XMAS PROVENDER

Timaru Herald, Volume CXLII, Issue 20607, 22 December 1936, Page 12

XMAS PROVENDER

QUICKLY MADE Strawberry delights—Cover strawberries overnight with sugar and lemon juice, mash next day, and whip with cream or egg whites. Make into a mould by rubbing a pound of the fruit through a sieve. Mix with an ounce of gelatine and three ounces of sugar, the juice of a lemon, and a tablespoonful of water, and half a pint of whipped cream folded in.

Make into shortcake with short crust and serve with cream. Roll strawberries in sugar, cover custard, and serve in glasses with a little grated nutmeg on top. Make into “Scotch Fog” with a mould of crushed macaroons, mixed with whipped cream in centre. Cover with strawberries mixed with sugar, and pile over cream whipped with egg whites. Decorate with a few whole strawberries. Make into ice cream by rubbing strawberries through a sieve, mixing with custard enriched with cream or condensed milk, and sweetening. Make into fritters by cutting in half, dipping in batter, and frying. Make into a cocktail by pounding lib of strawberries with 6oz of sugar and juice of two lemons. Leave about two or three hours, add S pint of water, and stir. Strain, ice and serve in glasses with a few berries on top. Mince pies-puff pastry.—To make the cases for the mincemeat take Sib flour, Jib butter, i teaspoonful lemon juice, and cold water. Wash the butter in very cold water to remove the salt and cool it. Squeeze in a piece of butter muslin and shape it into an oblong pat. Sieve the flour into a basin, make a well in the centre, add the lemon juice and a little cold water to make an elastic dough. Knead the dough on the board thoroughly until it is smooth and elastic. Roll it out into a fairly wide strip twice as long as the pat of butter and a little wider. Put the butter on to one-half of the pastry, folding the other half over. Press the edges well together with the rolling-pin, turn the pastry a half-turn to the right, bringing the open ends top and bottom, and roll out into a long narrow strip with short, quick strokes. Fold this strip into three, turn half-round to the right again so that the open ends are top and bottom, and roll again. This rolling and folding must be done seven times in all. After every two or three rolls put the pastry on one side and leave it in a cool place for 20 or 30 minutes. The pastry should then be rolled out thinly to line the tartlet tins.

Brandy Snaps.—Where there are children brandy snaps make a useful addition to the tea-table, as they appeal to youthful tastes and obviate the necessity of supplying unlimited cake of a too rich nature. The following recipe is very reliable. — Ingredients: lib of golden syrup, ilb of sugar, 41b of butter, 41b of flour, one level teaspoonful of ground ginger. Method: Weigh the saucepan, and then, while on the scales, pour into it the golden syrup. When you know the weight of your saucepan you can, of course, know when you have poured in 41b of syrup. Add the butter and sugar, and stir over gentle heat until all the butter is just melted. Then stir in the flour, which has been sifted with the ground ginger, and mix it in gradually; lift the saucepan off the fire when you do this. Have some flat tins well greased and place on them a teaspoonful of the mixture for each “snap,” but do not put them close together, as the mixture spreads. Bake in a moderate oven for seven to ten minutes. When baked, loosen each one with a knife and twist round the handle of a wooden spoon to shape.