Things Mother Used to Make/Desserts

by Lydia Maria Gurney

DESSERTS

Apple Tarts

Roll rich pie crust thin as for pies. Cut into rounds, pinch up the edge half an inch high and place in muffin rings. Put into each one a tablespoonful of apple sauce and bake in a hot oven for twenty minutes. Beat the white of an egg to a stiff froth and add two tablespoonfuls of sugar. Drop a spoonful on the top of each and brown quickly in a hot oven.

Baked Apples, No. 1

Take good, sour apples; greenings are best. Scoop out the cores, wash and place in a baking-pan. Fill the hole with sugar, and a tablespoonful for each apple besides. Pour over these a generous supply of cold water. Bake in a hot oven, until light and fluffy. These make a delicious dessert, if served with cream.

Baked Apples, No. 2

Wash, core and quarter sour apples. Put them into an earthen crock. Cover with cold water, adding a cup and a half of sugar to six apples, or sweeten to taste. Bake three or four hours, until they are a dark amber color.

Baked Sweet Apples

Wash clean, fair, sweet apples. Put these into a baking-pan, with a little cold water and a half-cup of molasses, if four to six apples are used. Bake slowly until you can stick a fork through them. Years ago, people ate these, with crackers and milk. Baked apples and milk was a favorite dish.

Baked Apple Dumplings

Take rich pie crust, roll thin as for pie and cut into rounds as large as a tea plate. Pare and slice fine, one small apple for each dumpling. Lay the apple on the crust, sprinkle on a tiny bit of sugar and nutmeg, turn edges of crust over the apple and press together. Bake in a hot oven for twenty minutes. Serve hot with cold sauce.

Fried Apples

Pare and slice apples and fry in hot fat. When removed from the fire, sprinkle over them a little sugar. Bananas are nice cooked in the same way.

Bramberries

• Crust
• 1½ Cupfuls of Flour
• ½ Cupful of Lard (scant)
• ½ Teaspoonful of Salt
• Just enough Water to wet smooth

• Filling
• 1 Cupful of Raisins
• 1 Cracker
• 1 Lemon
• ⅔ Cupful of Sugar
• 1 Egg
• A Little Salt

Beat the egg, add sugar, salt, lemon juice and grated rind. Roll cracker fine, chop raisins and mix all together. Roll the crust thin, cut into rounds. Put a spoonful of filling between two rounds and pinch the edges together. Prick top crust with fork. Bake in iron pan for twenty minutes.

Cream Puffs

• 1 Cupful of Hot Water
• ½ Cupful of Butter
• 1 Cupful of Flour
• 1 Pinch of Salt and Baking Soda
• 3 Eggs

Put the water and butter, into a dish on the stove. When boiling, stir in the dry flour, into which you have put the salt and soda. Stir until smooth and thick. When nearly cool, add three eggs, one at a time. Drop on a buttered pan and bake twenty minutes in a hot oven. This will make twelve cakes. When they are cold, make a slit in the side with a sharp knife, and fill with whipped cream or the following mixture:

One pint of milk, one egg, two-thirds of a cupful of sugar, one large spoonful of flour. Beat the egg, sugar, flour, and a little salt together till smooth and stir into the boiling milk. Flavor with lemon.

Floating Island

• 1 Quart of Milk
• 4 Eggs
• 1 Cupful of Sugar
• 1 Teaspoonful of Corn-starch
• 1 Teaspoonful of Vanilla
• Pinch of Salt

Put the milk on the stove and heat to nearly the boiling point. Whip whites of the eggs to a stiff froth and drop them by spoonfuls into the hot milk for a few minutes to cook. With a skimmer remove these islands to a plate. Beat the yolks of the eggs with sugar, salt and cornstarch. Stir into the milk until it boils. Flavor and cool. Turn into a glass dish and lay the “islands” on top of the custard. Serve cold.

Huckleberry Dumplings

• 2 Cupfuls of Flour
• 2 Teaspoonfuls of Cream of Tartar
• 1 Teaspoonful of Soda
• ½ Teaspoonful of Salt
• 1 Teaspoonful of Lard

Mix ingredients together with water until thick enough to roll. Cut into rounds an inch thick as for biscuits. Boil one quart of huckleberries in one-half pint of water and one-half cupful of sugar. Drop in the dumplings. Boil for twenty minutes. Serve with cold sauce or cream and sugar.

Coffee Jelly

• 1 Small Box of Gelatine
• 1 Pint of Strong Coffee
• 1 Cupful of Sugar
• 1 Scant Quart of Boiling Water
• Flavor with Vanilla

Soak the gelatine in cold water for fifteen minutes. Stir into the coffee and add sugar, salt and water, then vanilla. Pour into a mould and set away to cool. Serve with sweetened whipped cream.

Lemon Jelly

• ½ Box of Gelatine
• ½ Cupful of Cold Water
• 1½ Cupfuls of Boiling Water
• 1 Cupful of Sugar
• 3 Lemons

Soak gelatine in the cold water for half an hour. Add boiling water, sugar and juice of lemons. Stir well and strain into mould or small cups.

Strawberry Shortcake, No. 1

• 1 Pint of Flour
• ⅓ Cupful of Lard
• A little Salt
• Milk enough to make a stiff dough
• 1 Box of Strawberries
• 2 Teaspoonfuls of Cream of Tartar
• 1 Teaspoonful of Soda

Put the salt, soda, lard and cream of tartar, into the dry flour, mix with milk (water will do), divide into halves and roll large enough for a Washington pie tin. Spread butter over one, lay the other on top, bake twenty minutes. Hull and wash and mash the berries and sweeten to taste. Separate the two cakes, butter, and place the berries between. Serve hot.

Strawberry Shortcake, No. 2

• 1 Tablespoonful of Butter
• ⅔ Cupful of Sugar
• 1 Egg
• ½ Cupful of Milk
• 1 Teaspoonful of Cream of Tartar
• ½ Teaspoonful of Soda
• 1 Box of Strawberries
• 1 Cupful of Cream

Cream together the butter and sugar and add the well-beaten egg and milk. Stir the cream of tartar and soda into the dry flour and beat all together. Bake in two Washington pie tins. Hull, wash, mash and sweeten to taste, the berries. Put half of these between the two loaves, the other half on top, with whipped cream on top of all.