The complete Indian housekeeper & cook

15. Fondants. — Take any quantity sufficient of loaf sugar, and boil to the blow (see No. 22) ; add essence to taste, and a little rectified spirits of wine. Pour it on to a slab or iron plate. As soon as it is fairly cool, rub it with a knife till it sets, when it should be of the consistence of very thick whipped cream. Fill into small shapes (which are specially made) by putting the fondant mixture into a small jug or a cup with a spout or lip, and warming over the fire ; it must not boil. These are delicious, aud, as their name implies, melt in the mouth directly. If you want to make fancy devices for ornamenting dishes of (lessert, you should get as follows : An oblong box or tray three inches deep. Fill it with arrowroot, dry whisked, to make it light. Also a straight piece of wood for smoothing down. ' Have some shapes made !is desired. The original French ones are of plaster-of-Paris, but could be made of other material. With them make impressions in the starch in rows as far as the box or tray will allow of. Fill these impressions by means of a funnel with the fondant mixture, and sift some of the starch powder over them. Place in the oven till next day. 16. Ginger Rock. — Eight units white sugar, 1 of ground ginger, 2 of butter, 3 of water. Boil as for toffee. 17. Glace Icing. — To every 2 units of white sugar put 1 of water. Boil for one minute, and set to cool, stirring vigorously. Add any flavour desired. The syrup will soon begin to get cloudy, then opaque. Seize the intermediate state, when it is fairly cloudy but still liquid, and use it to mask cakes, brioches, Genoese pastry, &c. Curacao, rum, noyeau, &c., may be used as flavouring. If lemon is desired, take for, say, an icing of 8 units of sugar as much Housekeeper and Cook 337 tartaric or citric acid as will lie on a two-anna bit. Wet it with a drop or two of water and lemon essence, and stir the whole to the syrup when it begins to get cloudy, not before. The syrup will never harden if it is not stirred^ but the above proportions cannot fail with one minute’s boiling. 18. Greengage and Cherry Rings.— Take 8 units green mango pulp and 8 units sugar. Mix. Colour half with cochineal^ leave the other green^ and set out in layers one-eighth of an inch thick on dishes in the sun. As soon as it dries^ cut into strips and twist into knots, or stamp with a cutter to fancy shapes. Dust with sugar, and put away. The pulp, if thin, may be evaporated to dryness in an enamelled pan over the fire. 19. Hardbake is English nougat, and is made exactly the same way, with equal units of sugar and blanched almonds. Pour out on a stone slab well oiled, and when half cool, mark with a knife in diamonds. When cold, break into pieces, and serve as toffee. 20. Massepains. — Eight units almonds pounded with 1 unit white of egg till it is absolutely smooth, mix with 8 units of apricot marmalade, or any ])reserve of similar consistency, or any jam reduced to that consistency, and freed from seeds, &c. Put the whole into an enamelled saucepan, dust with finely-powdered white sugar, and stir till dry enough to roll out or press into sugared moulds. This, variously coloured and flflavoured, is the foundation of many French bonbons.