The household gas cookery book

in a pie-dish. Make some short crust (see recipe); put an edging of paste round the dish, and then cover over the top, and bake in a brisk oven. Cranberry Tart.— Wash the cranberries thoroughly. Add a quarter of a pound of sugar to every pint of fruit. Three parts fill the pie-dish with the fruit, add sugar to taste, cover with the rest of the cranberries, make a good short crust, brush it over with cold water, and sprinkle white sugar over it. Bake in a moderate oven. Mince Pies.— It is not so difficult to make good mince meat as to make the pies healthful and enjoyable after pies too frequently are made very rich, and are made so that they are little better than dabs of sweetened grease. The finest puff paste is not suitable for mince pies, but a medium quality should be made and used. They have the poorest appearance of any pies if baked plain, but can be made inviting by being glazed — but don’t paint them with yellow smears of egg yolk. Mix the yolk of an egg thoroughly with twice as much water, brush the tops of the pies over with it before baking ; sift a very thin coating of castor sugar over them, and then bake in a moderate oven till the bottoms are baked dry and light, and the tops are covered with a crisp glazed crust. Mince pies should have the bottom crust as thin as a penny, and the upper crust about a quarter of an inch thick before baking. This ensures the bottom crust being crisp. Mincemeat, To Make. — Take one pound each of the following: currants, raisins, sultanas, suet, apples, sugar. Peel the apples, take out the cores: stone the fruit and wash the currants; pass it all through a mincing machine, adding the juice of two lemons, one grated nutmeg, the peel of two lemons chopped finely, half a pound of candied peel, half a pound of ground almonds, one gill of brandy, one I ^6 the household gill of sherry. Thoroughly mix all the ingredients together; put it in jars and tie down for use when required. Pastry Sandwiches. — Roll the paste out thin ; put half of it on a baking sheet or tin, and spread equally over it any preserve which may be preferred. Lay over this preserve another thin paste ; press the edges together all round, and mark the paste in lines with a knife on the surface, to show where to cut it when baked. Bake about twenty minutes, and (a short time before it is done take the pastry out of the oven, brush it over with the white of an egg, sift over pounded sugar, and put it back in the oven to colour. When cold, cut it into strips, about two or three inches long. Piled on a dish pyramidically, and a cup¬ ful of flavoured whipped cream poured in the middle, makes a very pretty dish. Green Apple Tartlets.— Pare, core, and slice green apples, and stew until very soft, with a little grated lemon and juice; sweeten to taste, press through a sieve, stir in a very little nutmeg, and a tablespoonful of butter for each pie. Bake in open shells of puff paste, with crossbars of the same over the top. Lemon Meringue. — Grated rind of a lemon and all the juice ; the yolks of four eggs, well beaten ; i cup¬ ful of sugar, sifted; one cupful of cream; one table¬ spoonful of flour, sifted.