Apples and Pears.
Pare and core the apples, or pears, stew then with a little water till very tender, and like beaten marmalade; sweeten it to your taste, add for seasoning pounded cinnamon, orange or lemon peel, a little lemon juice, or grate. Line the tart-pans with puff paste, fill them with the apples; roll out a piece of paste about twelve inches long, cut it in narrow strips with a waved runner, bar the pans across and across, or in festoons, according to fancy.
Or,
After preparing the apples as above, pare a few Seville oranges thin and boil the parings tender in water; shred it small, which add, with the juice of one or two, according to your taste; it should be cold before it is put into the pans, or shapes. They eat very nice cold, when served with a small tureen of cream.
Marmalade Tarts.
After lining the tart-pans with puff paste, or paste D’Arcy, fill them nearly full with chip, or plain marmalade, bar, or ornament them. In like manner are all kinds of tarts made with preserved fruits.
Prune Tarts.
Take French plumbs, or prunes, scald them, take out the stones, break and blanch the kernels. A few bitter almonds pounded may be used, if there is not time for preparing the kernels. Stew the prunes with a little water, sweeten to your taste, add the kernels and a little marmalade and port wine; if you chuse, add a little pounded cinnamon and cloves, or nutmeg. If you wish a dish filled, it should be lined with puff paste; the prunes should be cold before putting them into the paste. Cut a long strip of paste, the breadth of the edge of the dish, which put round, after first wetting the edge with a brush dipped in water; cut out a piece to cover the dish, then lay bars across and across the middle of the dish. Then cut out a corresponding piece from the middle of the cover, lay it on and scollop the edges round the dish with the back of a knife; ornament and glaze it. It should remain no longer in the oven than bake the paste.
Cherry Tarts.
Stone the cherries, and for each pound take twelve ounces sugar and one gill water, boil and skim it and then add the cherries; boil them till the sugar has penetrated them well, and when cold fill the tart-pans and bar them.
A Rich Tart D’Arcy.
Take a dozen apples, scald them, and when cold skin and take out the pulp, or rub them through a split wood riddle, which will keep back the seeds, core, and skins. Cast light five or six eggs and beat in the apple pulp, add the juice of a bitter orange, boil the skin tender and cut it small. Or else take marmalade in place of the orange, add a little pounded nutmeg, cloves, and cinnamon, two ounces fresh butter melted like a cream and sugar to your taste; mix all well together, line the tart-pans with puff paste, fill them, and ornament, or bar them across with paste, cut with a runner. After they are baked ice them over, and when hardened a little in the oven serve them.
Tart D’Moi.
Line a dish with puff paste, put in a layer of sweetmeats, then biscuits, next butter, or marrow, then preserved sweetmeats, or jellies, and so proceed until the dish is full. Make a rich custard, which pour over it; cover the top as directed in covering the prune tart; glaze and bake it.
Peaches and Apricots,
Should be taken before they are fully ripe; they are pared, stoned, and cut in quarters, a layer of pounded sugar and a layer of the fruit is put alternately into a sauce pan; when a syrup, they are stirred about and boiled for some time, till the sugar penetrate them and they become tender. When cold, proceed as directed for making prune tarts.
Fresh Strawberry and Raspberry Tarts.
To each pound of fruit take twelve ounces sugar, clarify and boil the sugar to blow strong, put in the fruit with two gills currant juice to each pound; boil them till clear, and when cold fill the tart-pans, &c.
Or,
Put a layer of sugar and then a layer of rasps, a or strawberries, into the tarts, put on the covers and bake them; then make a liquor thus. Take four gills of cream, the yolks of three eggs, beaten with a little sugar; open the tops and pour in a sufficient quantity of it into each tart; close the tops again and set them into the oven for a few minutes.
Rhubarb Tarts
Are only made before the gooseberries are ripe, and are a good substitute for that fruit. Take the stalks of garden rhubarb, not too thick, peel and cut them in pieces of two inches, or cut small like gooseberries; put them into a small pan with a sufficient quantity of very thin syrup, about a pint (mutchkin) to a pound of the stalks; boil them ten or fifteen minutes, when cold fill your tarts.
Gooseberry Tarts.
If for covered tarts, pick them clean, lay sugar under and over, close them up and bake them. If open tarts, put the berries, with a proper quantity of sugar to sweeten them, on the fire, stew them till they burst, and when cold fill the tart-pans, &c.
Almond Tarts.
Take eight ounces almonds, blanch and pound them in a mortar with sherry wine, adding from time to time eight ounces pounded sugar; then mix it up with eight ounces grated bread, and add cream to bring it to a proper consistence, season it with nutmeg, &c. When it is baked, put in a few strips of candied orange, or citron. It may be coloured green with spinage juice, if you chuse it.
Angelica Tarts.
Pare and core some pippins, or nonpareils, peel the stalks of angelica, cut them into small pieces, and take of each an equal quantity; boil the apples gently in as much water as will cover them, mixed with a little lemon peel and sugar, until the liquor becomes a thin syrup; strain it off, put it on with the angelica, let it boil ten minutes, cover the pans with paste, put a layer of the apples and then the angelica till full; pour in some syrup, and cover them.
Icing for Tarts.
Take four ounces of treble refined sugar pounded and sifted through a lawn sieve, and the white of an egg, beat them up very light and white, if too thick, or thin, add more white of eggs, or sugar. It is laid on the tarts with a feather, or brush, after they are baked, and then put into a very close oven just to harden; take care they do not brown.
Fine Short Bread, called Pitceathly Bannocks.
| lib. | oz. | |
| Flour | 8 (1 peck) | |
| Butter, salt or fresh, or one half each | 4 | |
| Sugar, pounded | 1 | |
| Caraway Comfits | 0 | 8 |
| Orange Peel, cut small | 8 | |
| Almonds blanched (if you chuse) | 8 |
Mix the flour, sugar and peel, all together, leaving one pound to roll it out; lay it on the table, make a hole in the middle to contain the butter, put the butter into a pan and make it boil. After settling a little, pour it into the flour and mix it up as quickly as you can; divide it in four or six parts, or into as many pieces as you want cakes; roll or knead them out to the thickness you wish, keeping them square. They are usually made about an inch thick. Prickle them on the top, strew on the caraway comfits, and cut four ounces orange peel in small strips of two inches in length, which also lay on here and there; roll it over to make them sink into the paste, then pinch them neatly round; lay them on sheets of paper, then on tins, and bake them in a moderate oven. They should be well soaked and not browned.
Or,
When the butter is very fine, work the butter and flour together without melting, which will make excellent shortbread. Melting the butter takes out any sediment, or salt, which in this way must remain; therefore, unless the butter is fresh and good, it will impart its flavour to the bread and spoil the taste.
Plain Shortbread.
| lib. | oz. | |
| Flour | 8 | |
| Butter | 3 |
Boil the butter and mix it well with the flour, then add water to make it a proper stiffness. It is rolled out thinner than the rich shortbread. Some add two gills of yeast to make it rise. Roll it out to the size and thickness you want, prickle and pinch the cakes, then fire them in a moderate oven.
Petticoat Tails.
Roll out the rich shortbread the thickness of ⅛ of an inch, prickle it well, cut a circle of 18 inches in diameter; then cut out a small circle in the middle of five inches in diameter, cut the outer pieces in eight equal parts and pinch them all neatly round; or cut the paste with a runner.