VINTAGE RECIPES

[Welland Tribune June 6, 1905]

THE HOUSEHOLD

Hint about Asparagus

Wash the asparagus and cut the tips and tender parts of the stalks into pieces less than an inch long. Boil them in water enough to cook them without burning until they are tender. Then season with salt, pepper, cream or milk, and butter, using the liquor in which the vegetable boiled for part of the sauce. Cooked in this way, it goes under the head of “spoon victuals”, and should be served in individual vegetable saucers.

Strawberry Short Bread

This is not the ordinary though justly famous and familiar strawberry shortcake, but a dainty bit for the gods, so delicate when properly made that it literally melts in the mouth. Mix together one pound of flour, four ounces of powdered sugar, and eight ounces of butter; sift the sugar and flour together four times, then work the flour in thoroughly, handling it in the same way that pastry is prepared, rubbing the mixture between the palms of the hands until it is thoroughly blended. Knead the whole together until it forms a solid mass, using no liquids whatever to moisten, the butter holding the ingredients together after it has been manipulated a sufficient length of time with the hands. Divide into two portions, then the mass adheres, and press one part into a hollow dish so that it will form a hollow shell. Bake in a slow oven until the cakes are a delicate brown, and then remove; fill the hollow cake with mashed and sweetened berries, mixing with them a gill of cream, or placing a layer of cream on top, fit the flat cake on top, sprinkle with powdered sugar and serve the whole at once while still warm. This cake will keep indefinitely and become richer as time goes on, if any of it is left over in making the layers, mold into thick, small, round cakes and bake, then set away until used.

RHUBARB RECIPES

[Welland Tribune May 19, 1905]

Custard

Cut stale sponge cake in slices and arrange in a glass dish in alternate layers with rich stewed rhubarb. Just before serving, cover with a cold boiled custard made as follows: Beat the yolks of three eggs with a fourth of a cupful of sugar, pour over them a pint of hot milk and cook in a double boiler until it will coat the spoon, stirring constantly. Flavor with lemon. Spread the whites of the eggs, whipped to a stiff froth with three tablespoonfuls of powdered sugar, over the top.

Tart

Line a pie dish with good paste, brush it over with white of egg and bake in a quick oven. When done, fill the pie with rhubarb marmalade, and when cold heap over it whipped cream flavored with lemon. Do not add the cream until just before serving.

Tapioca

Soak two tablespoonfuls of pearl tapioca in two cupfuls of cold water for one hour; then cook in a double boiler until perfectly clear. Add four tablespoonfuls of sugar, and cook a few minutes longer. Then pour over a pint of rich stewed rhubarb in a shallow glass dish. Serve very cold with whipped cream flavored with lemon.

With Dates

Wash one pound of good dates, add boiling water to cover, and cook until the water is nearly absorbed. Then remove the seeds. Skin and cut a pound of rhubarb in one-inch pieces, put a layer in the bottom of a pudding dish, sprinkle with sugar, add a layer of dates, and repeat until dates and rhubarb are all used, having the last layer of dates. Put in one-fourth cupful of hot water, and bake until the rhubarb is soft.

Shortcake

Make a rich biscuit dough, spread it an inch thick on buttered pie tins, and bake in a quick oven. When done, split open, butter, and spread with thick stewed rhubarb. Serve with cream, plain or whipped, and powdered sugar.

Butter

Wash and chop the rhubarb fine. To each pound allow one pound of sugar. Add a very little water. Just enough to keep it from burning, and cook gently for an hour or longer, according to the age of the rhubarb. Keep an asbestos mat under the preserving kettle, and stir frequently to prevent it from burning. Half orange pulp, black currants or strawberries combine delightfully with rhubarb in making butter, jam or marmalade.

Fritters

Cut rhubarb into pieces two inches long. Cook until tender but not broken, in a rich syrup. Let lie in the syrup until cold; then drain each piece carefully, and dust with powdered sugar. Make a batter with one cupful of milk, one and one-half cupfuls of sifted flour, one teaspoonful of baking powder, and two beaten eggs, Add the milk and the sugar to the whipped eggs, and the flour in which the baking powder has been sifted. Mix thoroughly, then dip the pieces of rhubarb in the batter, and fry in deep hot fat. Drain on unglazed paper, roll in granulated sugar, and serve at once with the syrup drained from the rhubarb.

Blanc Mange in Rhubarb Nests

Make blanc mange after the usual rule, only using about half a cupful less of milk. When it is nearly done add half a cupful of hot strawberry juice. This will make it a pretty pink. Mold in small cupfuls, when firm turn each one out carefully on a pretty china saucer. Have ready cold rhubarb which has been cut in inch lengths and cooked until tender, but not broken, in a very rich syrup. Drain off he syrup carefully, and arrange the pieces of rhubarb around the blanc mange. Garnish with whipped cream.