar as was equal in weight to the raw fruit. Mix it very well _off_ the fire till the whole is dissolved, then lay it on plates, and dry it in the sun. When the top part dries, cut it off into small cakes, and turn them on a fresh plate. When dry, put the whole in boxes, with layers of paper.

1203. _Rock Cakes._--Mix together one pound of flour; half a pound of sugar; half a pound of butter; half a pound of currants or cherries, and four eggs, leaving out the whites of two; a little wine and candied lemon-peel are a great improvement.

1204. _Cup Cakes._--Mix together five cups of flour; three cups of sugar; one cup of butter; one cup of milk; three eggs, well beaten; one wine-glass of wine; one of brandy, and a little cinnamon.

1205. _Jumbles._--Take one pound of loaf-sugar, pounded fine; one pound and a quarter of flour; three-quarters of a pound of butter; four eggs, beaten light, and a little rose-water and spice; mix them well, and roll them in sugar.

1206. _Sponge Cake._--Take the weight of the eggs in sugar; half their weight in flour, well sifted; to twelve eggs, add the grated rind of three lemons, and the juice of two. Beat the eggs carefully, white and yolks separately, before they are used. Stir the materials thoroughly together, and bake in a quick oven.

1207. _Apple Fritters._--Pare and core some fine large pippins, and cut them into round slices. Soak them in wine, sugar, and nutmeg, for two or three hours. Make a batter of four eggs; a table-spoonful of rose-water; a table-spoonful of wine; a table-spoonful of milk; thicken with enough flour, stirred in by degrees, to make a batter; mix it two or three hours before it is wanted, that it may be light. Heat some butter in a frying pan; dip each slice of apple separately in the batter, and fry them brown; sift pounded sugar, and grate nutmeg over them.

1208. _A Charlotte Russe._--It is very difficult to prepare this delicate dish, and we advise all inexperienced house-keepers not to undertake it without the superintendence of a professed cook.

Extract the flavor from a vanilla-bean, by boiling it in half a pint of milk. The milk must then be strained; and, when cold, mix with it a quarter of a pound of loaf sugar. Beat the yolks of four eggs very light, and stir them into the mixture. Heat it over the fire for five minutes, until it becomes a custard, but take great care that it does not boil. Boil an ounce of isinglass with a pint of water. The isinglass must be thoroughly dissolved before it is fit for use, and one-half of the water boiled away. The custard being cold, drain the isinglass into it, and stir them hard together. Leave them to cool, while you prepare the rest of the mixture. Whip a quart of cream to a froth, (the cream should be rich,) and mix it with the custard; in whipping the cream, great care should be taken to make it quite light; the safest way is, to remove the froth as fast as it gathers, with a strainer, until the whole is whipped.

Take two round slices of almond sponge-cake; glaze them with the beaten white of egg mixed with sugar. Lay one on the bottom of a circular mould, and reserve the other for the top.

Cut some more sponge-cake into long pieces; glaze them carefully with the egg, and line the sides of the mould with them. Each piece should lap a little over the other, or the form will not be perfect. The custard will by this time be just beginning to congeal; pour it gently into the mould, and cover the top with the piece of cake which has already been prepared. The cake around the sides must be trimmed evenly, so that the upper piece will fit without leaving any vacancies.

Pound some ice, and throw it into a tub, covering it well with coarse salt. The mould should then be set into the midst of this ice, and must remain there an hour. Prepare an icing with powdered sugar and the beaten white of egg, flavoring it with lemon-juice, or essence of lemon, orange, or rose-water, according to the taste. The Charlotte Russe is then turned out upon a handsome dish, and iced over. It should be moved about as little as possible; and, to ensure success in preparing it, the utmost care must be taken to follow the above directions.

At large parties, a Charlotte Russe is as indispensable on the supper-table as ice-cream.

1209. _Batter Pudding._--Take six ounces of fine flour, a little salt, and three eggs; beat it up well with a little milk, added by degrees till the batter is quite smooth: make it the thickness of cream: put it into a buttered pie-dish, and bake three-quarters of an hour; or, in a buttered and floured basin, tied over tight with a cloth: boil one hour and a half or two hours.

Any kind of ripe fruit that you like may be added to the batter--only you must make the batter a little stiffer. Blueberries, or finely-chopped apple, are most usually liked.

1210. _French Batter, (for frying Vegetables, and for Apple, Peach, or Orange Fritters._)--Cut two ounces of good butter into small bits; pour on it less than a quarter of a pint of boiling water; and, when it is dissolved, add three-quarters of a pint of cold water, so that the whole shall not be quite milk-warm: mix it then by degrees, and very smoothly, with twelve ounces of fine, dry flour, and a _small_ pinch of salt, if the batter be for fruit-fritters, but with more, if for meat or vegetables. Just before it is used, stir into it the whites of two eggs beaten to a solid froth; but, previously to this, add a little water, should it appear too thick, as some flour requires more liquid than others, to bring it to a proper consistency.

Butter, two ounces; water, from three-quarters to nearly a pint; little salt; flour, three-quarters of a pound; whites of two eggs, beaten to snow.

1211. _Terrines of Rice, sweet and savory._--Wash four ounces of Carolina rice in several waters, and leave it to soak for ten minutes; then put it into a common Nottingham jar, with a cover, and in shape, larger, considerably, in the middle than at the top--as those of narrower form and proportionably greater height will not answer so well. This jar may contain one quart or two, as the stove-oven in which it is to be placed, may permit. The smaller size has, on compulsion, been used for the present and following receipts--the iron-plate in the centre of the only oven which the writer had at command, preventing a larger one from standing in it. Pour on the rice an exact pint of new milk; add two ounces of pounded sugar, the slightest pinch of salt, and any flavor which may be liked. Stir the whole well for a minute or two; put on the cover of the jar; make a bit of paste with flour and water, sufficient to form a wide, thick band; moisten the side which is laid on the jar, and bind the edges of the cover and the jar together securely with it; tie brown paper over, and set it into the coolest part of the oven of the kitchen-range. Bake the rice _gently_ for two hours and a quarter at the least, and turn the jar half-round once or twice while it is in the oven. Stir it lightly up, heap it on a hot dish, and send it to table. A _compôte_ of fresh fruit is an admirable accompaniment to it.

1212. _Nutmeg Pudding._--Pound, fine, two large or three small nutmegs; melt three pounds of butter, and stir into it half a pound of loaf-sugar, a little wine, the yolks of five eggs, well beaten, and the nutmegs. Bake on a puff-paste.

1213. _Wine Jelly._--Soak four ounces of gelatine in one quart of cold water, for half an hour. In the meantime, mix with two quarts of cold water, six table-spoonfuls of brandy; one pint of white-wine; six lemons, cut up with the peel on; the whites and shells of six eggs, the whites slightly beaten, the shells crushed; three pounds of white sugar: then mix the gelatine with the other ingredients, and put them over the fire. Let it boil, without stirring, for twenty minutes. Strain it through a flannel-bag, without squeezing. Wet the mould in cold water. Pour the jelly in, and leave it in a cool place for three hours.

1214. _Economics._--It is often a matter of great convenience as well as of economy, to give a new and presentable form to the remains of dishes which have already appeared at table: the following hints may, therefore, be not unacceptable to some of our readers.

No. 1.--Calf's-feet jelly and good blanc-mange are excellent when just melted and mixed together, whether in equal or unequal proportions. They should be heated only sufficient to liquify them, or the acid of the jelly might curdle the blanc-mange. Pour this last, when melted, into a deep earthen bowl, and add the jelly to it in small portions, whisking them briskly together as it is thrown in. A small quantity of prepared cochineal--which may be procured from a chemist's--will serve to improve or to vary the color, when required. Many kinds of creams and custards also may be blended advantageously with the blanc-mange, after a little additional isinglass has been dissolved in it, to give sufficient firmness to the whole. It must be observed, that, though just liquid, either jelly or blanc-mange must be as nearly cold as it will become without thickening and beginning to set, before it is used for this receipt.

A sort of marbled or Mosaic mass is sometimes made by shaking together, in a mould, remnants of various-colored blanc-manges, cut nearly of the same size, and then filling it up with some clear jelly.

No. 2.--When a small part only of an open tart has been eaten, divide the remainder equally into triangular slices, place them at regular intervals round a dish, and then fill the intermediate spaces, and cover the tart entirely, with slightly-sweetened and well-drained whipped cream.

1215. _Pumpkin Pie._--Stew the pumpkin dry, and make it like squash pie, only season rather higher. In the country, where this _real Yankee pie_ is prepared in perfection, ginger is almost always used with other spices. There, too, part cream, instead of milk, is mixed with the pumpkin, which gives it a richer flavor.

1216. _Rhubarb Stalks, or Persian Apple_--Is the earliest ingredient for pies, which the spring offers. The skin should be carefully stripped, and the stalks cut into small bits, and stewed very tender. These are dear pies, for they take an enormous quantity of sugar: seasoned like apple pies. Gooseberries, currants, &c., are stewed, sweetened, and seasoned like apple pies, in proportions suited to the sweetness of the fruit; there is no way to judge but by your own taste. Always remember, it is more easy to add seasoning, than to diminish it.

1217. _Superlative Mince-meat, for Pies._--Take four large lemons, with their weight of golden pippins, pared and cored, of jar-raisins, currants, candied citron and orange-rind, and the finest suet, and a fourth-part more of pounded sugar. Boil the lemons tender, chop them small; but be careful first to extract all the pips; add them to the other ingredients, after all have been prepared with great nicety, and mix the whole _well_ with from three to four glasses of good brandy. Apportion salt and spice by the preceding receipt. We think that the weight of one lemon, in meat, improves this mixture; or, in lieu of it, a small quantity of crushed macaroons, added just before it is baked.

1218. _Rolls._--Rub into a pound of sifted flour, two ounces of butter; beat the whites of three eggs to a froth, and add a table-spoonful of good yeast, a little salt, and sufficient warm milk to make a stiff dough. Cover and put it where it will be kept warm, and it will rise in an hour. Then make it into rolls, or round cakes; put them on a floured tin, and bake in a quick oven or stove. They will be done in ten or fifteen minutes.

1219. _To make Yeast in the Turkish manner._--Take a small tea-cupful of split or bruised peas, and pour on it a pint of boiling water, and set it in a vessel all night on the hearth, or any warm place. The next morning the water will have a froth on it, and be good yeast, and will make as much bread as two quartern loaves.

1220. _Dyspepsia Bread._--The following receipt for making bread, has proved highly salutary to persons afflicted with dyspepsia, viz:--Three quarts unbolted wheat meal; one quart soft water, warm, but not hot; one gill of fresh yeast; one gill of molasses, or not, as may suit the taste; one teaspoonful of saleratus.

This will make two loaves, and should remain in the oven at least one hour; and when taken out, placed where they will cool gradually. Dyspepsia crackers can be made with unbolted flour, water, and saleratus.

1221. _Unfermented Bread._--This keeps moist longer than bread made with yeast, and is more sweet and digestible. The brown bread made in this way is particularly recommended for dyspeptics. Take four pounds of flour, half an ounce avoirdupois of muriatic acid; the same of carbonate of soda; about a quart of water. First mix the soda and flour well together by rubbing in a pan; pour the acid into the water, and stir it well together. Mix all together to the required consistence and bake in a hot oven immediately. If instead of flour, unbolted meal should be used, take three pounds of meal; half an ounce avoirdupois of muriatic acid; the same of carbonate of soda; and water enough to make it of a proper consistence. Mix in the same way.

1222. _Rice Caudle._--When the water boils, pour into it some ground rice mixed with a little cold water; when of a proper consistency, add sugar, lemon-peel, and cinnamon, and a glass of brandy to a quart. Boil all smooth.

_Or_:--Soak some Carolina rice in water an hour, strain it, and put two spoonfuls of the rice into a pint and a quarter of milk; simmer till it will pulp through a sieve, then put the pulp and milk into the saucepan, with a bruised clove, and a bit of white sugar. Simmer ten minutes: if too thick, add a spoonful or two of milk, and serve with thin toast.

1223.--_Johnny Cakes._--Sift a quart of corn meal into a pan; make a hole in the middle, and pour in a pint of warm water. Mix the meal and water gradually into a batter, adding a tea-spoonful of salt; beat it very quickly, and for a long time, till it becomes quite light; then spread it thick and even on a stout piece of smooth board; place it upright on the hearth before a clear fire, with something to support the board behind, and bake it well; cut it into squares, and split and butter them hot.

They may also be made with a quart of milk, three eggs, one tea-spoonful of carbonate of soda, and one tea-cupful of wheaten flour; add Indian corn-meal sufficient to make a batter like that of pancakes, and either bake it in buttered pans, or upon a griddle, and eat them with butter.

1224. _Green Corn._--Must be boiled in clear water, with salt, from twenty minutes to half an hour; if old, it will require a longer time. It must be sent to table directly it is done, as it loses its sweetness by either boiling after it is done, or standing when dished.

(A tea-spoonful of saleratus boiled with corn is said to prevent sickness.)

1225. _Corn Oysters._--One pint of grated green corn, one cup of flour, one dessert-spoonful of salt, one tea-spoonful of pepper, one egg.

Mix the ingredients together, drop, and fry them in hot lard. In taste they resemble fried oysters. They are an excellent relish for breakfast, and a good side-dish for dinner.

1226. _Sackatash, or Corn and Beans._--Boil three pints of shelled beans, or a quarter of a peck of string beans, half an hour, pour off the water. Cut the corn off of four dozen ears--put it in the pot among the beans, add salt and pepper, and cover them with boiling water--boil all together twenty minutes. Rub flour into a large piece of butter and stir it in, then let it boil up once. Pour it into your tureen and send it to table.

1227. _Winter Sackatash._--As in winter the beans and corn are both dried, they will have to be soaked over night. Par-boil the beans in one or two waters, then add the corn, and boil all together until the beans are boiled to pieces, which will be several hours. Add a small piece of loaf sugar. Before dishing it for table, mix a large piece of butter with flour, stir it in and let it boil.

1228. _To make Curry Powders._--Take one ounce of ginger, the same of coriander-seed, half an ounce of cayenne pepper, and two ounces of fine pale turmeric; these ingredients to be pounded separately to a fine powder, and then warmed by the fire, and mixed together. Put the powder into a wide-mouthed bottle, cork it well down, and put it into a dry place.

Those who dislike the flavor of turmeric may substitute saffron.

1229. _To prepare a Curry._--The meat should be fresh and free from bone. Cut it into pieces which can be easily served. To each pound of meat add a table-spoonful of curry powder, and about half the quantity of flour, and a little salt; mix these together, and rub a portion of it upon the meat before it is fried, the remainder afterwards. Fry the meat in a little butter. Fry onions a light brown, with a clove of garlic if approved; drain the fat from both the meat and onions; put them into a stewpan, and cover with boiling water; stew for twenty minutes, then rub the remainder of the powder smooth with a little cold water, add it, and let it stew for an hour, or according to the time necessary for the meat to be well done. If no other acid is used, stir in a little lemon-juice just before serving: place it in the centre of the dish, and put carefully boiled rice round it.

1230. _Lord Clive's Curry._--Slice six onions, one green apple, and a clove of garlic; stew them in a little good stock until they will pulp, then add one tea-spoonful of curry-powder, a few table-spoonfuls of stock, a little salt, and a little cayenne pepper, half a salt-spoonful of each; stew in this gravy any kind of meat cut into small pieces, adding a piece of butter, the size of a walnut, rolled in flour.

1231. _To free Molasses from its sharp taste, and to render it fit to be used instead of Sugar._--Take twenty-four pounds of molasses, twenty-four pounds of water, and six pounds of charcoal, coarsely pulverized: mix them in a kettle, and boil the whole over a slow wood fire. When the mixture has boiled half an hour, pour it into a flat vessel, in order that the charcoal may subside to the bottom: then pour off the liquid, and place it over the fire once more, that the superfluous water may evaporate, and the molasses be brought to their former consistence. Twenty-four pounds of molasses will produce twenty-four pounds of syrup.

1232. _To make Apple Molasses._--Take new sweet cider just from the press, made from sweet apples, and boil it down as thick as West India molasses. It should be boiled in brass, and not burned, as that would injure the flavor. It will keep in the cellar, and is said to be as good, and for many purposes better than West India molasses.

1233. _To dress Chestnuts for Dessert._--Let them be well roasted, and the husks taken off. Dissolve a quarter pound of sugar in a wine-glassful of water, and the juice of a lemon. Put this and the chestnuts into a saucepan over a slow fire for ten minutes; add sufficient orange-flower water to flavor the syrup; serve in a deep dish, and grate sugar over them. To be handed round whilst quite hot.

1234. _To improve Claret Wine when acid._--Place the cask on a stand for refining, put into it a quarter pound of chalk broken into small pieces. Let it remain one day, and then refine with the whites of six eggs, the shells broken, and a handful of salt; all these are to be mixed with some of the wine, and then thrown into the cask. The shells are not to be powdered, but simply crushed in the hand. The wine will be fit for bottling in two weeks. When bottled, it should be laid on the side. The bungs to be out as short a time as possible.

1235. _To improve Home-made wines._--When there is a tendency to acidity in wine, add to it sugar-candy in the proportion of a pound to every four gallons; dissolve it, and put it into the cask, incorporating it well.

Poor wines may be improved by the addition of bruised raisins. If one ounce of powdered roche-alum be put into a cask of four gallons of wine, it will make it fine and brisk in ten days. Ripe medlars, or bruised mustard-seed, tied in a bag, will remove mustiness, or other disagreeable taste.

Pricked wines may be improved, if not recovered, by being racked off into a cask that has contained the same kind of wine. The cask should be first matched or sulphured; and, to every ten gallons of wine, put two ounces of oyster-shell powder, and half an ounce of bay-salt; stir it, and leave it a few days to fine; after which, rack it into another cask, also matched.

Burn dry walnuts over a charcoal fire, and when they are well lit, throw them into the wine, and bung up; in forty-eight hours they will correct the acidity. One walnut will suffice for every gallon of wine.

If bottled wine be _ropy_, shake it for twenty minutes, uncork it, and pour off the froth or scum, when the rest of the wine will be drinkable.

1236. _Casking._--The casks should be washed with hot salt and water, then with hot water, and lastly with a portion of the fermented liquor made to boil.

After the liquor is removed into the cask, it will slowly ferment, and some will evaporate. The cask should, however, be kept filled near the bung-hole, else the scum cannot be thrown out.

When the fret subsides, close the bung-hole, and bore a hole for a peg, to be withdrawn occasionally, else the cask may burst.

In the following Spring, determine whether you bottle or keep in wood another year; but wines that have been properly fermented, and promise well, will be improved by remaining in the cask another year. Then, if the wine wants rich flavor, add to twenty gallons, five pounds of sugar-candy.

1237. _Bottling._--Brisk wines should be bottled on the approach of Spring.

If the wine be not fine enough, draw off a quart, in which dissolve isinglass in the proportion of half an ounce to twenty gallons, and pour the solution in at the bung-hole. In about three weeks, the liquor will be sufficiently clear for bottling.

In drawing off, be careful to tap the cask above the lees. The wine, to be fit for bottling, should be fine and brilliant, else it will never brighten after. When bottled, it should be stored in a cool cellar, and the bottles laid on their sides, and in sawdust; but, on no account set upright.

In making wines, it is a good plan to use two casks, one a very small one, from which the larger one may be filled up, during the fermentation.

1238. _Fining for Wine._--Put an ounce of isinglass into a quart jug, with one pint of wine; stir it twice or thrice a day, and it will soon dissolve; when strain it through a sieve. A pint of this fining will be sufficient for a cask of twenty gallons.

When the fining is put into the cask, stir it up with a stick, taking care not to touch the bottom, so as to disturb the lees. Fill up the cask, if necessary, bung it down, and in a week the wine will be fit for bottling.

For white wine only, add and mix, as above, a quarter of a pint of milk to every gallon of wine. It may also be fined with the whites of eggs, beaten up with some wine, in the proportion of four whites to sixteen gallons of wine.

1239. _To sweeten Casks._--If a cask, after the contents are drunk out, be well stopped, and the lees be allowed to remain in it till it is again to be used, it will only be necessary to scald it; taking care, before you fill it, to see that the hoops are well driven. Should the air get into the cask, it will become musty, and scalding will not improve it; the surest way will be then to take out the head of the cask, to be shaved, then to burn it a little, and scald it for use. Or, put into the cask some quick lime and cold water, bung it down, shake it for some time, and then scald it; or, burn a _match_ in it, and scald it.

Or, mix half a pint of the strongest sulphuric acid in an open vessel, with a quart of water, put it into the cask, and roll it well about; next day, add one pound of chalk, bung it down, and in three or four days the cask should be washed out with boiling water.

To prepare a match, melt some brimstone, and dip into it a long narrow piece of coarse linen cloth, or brown paper; when to be used, set fire to the match, put it in at the bung-hole of the cask, fastening one end under the bung, and let it remain, for a few hours.

1240. _A Filtering Bag._--Will be useful in fining wines: it may be made of a yard of moderately-fine flannel, laid sloping, so as to have the bottom very narrow, and the top the full breadth; strongly sew up the side, and fold and sew the upper part of the bag about a broad wooden hoop, to be suspended by a cord fastened in three or four places.

1241. _Coloring Wines._--In the coloring of wines, many substances have been used, and it is desirable to select such as may also communicate an agreeable flavor. Red colors are easily obtained from beet-root, logwood, or the berries of the elder; and every variety of yellow may be produced by the use of burnt sugar, which also gives an agreeable bitterness.

There is no end to the materials which have been used to give a flavor to wine. The flowers of elder, cowslips, clove-pinks, and mignonette, are well known. The shavings of _orris-root_, in the proportion of half an ounce to twenty gallons, will be found to communicate an agreeable perfume. The shavings should be tied in a linen bag, and suspended in the cask by a string, so as to be removable at pleasure, if, upon trial, it is found that the flavor is likely to be too predominant.

1242. _To check Fermentation._--_Sulphate of potash_ will stop fermentation. _One dram_ is sufficient for a pipe of liquor. It will be useful to the _confectioner_ to know, that by the use of the same salt, the fermentation of syrups and preserves may also be effectually prevented.

1243. _Currant Shrub; easily made._--To every quart of juice, add one pound of sugar, and one gill of brandy. Bottle and cork it tight. Do not put it over the fire.

1244. _Damson Wine._--To four gallons of boiling water, add a peck of damsons; stir this liquor twice every day. Let it stand for three days, and then strain the whole through a lawn sieve. Add nine pounds of loaf sugar, and three spoonsful of yeast; after it has worked in a tub for three days, turn it into a cask, and add three quarts of elder syrup. Rack the wine in a fortnight. Put in two lemons, sliced, a quarter of a pound of loaf sugar, rubbed on the peel, and two pounds of raisins, chopped. Stop it close till March, and then bottle it.

1245. _Red Cherry Wine._--Strip, when full ripe, any quantity of the finest red, or Kentish cherries, from their stalks, and stamp them, in the same manner as apples for cider, till the stones are broken. Put the whole into a tub, and cover it up closely for three days and nights; then press it in a cider-press; put the liquor again into a tub, and let it stand, covered as before, two days longer. Carefully take off the scum, without in the smallest degree disturbing the liquor, which is to be poured off the lees, into a different tub. After it has thus stood to clear another two days, it must again be cautiously skimmed, and the clear liquid poured off as before. If the cherries are, as they ought to be, quite ripe and sweet, a pound and a half of good sugar will be sufficient for each gallon of juice, which is to be well stirred in, and the liquor again closely covered up, without being any more disturbed till the next day; then pour it carefully from the lees, as before, put it to stand, in the same manner, another day; and then, with the like care, pour it off into the cask, or casks, in which it is intended to be kept. The above process must be often repeated, should the lees appear gross and likely to make the liquor fret. When entirely settled, stop it up, for at least seven or eight months; then, if perfectly fine, put it in bottles; if not, drain it off into another vessel, and stop it up for six months longer, before you venture to bottle it, when it will want only age to equal, if not exceed, all foreign wines. It will, however, be best not to drink it till at least ten or twelve months old.

1246. _Rich Morella Cherry Wine._--Having picked off from their stalks the ripest and soundest morella cherries, bruise them well, without breaking the stones, and let the whole stand twenty-four hours in an open vessel. Then press out all the juice, and for every gallon, add two pounds of fine loaf sugar. Put this wine into a cask, and when the fermentation ceases, stop it close. Let it stand three or four months, then bottle it, and in two months more it will be fit to drink. Some crack the stones, and hang them, with the bruised kernels, in a bag, from the bung, while the wine remains in the cask.

1247. _Incomparable Apricot Wine._--Take eight pounds of ripe apricots, slice them into two gallons of spring water, and add five pounds of powdered loaf sugar. Boil them together for some time, without taking off the scum; then skim it off as it continues to rise, and put it in a clean sieve, over a pan, to save the liquor which comes from it. When the boiling liquor is as clear as it can be made from the dross of the sugar, pour it, with the drainings of the sieve, hot on the kernels of the apricots, which must be put with the stones into the pan, where it is intended the wine should be left to cool. Stir all well together, cover it up closely till it grows quite cool, and then work it with a toast and yeast. In two or three days, when it is found to be settled, fine it off into a cask, leaving it to ferment as long as it will. After it has done working, pour in a bottle of old hock, mountain, or sherry, and stop it up for six months; then, if very fine, bottle it, and keep it twelve months. This is indeed a most delicious wine.

1248. _To detect Sugar of Lead in Wines._--The tincture of orpiment converts wine so adulterated to a black color.

1249. _Orange Wine._--To ten gallons of water put twenty-eight pounds of loaf sugar, and the whites of six eggs. Boil them together for three-quarters of an hour, keeping the liquor well skimmed all the time, and then pour it hot into a tub, or large pan, over the peels of fifty Seville oranges. When it is nearly cold, take three spoonsful of yeast, spread on a piece of toasted bread, and put in the liquor to make it ferment. After it has stood two or three days, pour it from the peels into the cask, with a gallon of orange juice, which takes about a hundred and twenty oranges. Let it remain in the cask till it has done hissing, when the fermentation will have ceased. Endeavor to proportion the size of the cask to the quantity, as it must be kept filled, so as to work out at the bung-hole. When the fermentation is over, draw off as much of the wine as will admit one quart of brandy for every five gallons of wine. It will be fit to bottle, or drink from the cask, in four or five months. This wine, if carefully made, according to these plain directions, will be found exquisitely delicious; and were it kept four or five years, would far surpass most of the best foreign wines, as they are usually sold in England.

1250. _Red Currant Wine._--To eight gallons of water add twenty-four pounds of loaf sugar; boil the syrup and skim it, till the scum disappears. Have ready, picked from the stalks, two gallons of red currants, taking care not to bruise them. Pour the syrup, boiling hot, on the currants. Let it all stand till nearly cold; then add a teacupful of yeast. Let it ferment for two days; then strain it through a sieve, into the cask, and when the fermentation entirely ceases, bung it tight. It will be ready to bottle at the end of two months. Into each bottle put a small lump of sugar.

1251. _Raisin Wine._--To every gallon of water weigh seven pounds of raisins; pick them from the stalks, and put them into a tub; pour the water on the fruit, and let it stand a fortnight or three weeks, stirring it several times a day. Strain it, and press the fruit very dry through hair bags, then put it into a barrel, but do not stop it close. In about four months rack it, and then put a little fresh fruit, and some brandy, into the barrel. A quart of brandy, and eight or ten pounds of fruit, are sufficient for twenty-five or thirty gallons of wine. When the wine is racked, draw it off into a tub, and pass the sediment that remains through a flannel bag; the head of the barrel must then be taken out, and the barrel rinsed with a little of the wine. After the head is again put in, add the brandy and fruit. Put the bung in for a little time, but not very tight. It will be necessary to refine the wine with isinglass, about three weeks before it is bottled, which should not be in less than a year. One ounce of isinglass, dissolved in half a pint of wine, and stirred into the barrel, will be sufficient.

Before the water is poured on the fruit, it should be boiled with the stalks, and with hops; the latter in the proportion of a quarter of a pound to every thirty gallons of water. Strain the liquor, let it grow cold, and then add it to the fruit.

1252. _Spruce Wine._--To every gallon of water take a pound and a half of honey, and half a pound of fine starch. Before the starch is mixed with the honey-syrup, it must be reduced to a transparent jelly, by boiling it with part of the water purposely reserved;--a quarter of a pound of essence of spruce must be used to five gallons of water, and when sufficiently stirred and incorporated, pour the wine into the cask. Then add a quarter of a pint of good ale-yeast, shake the cask well, and let it work for three or four days, after which, bung it. It may be bottled in a few days, and in ten days afterwards, will be fit to drink. When this wine is bunged, a quarter of an ounce of isinglass, first dissolved in a little of the warmed liquor, may be stirred in by way of fining it. In cold weather, the quantity of yeast should be increased: in warm weather, very little ferment is requisite.

1253. _American Currant Wine._--To one gallon of currant juice add two of water; to each gallon of this mixture add three pounds and a quarter of sugar, a gill of brandy, and a quarter of an ounce of powdered alum: put the whole into a clean cask, in March draw off, and add another gill of brandy to each gallon.

1254. _Rich Mead._--Mix well the whites of six eggs in twelve gallons of water; and to this mixture, when it has boiled half an hour and been well skimmed, add thirty-six pounds of the finest honey, with the rinds of two dozen lemons. Let them boil together some little time, and on the liquor's becoming sufficiently cool, work it with a little ale-yeast. Put it with the lemon peel into a seasoned barrel, which must be filled up as it flows over with some of the reserved liquor; and when the hissing ceases, drive the bung close. After the wine has stood five or six months, bottle it for use. If intended to be kept several years, put in a pound more honey for every gallon of water.

1255. _Red and White Mead with Raspberries and Currants._--For every gallon of wine to be made, take one pound and a half of honey, half an ounce of tartar, or Bologna argol, and three-quarters of a pound of fruit. If for white wine, white argol should be used with white currants; if for red wine, red argol with red currants or raspberries. Prepare the honey by mixing it with as much water as will, when added to the juice of the fruit (allowing for diminution by boiling, &c.), make the proposed quantity of wine. This being well boiled and clarified, infuse in it a moderate quantity of rosemary leaves, lavender, and sweet-brier, and when they have remained for two days, strain the liquor, and add it to the expressed juice of the fruit, put in the dissolved argol, stir the whole well together, and leave it to ferment. In two or three days, put it in a seasoned barrel; keep filling it up, as the liquor flows over; and on its ceasing to work, sink in it a muslin bag of Seville orange and lemon peel, with cinnamon, cloves and nutmegs, and closely bung the cask. If kept for six months or more in the wood, and at least nine in bottles, this wine will be excellent, whether red or white. In a similar way may be made all sorts of fruit wines, thus substituting honey for sugar.

1256. _Nectar._--Take half a pound of raisins of the sun, chopped, one pound of powdered loaf sugar, two lemons, sliced, and the peel of one. Put them into an earthen vessel with two gallons of water, the water having been boiled half an hour; and put them in while the water is boiling. Let the whole stand three or four days, stirring it twice a day; then strain it, and in a fortnight it will be ready for use.

1257. _Syrup of Cloves, Cinnamon, or Mace._--All these syrups are made exactly on the same plan.--Take two ounces of either cloves, cinnamon, or mace, well pounded, and put it into a pint of boiling water in a small stewpan. Let it boil half an hour, pass the liquor through a hair sieve, dissolve in it a pound and a half of powdered loaf sugar, clear it over the fire, with the white of an egg beaten to a froth, and a little rose or orange-flower water, and let it simmer gently till the syrup is formed and clear. When quite cold, put it in bottles, which must be closely corked.

1258. _Syrup of Ginger._--Steep an ounce and a half of beaten ginger in a quart of boiling water, closely covered up for twenty-four hours; then, straining off the infusion, make it into a syrup, by adding at least two pounds of fine loaf sugar, dissolved, and boiled up in a hot water bath.

1259. _French Rossolis, perfumed with Flowers._--Boil two quarts of spring water, to take off the hardness; then take it off the fire, and when it is only lukewarm, throw in a pinch of the most odoriferous flowers, and let them infuse till the liquid is cold, and the fragrance all extracted. Then take away the flowers with a skimmer, strain the liquid, and add to it a pint of clarified syrup, and half a pint of spirits of wine, and a rossolis, or sun-dew, will be produced.

1260. _Bergamot Water._--Make a pint of syrup; and when cold, press into it half a dozen fine lemons, with, or without, a Seville orange, or two China oranges, adding as much water as may be necessary; then putting in a tea-spoonful of genuine essence of bergamot, run the whole through a lawn sieve, and it is immediately ready for drinking.

1261. _Peach and Apricot Waters._--Both these waters, as well as those of other fruits, are readily made by mixing two or three table-spoonfuls of the respective jams with a few blanched and pounded bitter almonds, lemon-juice, and cold spring water, with powdered loaf sugar to your taste. On being run through a lawn sieve, these waters are immediately fit to drink.

1262. _Persian and Turkish Sherbet._--The method pursued by the Persians, Turks, &c., is to extract the fragrant, rich, and acidulated juices of the finest flowers and fruits, and make them, with the addition of sugar, into what we call fruit jellies or lozenges, which are dissolved in the purest spring water, and thus form the agreeable beverage denominated sherbet. For example, they evaporate the purified juice of citrons in a water bath with a slow fire, till it becomes of nearly the consistence of honey, melting, in the mean time, some finely powdered loaf sugar in a silver dish, and continually stirring it with a flat wooden spoon; when the sugar is very dry, they sprinkle over it, a little at a time, the prepared juice of citron; continuing to stir it till the whole has sufficient moisture to form a paste, which they make into lozenges, and keep in a dry, and rather warm situation; in this way, they prepare all the acid juices, such as barberries, lemons, gooseberries, &c.: with the less acid and more delicately flavored fruits, they proceed differently, only well heating the sugar in a silver dish, adding to it by degrees the fresh juice, and stirring it constantly till a paste is formed. This must not be made into lozenges till perfectly dry, and they must be put into a box lined with paper, and kept in a dry place. They are variously prepared with orange-flowers, roses, &c. The Persians and Turks are said to prepare a favorite sherbet with violet vinegar, pomegranate-juice, and sugar formed into lozenges.

1263. _Hypocras, as made at Paris._--Put into a quart of the best and strongest red wine half a pound of powdered loaf sugar, half a dram of cinnamon, a pinch of coriander seeds, two white pepper-corns, a little Seville orange peel, a blade of mace, a small quantity of lemon-juice, and four cloves; the spices, &c., being all previously beaten in a mortar. When the whole has infused three or four hours, add a table-spoonful of milk; and filtering the liquid through a flannel bag, it will prove excellent for present or future use.

1264. _Strawberry Sherbet._--On half a pound of sugar of the best quality, broken into lumps, pour a quart of spring water. Let it stand until nearly dissolved; give it a stir, and boil it for about ten minutes. Take off the scum, and throw into the syrup a pint and a half of sound ripe strawberries, measured without their stalks. Let these simmer gently until they shrink much and begin to break, and keep them well skimmed, or the sherbet will not be clear. Before it is taken from the fire, add the strained juice of a sound fresh lemon, then turn the preparation into a jelly-bag, or let it stand for a quarter of an hour, and then strain it through a muslin folded in four. This latter method is generally quite sufficient to render any liquid not thickened by the _over_-boiled pulp of fruit, quite transparent. When strawberries abound, a quart, or even more, may be used for this preparation; and the proportion of sugar can always be increased or diminished to the taste. To give the sherbet an Oriental character, boil in it the petals of six or eight orange, lemon, or citron blossoms; or orange-flower water may be used.

1265. _Lemonade_ (_Italian_).--Two dozen lemons must be pared and pressed; the juice should be poured on the peels, and remain on them all night; in the morning add two pounds of loaf sugar, a quart of good white wine, and three quarts of boiling water. When these ingredients are blended, add a quart of boiling milk. Strain the whole through a jelly-bag till it becomes quite clear.

1266. _Lemonade._--One of the best methods of making lemonade is to prepare a syrup of sugar and water, over a clear fire, skimming it quite clean; to this add the juice of any number of lemons, according to the quantity you wish to make; also some of the rinds.

1267. _Rich Orangeade._--Steep the yellow rinds of six China, and two Seville oranges in a quart of boiling water, closely covered up for five or six hours; then make a syrup with a pound of sugar, and three pints of water, mix the infusion and syrup together, press in the juice of a dozen China oranges, and the two Seville oranges from which the rind was taken, stir the whole well together, and run it through a jelly-bag; afterwards, if agreeable, a little orange-flower water, with some capillaire syrup, may be added, should sweetness be wanted. Two lemons may be used, as well as the two Seville oranges; but care should be taken that the flavor of the lemons does not predominate.

1268. _Orgeat Paste._--This paste, which will keep twelve months, is nearly as soon made into orgeat as the orgeat syrup. The mode of preparing it in Paris, is by well pounding blanched almonds with a little water, to prevent their turning to oil; then adding half the weight of the almonds in pounded sugar, and mixing both together into a paste.

Of this paste, when wanted, mix a small portion, about the size of an egg, in a pint of spring water, and strain it through a napkin. The usual English mode of making orgeat paste is, by pounding in the same manner, half an ounce of bitter, to a pound of sweet, almonds; and boiling a quart of common syrup, till it becomes what is called blow; mixing the almonds with it over the fire, well stirred all the time, to prevent burning, till it becomes a stiff paste; then, on its getting quite cold, putting it in pots, to be used in the same manner as the other.

1269. _To cork, and preserve Cider in Bottles._--Good corks are highly necessary, and if soaked before used in scalding water, they will be more the pliant and serviceable; and by laying the bottles so that the liquor may always keep the cork wet and swelled, will much preserve it.

1270. _Soda Water and Ginger Beer Powders._--Carbonate of soda and tartaric acid, of each two ounces; fine loaf sugar rolled and sifted, six ounces; pure essence of lemon, twenty-five or thirty drops. To be well mixed in a marble mortar, kept in a bottle closely corked, and _in a very dry place_. When required for use, two tea-spoonfuls to less than a half pint of water, to be mixed in a glass that will hold twice that quantity, and drunk while in a state of effervescence. If half an ounce or one ounce (according as it may be liked more or less hot), of best ground ginger be mixed with the above quantity, it will be "ginger-beer powder."

1271. _Spruce Beer._--For _white_ spruce, pour ten gallons of boiling water upon six pounds of good raw or lump sugar, and four ounces of essence of spruce; ferment with half a pint of good yeast, put into stone bottles, cork and tie them over. For _brown_ spruce use treacle instead of sugar.

Essence of spruce is a remedy for colds, rheumatisms, &c., if drunk warm at bed-time.

1272. _An Irish Cordial._--To every pound of white currants stripped from the stalks and bruised, put the very thin rind of a large fresh lemon, and a quarter of an ounce of ginger, well pounded and sifted. Pour on these one quart of good old whiskey; mix the whole up thoroughly, and let it stand for twenty-four hours in a new well-scalded stone pitcher, or deep pan (_crock_), covered closely from the air. Strain it off; stir in it, until dissolved, a pound and a quarter of pounded sugar, and strain it again and bottle it. This is an Irish receipt, and is given without variation from the original.

1273. _To prevent Beer from growing flat._--In a cask containing eighteen gallons of beer, becoming vapid, put a pint of ground malt, suspended in a bag, and close the bung perfectly; the beer will be improved during the whole time of drawing it for use.

1274. _To recover sour Beer._--When beer has become sour, put into the barrel some oyster-shells, calcined to whiteness, or a little fine chalk or whiting. Any of these will correct the acidity, and make the beer brisk and sparkling; but it cannot be kept long after these additions are made.

1275. _Rose Vinegar for Salads or the Toilette._--To one quarter of a pound of rose-leaves put two quarts of good vinegar; cover it firmly; leave it to infuse till a fine tincture is obtained; then strain it.

1276. _Raspberry Vinegar._--Pour one quart of vinegar on two pounds of fresh raspberries, and let it stand twenty-four hours. Then strain them through a hair-sieve without breaking the fruit; put the liquor on two pounds more fruit, and, after straining it in the same manner, add to each pint of juice half a pound of loaf sugar; put it in a stone vessel, and let it stand in boiling water until the sugar is dissolved; when cold, take off the scum, and bottle it.

1277. _Cheap and easy method of Brewing._--One bushel of malt and three-quarters of a pound of hops will, on an average, brew twenty gallons of good beer.

For this quantity of malt, boil twenty-four gallons of water; and, having dashed it in the copper with cold water to stop the boiling, steep the malt (properly covered up) for three hours; then tie up the hops in a hair-cloth, and boil malt, hops, and wort, altogether, for three-quarters of an hour, which will reduce it to about twenty gallons. Strain it off, and set it to work when lukewarm.

In large brewings, this process perhaps would not answer, but in small ones, where the waste is not so great, and where the malt can be boiled, the essence is sure to be extracted.

1278. _To make excellent and wholesome Table Beer._--To eight quarts of boiling water put a pound of treacle, a quarter of an ounce of ginger, and two bay leaves; let this boil for a quarter of an hour, then cool, and work it with yeast, the same as other beer.

1279. _How the Chinese make Tea._--The art of making tea consists in pouring the water on and off immediately, so as to get the flavor.

1280. _Tea, economically._--Young Hyson is supposed to be a more profitable tea than Hyson; but though the _quantity_ to a pound is greater, it has not so much _strength_. In point of economy, therefore, there is not much difference between them. Hyson tea and Souchong mixed together, half and half, is a pleasant beverage, and is more healthy than green tea alone. Be sure that water boils before it is poured upon tea. A tea-spoonful to each person, and one extra thrown in, is a good rule. Steep a few minutes.

1281. _Turkish method of making Coffee._--The coffee must be slowly roasted, not burnt, and brought only to an amber brown: it must be roasted day by day. The flavor dissipates in a few hours; it must be reduced by pounding to an impalpable powder. In making it, two opposite and, apparently, incompatible ends are to be secured--strength and flavor. To obtain the first, it must be boiled; by boiling, the second is lost. The difficulty is surmounted by a double process--one thorough cooking, one slight one; by the first a strong infusion is obtained; by the second, that infusion is flavored. Thus a large pot with coffee-lees stands simmering by the fire; this is the sherbet. When a cup is wanted, the pounded coffee is put in the little tin or copper pan, and placed on the embers; it fumes for a moment, then the sherbet is poured on; in a few seconds the froth (caïmah) rises; presently an indication that it is about to boil is made manifest, when the coffee is instantly taken from the fire, carried into the apartment, turned into the cup, and drank.

1282. _Cheap and valuable substitute for Coffee._--The flour of rye, and yellow potatoes, are found an excellent substitute for coffee. Boil, peel, and mash the potatoes, and then mix with the meal into a cake, which is to be dried in an oven, and afterwards reduced to a powder, which will make a beverage very similar to coffee in its taste, as well as in other properties, and not in the least detrimental to health.

1283. _Substitute for Cream._--If you have not cream for coffee, it is a very great improvement to boil your milk, and use it while hot.

1284. _Cocoa_ is the foundation of chocolate; it may be pounded, and either boiled as milk, or boiling water may be poured on it. It is very digestible, and of a fattening nature.

1285. _Racahout des Arabes; a pleasant beverage for Invalids._--Mix thoroughly one pound of ground rice; one pound of arrow-root; half pound of fine chocolate. Put the mixture into a jar for use. When it is wanted, make a tablespoonful of the Racahout into a paste with cold water or milk; then stir it into half a pint of boiling milk, and let it boil up for a minute or two; add sugar, if agreeable, and drink it as you would chocolate.

1286. _How to judge the Properties of Nutmegs._--The largest, heaviest, and most unctuous of nutmegs are to be chosen, such as are the shape of an olive, and of the most fragrant smell.

1287. _To keep Grapes._--Gather the grapes in the afternoon of a dry day, before they are perfectly ripe. Have ready a clean dry barrel and wheat bran. Proceed then with alternate layers of bran and grapes, till the barrel is full, taking care that the grapes do not touch each other, and to let the last layer be of bran; then close the barrel, so that the air may not be able to penetrate, which is an essential point. Grapes, thus packed, will keep nine or even twelve months. To restore them to their freshness, cut the end of the stalk of each bunch of grapes, and put that of white grapes into white wine, and that of the black grapes into red wine, as you would put flowers into water, to revive or keep them fresh.

1288. _To keep Oranges and Lemons._--Take small sand and make it very dry; after it is cold, put a quantity of it into a clean vessel; then take your oranges, and set a laying of them in the same, the stalk-end downwards, so that they do not touch each other, and strew in some of the sand, as much as will cover them two inches deep; then set your vessel in a cold place, and you will find your fruit in high preservation at the end of several months.

1289. _Another Method._--Freeze the oranges, and keep them in an ice-house. When to be used, put them into a vessel of cold water till they are thawed. By this means they may be had in perfection at any season of the year.

1290. _Keeping Apples._--Apples should be placed on a dry floor three weeks before they are packed away in barrels. They should be kept in a cool place; if inclosed in a water-tight cask, they may be kept all winter in a loft or garret without further care, and will come out sound and fresh in the spring.

1291. _To keep Onions._--Onions should be kept very dry, and never carried into the cellar except in severe weather, when there is danger of their freezing. By no means let them be in the cellar after March; they will sprout and spoil.

1292. _A good way of cooking onions._--It is a good plan to boil onions in milk and water; it diminishes the strong taste of that vegetable. It is an excellent way of serving up onions, to chop them after they are boiled, and put them in a stewpan, with a little milk, butter, salt, and pepper, and let them stew about fifteen minutes. This gives them a fine flavor, and they can be served up very hot.

1293. _To keep Parsnips._--Parsnips should be kept down cellar, covered up in sand, entirely excluded from the air. They are good only in the Spring.

1294. _To keep Cabbages._--Cabbages put into a hole in the ground will keep well during the winter, and be hard, fresh, and sweet in the Spring. Many farmers keep potatoes in the same way.

1295. _To keep Potatoes._--The cellar is the best place for them, because they are injured by wilting; but sprout them carefully, if you want to keep them. They never sprout but three times; therefore, after you have sprouted them three times, they will trouble you no more.

_Note._--Boiled potatoes are said to cleanse the hands as well as common soap; they prevent _chaps_ in the winter season, and keep the skin soft and healthy.

1290. _Boiling Potatoes._--The following method of dressing potatoes will be found of great use at the season of the year, when skins are tough and potatoes are watery. Score the skin of the potato with a knife, lengthwise and across, quite around, and then boil the potato in plenty of water and salt, with the skin on. The skin readily cracks when it is scored, and lets out the moisture, which otherwise renders the potato soapy and wet. The improvement to bad potatoes by this method of boiling them is very great, and all who have tried it find a great advantage in it, now that good potatoes are very difficult to be obtained.

1297. _To keep Celery._--Celery should be kept in the cellar, the roots covered with tan, to keep them moist.

1298. _To keep Lettuce._--If the tops of lettuce be cut off when it is becoming too old for use, it will grow up again fresh and tender, and may thus be kept good through the summer.

1299. _Good Squashes._--Green squashes that are turning yellow, and striped squashes, are more uniformly sweet and mealy than any other kind.

1300. _To dry Pumpkin._--Cut it round horizontally in tolerably thin slices, peel them and hang them on a line in a warm room. When perfectly dry, put them away for use. When you wish to use it, put it to soak over night; next day pour off the water, put on fresh water, stew and use it as usual, &c.

Another and, as some think, a much better way, is to boil and sift the pumpkin, then spread it out thin in tin plates, and dry hard in a warm oven. It will keep good all the year round, and a little piece boiled up in milk will make a batch of pies.

1301. _To pickle large Mushrooms._--Pick them carefully, and take out the stalks; put them into a jar, and pour on them boiling spiced vinegar, with a little salt in it.

1302. _To preserve Green Currants._--Currants may be kept fresh for a year or more, if they are gathered when green, separated from the stems, put into dry, clean junk bottles, and corked very carefully, so as to exclude the air. They should be kept in a cool place in the cellar.

1303. _Walnut Ketchup._--Take half a bushel of green walnuts, before the shell is formed, and grind them in a crab mill, or beat them in a marble mortar; then squeeze out the juices through a coarse cloth, and wring the cloth well to get all the juice out, and to every gallon of juice put a quart of red wine, a quarter of a pound of anchovies, the same of bay salt, one ounce of allspice, two of long or black pepper, half an ounce of cloves and mace, a little ginger and horse-radish, cut in slices; boil all together till reduced to half the quantity; pour into a pan; when it is cold bottle it, cork it tight, and it will be fit to use in three months. If you have any pickle left in the jar after your walnuts are used, to every gallon of pickle put in two heads of garlic, a quart of red wine, an ounce each of cloves and mace, long, black, and Jamaica pepper, and boil them all together, till it is reduced to half the quantity, pour it into a pan, and the next day bottle it for use, and cork it tight.

1304. _To discover if Bread is adulterated with Alum._--Make a solution of lime in aquafortis, and put a little of this solution into water, in which you have steeped the bread suspected to contain alum. If such should be the case, the acid, which was combined with the alum, will form a precipitate or chalky concretion at the bottom of the vessel.

1305. _To preserve Biscuit from Putrefaction._--To preserve biscuit a long time sweet and good, no other art is necessary than stowing it, well baked, in casks exactly caulked, and carefully lined with tin, so as to exclude the air; at the same time the biscuit must be so placed as to leave as little vacant room as possible in the cask; and when the same is opened through necessity, it must be speedily closed again with great care.

1306. _A good Yeast._--Put into one gallon of water a double-handful of hops;--boil them fifteen or twenty minutes, then strain off the water while it is scalding hot; stir in wheat flour or meal till it becomes a thick batter, so that it will hardly pour;--let it stand till it becomes about blood-warm, then add a pint of good lively yeast, and stir it well; and then let it stand in a place where it will be kept at a temperature of about seventy degrees Fahrenheit, till it becomes perfectly light, whether more or less time is required; and then it is fit for use;--or if it is desired to keep a portion of it, let it stand several hours and become cool; and then put it into a clean jug and cork it tight, and place it in the cellar, where it will keep cool; and it may be preserved good, ten or twelve days, and even longer.

1307. _The Dairy._--Dairymen will find a great advantage in cheese making, by putting their milk, which is to stand over night, into small air-tight vessels. They will also find it an advantage, when it thunders, to suspend the vessels by a cord or chain, as the jarring of the shocks, which sour the milk, will, in a great measure, be prevented. We may prevent the commencement of sourness, which takes place in milk standing in large quantities, by a wooden follower being fitted to the vat, and pressed on the milk. If any one doubt the utility of this, let him try the experiment for himself. Cover the bottom of your cheese-vat to the depth of half an inch with milk, and let it stand through the night, and then try to make a breakfast of it in the morning. You could relish tallow as well, or a piece of bread and butter that had lain in the sun an hour. Neither milk, butter, nor cheese will do to stand in the light of the sun, though it be reflected, as it will produce rancidity.

1308. _Butter._--Keep your pails, churn, and pans sweet. In winter warm the pans and churns with hot water, in summer cool them with cold. Keep your milk in summer where it is cool and airy, in winter where it is warm. In warm weather skim your milk as soon as it is thick; in colder weather skim as soon as there is a good thick cream, and be careful not to let it remain too long, as it will acquire a bad taste. Churn as often as you have cream enough, never less than once a week. If the cream is of the right temperature when commenced, it will not froth, and if it does, put in a little salt. Use no salt but the best ground salt; work out all the butter-milk with a ladle in summer, in winter use clean hands. If you wish to keep it some time, put it down in a jar or firkin, or pickle in layers, as clean and free from butter-milk as it is possible, leaving a space for pickle over it, in the following proportions. Half a pail of water, one quart of fine salt, two ounces of loaf-sugar, one ounce of saltpetre, well boiled and skimmed. When cold, cover with this, and it will keep good and sweet, the year round.

1309. _Cream._--The quantity of cream on milk may be greatly increased by the following process: Have two pans ready in boiling hot water, and when the new milk is brought in, put it into one of these hot pans and cover it with the other. The quality as well as the thickness of the cream is improved.

1310. _Method of curing bad Tub Butter._--A quantity of tub butter was brought to market in the West Indies, which, on opening, was found to be very bad, and almost stinking. A native of Pennsylvania undertook to cure it, which he did, in the following manner:--

He started the tubs of butter in a large quantity of hot water, which soon melted the butter; he then skimmed it off as clean as possible, and worked it over again in a churn, and with the addition of salt and fine sugar, the butter was sweet and good.

1311. _Method of taking the Rankness and disagreeable Taste from Irish Salt Butter._--The quantity proposed to be made use of, either for toasts or melting, must be put into a bowl filled with boiling water, and when the butter is melted, skim it quite off; by this method it is so separated from any gross particles, that it may require a small addition of salt, which may be put into the cold water that is made use of in melting butter for sauce; and though the butter is oiled by hot water, it becomes a fine cream in the boiling for sauce.

1312. _To remove the Taste of Turnips from Milk or Butter._--The taste of the turnip is easily taken off milk and butter, by dissolving a little nitre in spring water, which being kept in a bottle, and a small tea-cupful put into eight gallons of milk, when warm from the cow, entirely removes any taste or flavor of the turnip.

1313. _To make Salt Butter fresh._--Put four pounds of salt butter into a churn, with four quarts of new milk, and a small portion of arnotto. Churn them together, and, in about an hour, take out the butter, and treat it exactly as fresh butter, by washing it in water, and adding the customary quantity of salt.

This is a singular experiment. The butter gains about three ounces in each pound, and is in every particular equal to fresh butter. It would be greatly improved by the addition of two or three ounces of fine sugar, in powder. A common earthen churn answers the same purpose as a wooden one, and may be purchased at any pot shop.

1314. _Method of making Stilton Cheese._--Take the night's cream, and put it to the morning's new milk, with the rennet; when the curd is come it is not to be broken, as is done with other cheeses, but take it out with a soil dish all together, and place it on a sieve to drain gradually, and, as it drains, keep gradually pressing it, till it becomes firm and dry; then place it in a wooden hoop; afterwards to be kept dry on boards, turned frequently, with cloth-binders round it, which are to be tightened as occasion requires.

In some dairies the cheeses, after being taken out of the wooden hoop, are bound tight round with a cloth, which cloth is changed every day until the cheese becomes firm enough to support itself; after the cloth is taken away, they are rubbed every day all over, for two or three months, with a brush; and if the weather is damp or moist, twice a day; and even before the cloth is taken off, the top and bottom are well rubbed every day.

1315. _Coloring for Cheese._--The coloring for cheese is, or at least should be, Spanish arnotto; but as soon as coloring became general in this country, a color of an adulterated kind was exposed for sale in almost every shop; the weight of a guinea and a half of real Spanish arnotto is sufficient for a cheese of fifty pounds' weight. If a considerable part of the cream of the night's milk be taken for butter, more coloring will be requisite. The leaner the cheese is, the more coloring it requires. The manner of using arnotto is to tie up, in a linen rag, the quantity deemed sufficient, and put it into half a pint of warm water over night. This infusion is put into the tub of milk, in the morning, with the rennet infusion; dipping the rag into the milk, and rubbing it against the palm of the hand as long as any color runs out.

1316. _To make Cement for Bottles or Preserve Jars._--Take one-third bees'-wax and two-thirds rosin, according to the quantity of cement required. Pound the rosin fine, and put it with the wax to melt in any old vessel fit for the purpose. When it is melted, take it off the fire, and add powdered brick-dust till it is as thick as melted sealing-wax. Then dip the bottle necks into the cement, and in a few minutes the mixture will be dry.

1317. _Blue Wash for Walls._--Take one pound of lump blue vitriol; pound it in a stone mortar as fine as possible; dissolve it in a quart or two of hot water. Slake about a quarter of a peck, or perhaps a little more of lime, and when _cold_ pour in the blue water by degrees, and make it whatever shade you desire.

The lime must be slaked and the vitriol dissolved in earthen or stone ware, and the whole mixture stirred with a metal spoon. If wood is used for any of the above purposes, the color will be changed. A new brush should also be used to put it on the walls, and they must first have a coat or two of whitewash, to destroy all smoke and other impurities.

1318. _Yellow Wash for Walls._--One quarter of a pound of chrome yellow, one quarter of a pound of gum senegal, two pounds of whiting.

EASY AND CHEAP MODE OF COLORING CLOTHING, &c.

1319. "_Blue Composition_," a compound of vitriol and indigo, is usually kept by hatters and apothecaries. It colors a good and durable blue. An ounce vial, that may be bought for a trifle, will color a large number of articles. It is an economical plan to use it for old silk linings, ribbons, &c. The original color should be boiled out, and the material thoroughly rinsed in soft water, so that no soap may remain in it; for soap ruins the dye. Twelve or sixteen drops of the blue composition, poured into a quart bowl full of warm soft water, stirred, (and strained, if any settlings are perceptible,) will color a great many articles. If you wish a deep blue, pour in more of the compound. Cotton must not be colored; the vitriol destroys it; if the material you wish to color has cotton threads in it, it will be ruined. After the things are thoroughly dried, they should be washed in cool suds, and dried again; this prevents any bad effects from the vitriol; if shut up from the air, without being washed, there is danger of the texture being destroyed.

1320. _How to color Green._--If you wish to color green, have your cloth free as possible from the old color, clean and rinsed, and, in the first place, color it a deep yellow. Fustic boiled in soft water makes the strongest and brightest yellow dye; but saffron, barberry bush, peach leaves, or onion skins, will answer pretty well. Next take a bowl full of strong yellow dye, and pour in a great spoonful or more of the blue composition. Stir it up well with a clean stick, and dip the articles you have already colored yellow into it, and they will take a lively grass-green. This is a good plan for old bombazet curtains, dessert cloths, old flannel for desk coverings, &c.

1321. _Slate Color._--Tea-grounds boiled in iron, and set with copperas, make a very good slate color.

1322. _Purple Slate Color._--The purple paper, which comes on loaf sugar, boiled in cider, or vinegar, with a small bit of alum, makes a fine purple slate color. Done in iron.

White maple bark makes a good light-brown slate color. This should be boiled in water, set with alum. The color is reckoned better when boiled in brass, instead of iron.

The purple slate and the brown slate are suitable colors for stockings; and it is an economical plan, after they have been mended and cut down, so that they will no longer look decent, to color old stockings, and make them up for children.

1323. _To make Nankin Color._--A pailful of lye, with a piece of copperas half as big as a hen's egg boiled in it, will color a fine nankin color, which will never wash out. This is very useful for the linings of bed-quilts, comforters, &c. Old faded gowns, colored in this way, may be made into good petticoats. Cheap cotton cloth may be colored to advantage for petticoats, and pelisses for little girls.

1324. _Nankin Color, another way._--The common _birch-bark_ makes a very beautiful nankin dye. Cover the bark with water, and boil it thoroughly in a brass or tin kettle. Bark stripped from the trees in autumn is best. Set the color with alum. A piece as large as a hen's egg is sufficient for two pailsful of dye. Dip the articles, wet thoroughly in clean water, into the alum water, then into the dye.

1325. _To make Straw-color and Yellow._--Saffron, steeped in earthen and strained, colors a fine straw color. It makes a delicate or deep shade, according to the strength of the tea. The dry outside skins of onions, steeped in scalding water and strained, color a yellow very much like the "bird of paradise" color. Peach leaves, or bark scraped from the barberry bush, color a common bright yellow. In all these cases, a little bit of alum does no harm, and may help to fix the color. Ribbons, gauze handkerchiefs, &c., are colored well in this way, especially if they be stiffened by a bit of gum-arabic, dropped in while the stuff is steeping.

1326. _To make Rose-color._--Balm blossoms, steeped in water, color a pretty rose-color. This answers very well for the linings of children's bonnets, for ribbons, &c. It fades in the course of one season, but it is very little trouble to re-color with it. It merely requires to be steeped and strained. Perhaps a small piece of alum might serve to set the color, in some degree. In earthen or tin.

1327. _To color Black._--Logwood and cider, boiled together, in iron--add water for the evaporation--makes a good and durable black. Rusty nails, or any bits of rusty iron, boiled in vinegar, with a small piece of copperas, will also dye black; so will ink-powder, if boiled with vinegar. In all cases, black must be set with copperas.

1328. _General Rules for Coloring._--The materials should be perfectly clean; soap should be rinsed out in soft water; the article should be entirely wetted, or it will spot; light colors should be steeped in brass, tin, or earthen; and if set at all, should be set with alum. Dark colors should be boiled in iron, and set with copperas. Too much copperas rots the thread.

1329. _To Wash Carpets._--Put the carpets down on a perfectly clean floor; wash them first with warm and weak soap-suds, wringing the wash-cloth almost dry; rinse them with clear water. Open the windows, that they may dry quickly.

It is obvious that the above directions are only applicable to the lighter sorts of carpets, Scotch, Kidderminster, and Venetian. If it be desired to cleanse a carpet which has an under-texture of thread, as Brussels, tapestry, or velvet, the carpet having been well beaten or shaken, and washed, should be spread out, and scrubbed with a scrubbing brush and ox-gall. A pint of gall and three gallons of water will clean a large carpet.

After the use of the gall, the carpet must be thoroughly rinsed, and dried in the open air.

1330. _To Wash Clothes, on a small scale._--For a wash for three persons put three-quarters of an ounce of soda in soap and water over the fire. Wash the clothes first in soap and water; rub soap on the soiled or greasy places, and throw them in the mixture. Let them boil an hour; rinse them in clear, cold water; rinse them again in water with a little bluing in it. If the clothes are much soiled, put them to soak over night.

1331. _Washing of Woollen Articles; an excellent way._--It is a common complaint that woollen articles thicken, shrink, and become discolored in washing. The complaint applies both to the lighter articles of knitted wool, such as shawls, &c., and to thicker and heavier materials--table baizes, carpets, and men's woollen garments. The difficulty in either case may be obviated by strict attention to the method about to be explained. To clear the way, it may be well first to point out some things which _never_ ought to be done, but which frequently, perhaps generally, are done:--

1. Woollen articles are never to be washed in hard water, nor in water softened by soda, potash, or anything of that kind. Soap even should never touch them.

2. They are never to be rubbed at all.

3. They are never to be put in lukewarm water for washing, nor in cold water for rinsing.

4. They are never to remain lying still in the water a single minute.

5. They are never to be wrung.

6. When taken out of the water, they must not be laid down at all, before the process of drying is commenced, nor at any time afterwards until they are perfectly dry.

These things are to be avoided:--Now what is to be done?

1. Let the things to be washed be first well brushed and shaken, to get rid of the dust.

2. Before the woollen things are wetted at all, take care to have everything that will be required, ready and within reach.

3. If several things are to be done, let each be begun and finished separately. This makes no difference in expense or trouble. A smaller vessel and smaller quantity of lather will suffice, and the stuff in which one article has been washed, would do no good, but harm, to others; it is, in fact, good for nothing.

4. Use only fresh rain water, or very clear river water; rain is preferable.

5. With a piece of sponge or old flannel, rub up a very strong lather of either soft soap or best yellow soap. For very large, greasy things, the lather may be made of ox-gall, half a pint to six quarts of water, whisked up with a handful of birch twigs (like that old-fashioned thing, a rod). In either case, the lather may be prepared with a small quantity of water, and the remainder added, boiling hot, the moment before using it. The whole should be as hot as the hand can bear it; the hotter the better. If the articles are very dirty, two lathers will be required in succession; and unless a second person is at hand, to rub up the second while the first is being used, both had better be prepared in separate vessels before the wools are wetted, leaving only the boiling water to be added.

6. Take the article to be washed, and without leaving hold of it, keep on dipping and raising, dipping and raising, for two or three minutes. By that time the lather will be absorbed by the wool, and the liquor will resemble slimy suds.

7. Squeeze the article as dry as may be, without wringing it.

8. The second lather having been brought to the same heat as the first, proceed in the same manner, dipping and raising. N. B.--If the article was very little soiled, and after the first washing appears quite clear and clean, the second washing may be in hot water without soap. Whether lather or water only, a blue-bag may be slightly drawn through before the second washing. When gall has been used, a third washing in hot water only, will be required to take off the smell.

9. Having again squeezed the article as dry as may be, for the lighter things, such as shawls, &c., spread it on a coarse dry cloth, pulling it out to its proper shape; lay over it another coarse dry cloth, roll the whole up tightly, and let it remain half an hour. This rule does not apply to large, heavy things; they must be hung out at once.

1332. _To make Soft Soap._--Bore some holes in your lye-barrel; put some straw in the bottom; lay some unslaked lime on it, and fill your barrel with good hard-wood ashes; wet it, and pound it down as you put it in. When full, make a basin in the ashes and pour in water; keep filling it as it sinks in the ashes. In the course of a few hours the lye will begin to run. When you have a sufficient quantity to begin with, put your grease in a large iron pot, let it heat, pour in the lye, let it boil, &c. Three pounds of clean grease are allowed for two gallons of soap.

1333.--_Of Fish as Food._--As food, fish is easier of digestion than meats are, with the exception of salmon; this kind of fish is extremely hearty food, and should be given sparingly to children, and used cautiously by those who have weak stomachs, or who take little exercise.

The small trout, found in rivers, are the most delicate and suitable for invalids; lake fish are also excellent, and any kind of fresh-water fish, if cooked immediately after being caught, are always healthful.

But the ocean is the chief dependence for the fish-market, and there is little danger (if we except salmon and lobsters) that its kind of aliment will, in our country, be eaten to excess. It would be better for the health of those who do not labor, if they would use more fish and less flesh for food. But then fish cannot be rendered so palatable, because it does not admit the variety of cooking and flavors that other animal food does.

Fish is much less nutritious than flesh. The white kinds of fish, cod, haddock, flounders, white fish, &c., are the least nutritious; the oily kinds, salmon, eels, herrings, &c., are more difficult to digest.

Shell fish have long held a high rank as restorative food; but a well-dressed chop or steak is much better to recruit the strength and spirits.

_Cod_, _whiting_, and _haddock_, are better for being a little salted, and kept one day before cooking.

1334.--_Of Beef as Food._--Ox beef is considered the best; heifer beef is excellent where well fed, and is most suitable for small families. If you want the best, choose that which has a fine smooth grain--the lean of a bright red; the fat white or nearly so.

The best roasting-piece is the sirloin; then the first three ribs--if kept till they are quite tender, and boned, they are nearly equal to the sirloin, and better for a family dinner.

The round is used for _alamode_ beef, and is the best piece for corning.

The best beef steak is cut from the inner part of the sirloin. Good steak may be cut from the ribs.

If you wish to practise economy, buy the chuck, or piece between the shoulder and the neck; it makes a good roast or steak, and is excellent for stewing or baking. The thick part of the flank is also a profitable piece; good to bake or boil, or even roast.

The leg and shin of beef make the best soup--the heart is profitable meat, and good broiled or roasted. The leg rand is used for mince pies--it needs to be boiled till it is very tender. The tongue, when fresh, is a rich part for mince pies. If eaten by itself, it should be pickled and smoked.

1335.--_Of Pork as Food._--Pork, that is fed from the dairy, and fattened on corn, is the best--potatoes do very well for part of the feeding. But pork fattened from the still-house is all but poisonous; it should never be eaten by those who wish to preserve their health.

The offals, &c., with which pork in the vicinity of a city is fattened, make it unsavory and unwholesome. Such stuff should be used for manure, and never given as food to animals, whose flesh is to be eaten by man.

When pork is good, the flesh looks very white and smooth, and the fat white and fine. Hogs two years old make the best--older than that, their flesh is apt to be rank. Measly pork is very unwholesome, and never should be eaten. It may be known, as the fat is filled with small kernels.

When the rind is thick and tough, and cannot easily be impressed with the finger, the pork is old, and will require more cooking.

If pork is not cooked enough, it is disagreeable and almost indigestible; it should never be eaten unless it is thoroughly done.

The fat parts of pork are not very healthy food. Those who labor hard may feel no inconvenience from this diet; but children should never eat it; nor is it healthy for the delicate and sedentary. Fat pork seems more proper as material for frying fish and other meats, and as a garnish, than to be cooked and eaten by itself. It is best and least apt to prove injurious during the cold weather.

1336. _Of Mutton._--Mutton is best from August till January. It is nutritious, and often agrees better than any other meat with weak stomachs. To have it tender, it must be kept as long as possible without injury. Be sure and cook it till it is _done_; the gravy that runs when the meat is cut, should _never show the least tinge of blood_.

1337. _Of using Gravies._--Make it a general rule never to pour gravy over any thing that is roasted; by so doing, the dredging, &c., is washed off and it eats insipid.