[ Di THE KITCHEN

Dominion, Volume 23, Issue 51, 23 November 1929, Page 22

[ Di THE KITCHEN

SOME UNCOMMON TEA DAINTIES.

Chocolate Icing.—lngredients: 3oz. of grated chocolate, 41b. of icing sugar, I gill of water. Put the water and chocolate into a pan and stir over the fire, boil for five minutes, then cool and add the sugar, previously rubbed through a hair sieve. Stir over low heat for a few seconds, but do not make it hot after the sugar is added, or the icing will look dull. It should be thick enough to coat the back of a wooden spoon. If too thick, add a few drops of water gradually. Pour over the cake and add the caraque chocolate before the icing sets. Caraque chocolate may be bought from good stores.

Silver Cake (Gateau d’Argent).—lngredients : Jib- of butter, 6oz. of castor sugar, 4oz. each of flour and cornflour, five whites of eggs, one teaspoonful of baking powder, flavouring essence. Beat the butter, add the sugar and continue beating until creamy. Sieve the flours and baking powder; whip the whites of the eggs to a stiff meringue and stir alternately with the flours to the creamed butter. Flavour to taste and put into a greased tin lined with greased paper, or into two sandwich tins. Bake in a moderate oven 300 deg. to 350 deg. Fabr.) one and a half to two hours in one tin, or fifteen” to twenty minutes if baked in sandwich tins. Ice with white glace icing and decorate with finely chopped brown A variation of this cake is called Marshmallow Cake. It is baked in two layers spread with marshmallow cream and chopped almonds and iced with marshmallow.

White Glace Icing.—lngredients: fib. of icing sugar, juice of half a .lemon, water. Rub the sugar through a hair sieve, put it into a very clean pan, mix in the lemon juice, and just enough water to make it of the consistency of a very thick sauce. Warm this over very low heat just to take the chill off, and melt the sugar and pour at once over the cake. The water must be added very gradually, and on no account must the icing be made too hot, or it looks dull and is liable to crack.

Marshmallow' Icing. — Ingredients: Three-quarters of a cup sugar, quarter of a cup milk, fib. marshmallows, two tablespoonsful hot water, half a teaspoonful vanilla. Put the sugar and milk in a saucepan, heat slowly, to boiling point without stirring, and boil for six minutes. Break the marshmallows in pieces and melt in a double boiler, add hot water and cook until the mixture is smooth, then add the hot syrup gradually, stirring constantly. Beat until-cool enough to spread, then add vanilla. This may be used for both filling and frosting.

Marshmallow Frosting (another recipe).—Put one cupful granulated sugar and one-third of a cup boiling water in a saucepan. Bring quickly to the boiling point and boil without stirring until syrup will spin a’ thread when dropped from tip of spoon. Add five marshmallows cut in small pieces and pour very gradually (while beating constantly) on the white of one egg beaten until stiff but not dry. Beat until the mixture is thick enough to spread, and flavour with vanilla.

Japanese Cakes. —Ingredients: Fbur whites of egg, fib. castor sugar, 41b. ground almonds, chocolate icing, fib. coffee butter icing. Line a ’ baking sheet

with greaseproof paper and brush it over rather thickly with melted wax. Beat the whites of egg to a stiff froth; add the sugar and ground almonds, and spread the mixture, out evenly on the baking sheet. Place in a moderate oven and when the mixture is just set mark it out into small rounds with a cutter. Return the tin to the oven and bake the biscuits pale brown. Take them out and return the trimmings to the oven until a deeper brown. When cold pound the trimmings in a, mortar. Flavour the butter icing rather strongly with coffee essence and spread a little on a biscuit, put another on the top, and cover the top and sides thinly with the icing. Roll in the prepared crumbs, and press a slight hollow in the top. Put a little chocolate glace icing in this.

Cheese and Olive Creams.—Cheese pastry, whipped cream, finely grated Par. mesan cheese, salt, cayenne, and white pepper, olive. For these use cheese pastry baked in tiny moulds, and when eases are cold fill them with the following mixture; to each tablespoonful of whipped cream add a heaped teaspoonful of finely grated Parmesan which has been flavoured with salt, cayenne, and white pepper and then mix in a half a flat teaspoonful of grated olive. Pile in the little cases and decorate with coraline pepper. This makes an excellent cold savoury for luncheon or Sunday supper. For a change omit the olive and add very finely minced celery, or instead of cream use a thick mayonnaise and mix into it tiny cubes of cucumber, green peas sliced celery and capers cut into quarters. Decorate with a cross of pimento or tomato. Next time you use some of these little eases you may like to serve them hot spreading the inside of each case with Gentleman's Relish or anchovy paste and piling them high with lightly scrambled egg dusted with coraline pepper; or, if you happen to have a little cooked fish and some shrimp or lobster or egg sauce, spread the inside of the case with' anchovy paste, then flake the fish very small (and don’t, please, leave even the smallest bone or piece of skin in it), mix it with the sauce, make hot, fill the cases and again make hot. Should you have the remains of a savoury mousse or cream of fish it may be cut into small dice and covered with whipped cream slightly salted and peppered.