ENGLISH cooks would call this “A Chapter on Sweets.” “Dessert” with them is usually applied to fruits, nuts, etc. Webster defines the word thus:

“A service of pastry, fruit or sweetmeats at the close of an entertainment; the last course at the table after the meat.”

Without dwelling upon the fact that when fruit and coffee are served they follow pastry or puddings or sweetmeats, we take advantage of the elastic definition and assume that the dessert of the family dinner is a single preparation of “sweets.”

The too-universal PIE will not appear on our menu. I am tempted to wish its manufacture might soon be numbered among the lost arts.

Bayard Taylor once said that “If Rum had slain its thousands in America, Pork-fat (fried) and Pies had slain their ten thousands.”

The average pastry of our beloved land would drive a Patrick Henry to self-exile if he were obliged to eat it every day. Nor could one of a dozen inexperienced cooks manipulate puff-paste as it should be handled in order to be flaky and tender. Dexterity of motion and strength of wrist are needed for this operation, such as belong only to the trained cook.

The more wholesome and daintier jellies, custards and trifles, and plain puddings we have selected from the vast variety of sweet things known to our housewives, are adapted to the powers of novices in cookery, and not unworthy the attention of adepts.

Boiled Custard.

This is the base of so many nice “fancy dishes,” and is itself so excellent and popular that we may properly lay the knowledge how to prepare it properly as the foundation-stone of dessert making.

Heat the milk to a boil in a farina kettle, or in a tin pail set in a pot of boiling water.

In warm weather put a bit of soda no larger than a pea in the milk. While it is heating beat the eggs in a bowl. When the milk is scalding, add the salt and sugar, and pour the hot liquid upon the eggs, stirring all the while. Beat up well and return to the inner vessel, keeping the water in the outer at a hard boil. Stir two or three times in the first five minutes; afterward, almost constantly.

In a quarter of an hour it ought to be done, but of this you can only judge by close observation and practice.

The color changes from deep to creamy yellow; the consistency to a soft richness that makes it drop slowly and heavily from the spoon, and the mixture tastes like a custard instead of uncooked eggs, sugar and milk.

When you have done it right once, you recognize these signs ever afterward.

If underdone, the custard will be crude and watery; if overdone, it will clot or break.

Take it when quite right—just at the turn—directly from the fire, and pour into a bowl to cool, before flavoring with the essence.

With a good boiled custard as the beginning we can make scores of delightful desserts. First among these we may place

Cup Custard.

Floating Island.

Fill a glass bowl almost to the top with cold boiled custard and cover with a mÉringue made as in last receipt. Do not whip in the jelly so thoroughly as to color the frothed whites.

It is a prettier dish when the bright red specks just dot the snowy mass.

Frosted Custard.

Make a nice custard; let it get perfectly cold, and pile on it, instead of the whipped egg, a large cupful of grated cocoanut, sprinkling it on carefully, not to disturb the custard.

Eat with sponge cake.

Blanc-mange.

Like custard, this is the base—the central idea, or fact—of numberless elegant compounds, and is delightful in its simplest form.

Soak the gelatine three hours in a cupful of cold water. Then heat the milk (salted) in a farina kettle.

When it is scalding, stir in without taking the vessel from the fire, the sugar and soaked gelatine. Stir three minutes after it is boiling hot, and strain through a coarse cloth into a bowl. Let it get almost cold before adding the flavoring. Wet a clean mould with cold water; pour in the blanc-mange and set on ice, or in a cold place until firm.

Dip a cloth in hot water, wring until it will not drip, wrap about the mould, turn bottom upward on a flat dish, and shake gently to dislodge the contents.

Eat with powdered sugar and cream.

Chocolate Custard.

Five minutes before taking the custard from the fire, add to it three heaping tablespoonful of grated Baker’s chocolate rubbed to a paste with a little cold milk. Stir until the mixture is of a rich coffee color.

Turn out, and when cold, flavor with vanilla and put into glasses.

Whip the whites of three eggs to a smooth mÉringue, beat in three tablespoonfuls of powdered sugar, and heap upon the brown mixture.

Chocolate Blanc-mange.

(Our French scholars will say that this should be termed “Brun-mange.”)

Mix with the soaked gelatine four heaping tablespoonfuls of Baker’s chocolate, grated, and stir into the scalding milk, and treat as above directed. In straining, squeeze the bag hard to extract all the coloring matter. Flavor with vanilla.

Coffee Blanc-mange.

Soak the gelatine in a cupful of strong, clear black coffee, instead of the cold water, and proceed as with plain blanc-mange, using no other flavoring than the coffee.

Tea Blanc-mange

Is made in the same way by substituting for the water very strong, mixed tea. Eat with powdered sugar and cream.

Pineapple Trifle.

Rub the fruit hard into the mixture with a wooden spoon, and let all stand together, covered, two hours.

Then pour upon it the boiling water and stir until the gelatine is dissolved.

Line a colander with a double thickness of clean flannel, and strain the mixture through it, squeezing and wringing the cloth hard, to get the full flavor of the fruit. Set on ice until cold, but not until it is hard.

It should be just “jellied” around the edges, when you begin to whip the whites of the eggs in a bowl set in ice water. When they are quite stiff, beat in a spoonful at a time the gelatine. Whip a minute after adding each supply to mix it in perfectly.

Half an hour’s work with the “Dover” will give you a white spongy mass, pleasing alike to eye and taste.

Wet a mould with cold water, put in the sponge and set on ice until you are ready to turn it out.

This is a delicious dessert. For pineapple substitute strawberries, raspberries, or peaches.

A Simple Susan.

Butter a pudding-dish and cover the bottom with crumbs. Lay on these a thick layer of minced apple, sprinkled lightly with salt and spices—more heavily with sugar. Stick bits of butter over all. Then more crumbs, going on in this order until all the ingredients are used up. The top layer should be crumbs. Cover closely, and bake half an hour. Remove the cover and set on the upper grating of the oven until nicely browned. Send to table in the dish in which it was baked.

Sauce for the Above.

Melt the butter with the hot water and beat in, with egg whisk or “Dover,” the sugar, a little at a time, until the sauce is like a cream. Add lemon juice and nutmeg, mould into a mound on a glass dish, or a deep plate, and set in a cold place until it is firm. This is a good “hard sauce” for any hot pudding.

Cottage Pudding.

Put the sugar in a bowl, warm the butter slightly, but do not melt it, and rub it with a wooden spoon into the sugar until they are thoroughly mixed together. Beat the eggs light in another bowl, stir in the sugar and butter, then the milk, the salt, and lastly the flour.

Butter a tin cake mould well, pour in the batter and bake about forty minutes in a steady oven.

Should it rise very fast, cover the top with white paper as soon as a crust is formed, to prevent scorching.

When you think it is done stick a clean, dry straw into the thickest part. If it comes up smooth and not sticky the loaf is ready to be taken up.

Loosen the edges from the mould with a knife, turn out on a plate, and send hot to table. Cut with a keen blade into slices, and eat with pudding sauce.

An easy receipt and one that seldom fails to give general satisfaction.

---