Peel and core several good cooking apples. Butter on both sides as many small slices of bread as you have apples. Fill the centre of each apple with butter. Sprinkle thickly with sugar. Bake in a moderate oven three-quarters of an hour. Baste five or six times with the juice and butter, adding more butter if necessary. Serve hot, having filled the centre of each apple with jelly.
Peel and core several good cooking apples, and fill the hollow centres with lemon sugar . Put a little water in the bottom of a shallow tin. Set the apples in it close together. Bake in a quick oven, basting often with the syrup formed by the water and sugar.
Skin several bananas and cut them lengthways in half. Place on a tin. Sprinkle well with sugar, and put several small lumps of butter on them. Bake twenty minutes in a moderate oven, basting occasionally and adding a very little hot water if there is not sufficient juice with which to baste.
Peel several peaches, which should not be too ripe. Let them simmer for five minutes in sweetened boiling water. Take them out and drain them. Sprinkle with sugar. Pour sufficient lighted kirsch-wasser over the peaches. The peaches must be kept very hot.
Grate some pine-apple coarsely. To each pound of fruit add one pound of sugar. Put into a large jar and stir occasionally. After twenty-four hours put into glass jars and cover. This will keep for months.
4 pears
1 table-spoon flour
1 table-spoon butter
1 wine-glass white wine
Powdered sugar
Pare and core the pears. Cut into quarters, let them simmer for half an hour in a little water and sugar. Melt the butter in a sauce-pan. Add the flour. Work till perfectly smooth. Add the wine, and when hot, the pears and juice. Simmer again for half an hour. Lay the pears on rounds of fried bread. Strain the juice over them and serve hot.
Put one quart of rum and three pounds powdered sugar in a large jar which has an air-tight cover or cork. Leave for a week. Stir well. Put into the jar three pounds of strawberries and three pounds more sugar. Stir occasionally. After another week add three pounds raspberries and three pounds sugar. Stir every day. Again, after an interval, add apricots, peaches, plums, etc., always with an equal quantity of sugar. The jar must be kept air-tight and should be kept in a cool dry place. When it is full, put it away for several weeks. Then mix thoroughly and serve with whipped cream.
Fruit should be stewed in plenty of well-sweetened water until tender, care being taken to keep it whole. When tender remove the fruit from the saucepan. Place it in the dish in which it is to be served. To the juice add a little thin lemon peel, a few drops of lemon juice, more sugar if required, and, if liked, a glass of white wine. Set again on a quick fire and reduce until thick. Strain this over the fruit and serve when cold.
Peel and take out the core of several sound good cooking apples, putting each when finished in water into which the juice of a lemon has been squeezed. When they are all prepared arrange them in a saucepan, covering them with water and adding sugar to sweeten thoroughly. Cook quickly for about twenty minutes, taking care to keep them whole. Lift out the apples. Place them on a glass dish. Add a little lemon juice to the apple juice, more sugar if necessary, a few drops of cochineal (and, if possible, the rind of a pine-apple). Boil quickly until considerably reduced—and quite thick. Pour over the apples. Decorate each apple with a little red currant jelly.
1 lb. dried figs
1 pint water
4 ozs. powdered sugar
1 lemon
1 wine-glass sherry
Put the figs, water, sugar and finely-pared lemon peel into an enamelled saucepan. Stew gently until very tender. This will take from two to three hours. Take out the figs and place them in a dish. Stir into the juice the sherry and juice of a lemon. Strain over the fruit and serve cold.
6 peaches
5 ozs. powdered sugar
¹⁄₂ pint cold water
1 table-spoon kirsch
Throw the peaches into boiling water to blanch. Take out and peel. Cut into quarters, removing the stones. Put into cold water. Add the sugar. Boil for five minutes, being careful not to break the fruit. Set the fruit in a dish. Add the kirsch to the juice. Strain on to the fruit.
Pare, core and cut in half a number of good large cooking pears, and put them into cold water in which there is the juice of a lemon. Prick them in several places. Make a syrup in the proportion of one cup of sugar to one cup of water. Boil up and skim. When cool pour it into an earthenware jar. Put the pears into the syrup. Add two cloves. Cover the jar tightly. Set in a very slow oven and leave for five or six hours. This is the best way of cooking pears: but it is essential that the oven should be slow all the time.
6 pears
¹⁄₄ lb. sugar
1 wine-glass red wine
2 cloves
Rind of a lemon thinly pared
Pare and cut the pears in half. Take out the cores. Put in a saucepan. Cover with water. Add the sugar, wine, cloves and lemon rind. Simmer as slowly as possible. Arrange in a dish. Add a few drops of cochineal to the juice. Strain it over the pears.
(Old French Receipt)
Put several unpeeled pears into boiling water. Cook for several minutes. Take out and throw into cold water. Peel when cold and divide in two. Put back into fresh cold water.
To a gill of water add sufficient sugar to make a sweet syrup. Boil and skim. When clear, add the pears and a slice of lemon. Simmer until tender. Remove the lemon and serve cold.
1 lb. prunes
1 pint water
¹⁄₂ lb. sugar
1 lemon
Peel the lemon very finely. Put the peel, water, sugar and prunes in a stew-pan. Simmer gently until very tender. Put the prunes in a glass dish. Add the juice of the lemon to the syrup. Reduce it until thick. Strain over the prunes. This is best prepared the day before it is required.
Pick over a number of fine strawberries. Put a layer of them in a glass dish. Sprinkle sugar over them. Add one or two more layers and sprinkle each with sugar. Set aside for about an hour.
Whip half a pint of cream with the white of two eggs and two ozs. powdered sugar until very frothy. Let it stand a few minutes. Remove all the froth to a sieve to drain, and whip up the liquid cream remaining. When that is frothy, drain it on a sieve as before. Keep the cream in a cold place till it is required, piling it on the strawberries when ready to serve.
Take tinned or fresh pine-apple, peaches, apricots and fresh strawberries, cherries, bananas, oranges, according to season. Cut the large fruit into small pieces. Put all into a large bowl. Make a syrup of sugar and water, or, if tinned pears and pine apples have been used, of their juice and sugar. Pour it over the fruit while warm. Let it stand a little while. Place on the dish in which it is to be served. Decorate with grapes or crystallised sugar.
Peel a number of oranges, scraping off all the white inner skin with a sharp knife. Cut across in slices, removing all the core and seeds. Put a layer of orange in a dish. Sprinkle thickly with sugar and a little rum. Add two or three more layers of orange and sugar. Serve at once, as the orange quickly becomes bitter.
Peel six oranges. Scrape off the inner white skin carefully. Slice them, removing the core and seeds. Grate half a cocoanut. Put alternate layers of orange and cocoanut in a dish. The top layer should be cocoanut. Sprinkle each layer with sugar. Serve as soon as possible after making.
1 pine apple
¹⁄₂ pint syrup
1 table-spoon curaçoa
Peel the pine apple and grate it. Mix the curaçoa with the syrup . Pour over the fruit.