Cassell's dictionary of cookery

" Each one-pound tin represents the condensation of about two quarts to five pints of crude milk, and therefore will bear so much water added to it as to bring it back to its original condition and bulk. In each tin there is about four ounces of the best refined sugar. Now, putting the value of the tin at one penny, and the milk at tenpence, we get for sevenpence or eightpence what otherwise would cost us from elevenpence to one shilling, simply because the manufacturers in country districts can obtain the milk at about twopence per quart. Of the convenience of the article it is hardly necessary to speak. It is invaluable for travellers by land and sea. Nor is it less convenient as an article for ordinary household consumption, while the certainty of its genuineness adds much to its value. It can be used for any purpose for which ordinary milk and sugar are used — for puddings, custards, and other culinary requirements ; it is admirably adapted for eating with fruit tarts, as Devonshire cream, and with the usual ingredients makes capital salad-dressing. Less than a tea-spoonful, without water, is sufiicient for a cup of tea, while four or five times that quantity will make a basin of sweet bread and milk for a child. It is almost impossible to exaggerate the value of this milk for infants and children, especially during the prevalence of infantile diarrhea, which, in the opinion of the majority of medical men, is to be attributed to the badness of the milk supplied to the poor in large centres of population." Preserve or Jam Omelet. — Beat thoroughly the yolks of six eggs. Add three ounces of sugar, and if any flavouring is added be careful that it harmonises with the jam that is to be used. A strawberry omelet may be flavoured with orange-flower water, an apple-marmalade omelet with grated lemonrind. Beat the whites of the eggs to a firm froth, and just before the omelet is poured into the pan mix them with the rest. Dissolve two ounces of butter in the omelet-pan, pour in the mixture, and fry the omelet in the usual way {see Omelet). Before folding it, lay two or three table-spoonfuls of jam in the centre. Sprinkle a little sugar over the top, candy by holding over it a salamander or red-hot fire-shovel, and serve immediately before the omelet can fall. PRE ( 6J3 ) PRE Time, four to six minutes. Probable cost, lOd. Sufficient for two or three persons. Preserves, Fruit. — Home-made jam is both a convenience and a luxury. When well and carefully made it is not only superior to that which is usually offered for sale, but very much more economical also, and no store-closet can be said to be well filled which does not boast a goodly show of neatly-labelled jars of preserves. In making jam, the first thing to be looked after is the fruit. As a general rule, this should be fully ripe, fresh, sound, and scrupulously clean and dry. It should be gathered in the morning of a sunny day, as it will then possess its finest flavour. The best sugar is the cheapest ; indeed, there is no economy in stinting the sugar, either as to quality or necessary quantity, for inferior sugar is wasted in scum, and the jam will not keep unless a sufficient proportion of sugar is boiled with the fruit. At the same time too large a proportion of sugar will destroy the natural flavour of the fruit, and in all probability make the jam candy.