Cassell's dictionary of cookery

Wine Browning for Flavouring and. Colouring Gravies.— Dissolve an ounce of fresh butter in a small saucepan, and stir into it a quarter of a pound of powdered white sugar. As soon as it begins to colour draw it to the side, and stir into it very gradually a pint of good port. Pour it into a fresh saucepan, and put with it six cloves, twelve peppercorns, three minced shallots, one blade of mace, one inch of stick cinnamon, the thin rind of a lemon, a wine-glassful of mushroom ketchup, and a little salt. Stir the mixture over a gentle fire for ten minutes, strain it into a basin, let it get cold, skim it, and bottle for use. Time, ten minutes to simmer the sauce. Sufficient, a few drops will pleasantly flavour and colour half a pint of gravy. Wine Cakes (a Danish recipe).— Take three-quarters of a pound of flour, half a pound of fresh butter, half a pound of sugar, and a gill of white wine; mix these ingredients with the yolks of two eggs, knead all well, and roll it out. Cut with a glass into small cakes ; brush these over with white of egg, strew them with sugar-almonds or pounded cinnamon, and bake of a light colour. Wine Caudel.— Beat with a whisk the wliite of one egg and the yolks of eight. Stir into it a bottle of white wine, a pint of water, the peel of a lemon, and half a pound of lump sugar. Set the mixture on the fire, and keep stirring it. Remove it as soon as it boils. Pour the caudel into a bowl or small glasses. It should be eaten with sweet biscuit. Wine, Cherry (a French recipe).— Bruise together fifteen pounds of cherries not quite ripe, and two of currants ; add two-thirds of the cherry kernels. Put the whole in a small cask with a quarter of a pound of sugar to each quart of juice. Let the cask stand in sand, and cover the bung tightly while it is working, which will occupy nearly three weeks. The cask should be of the size just to hold the juice, or the latter must be made up in the above proportions to the size of the cask, as it is necessary it should be full. Carry on the fermentation in the usual manner as in grape or gooseberry wine. When the fermentation is over, bung up the cask, and in about two months the wine wiU be fit to be drawn off and bottled. Wine, Cherry, Red. — Take some ripe red cherries, press them, breaking the stones amongst the fruit, till you have obtained ten gallons of pure juice. Add twenty-four pounds of strong bright moist sugar, stir well, and let the liquor stand three days covered up, stirring twice every day. Press the fruit in a horse-hair bag, and add the result to the juice ; then mix well, and strain into a sweet cask, adding five pints of French brandy, the rinds of six lemons pared very thin, and an ounce of the best isinglass dissolved in a little water. Secure the bung tightly, and let the wine stand for six months in a cool cellar ; then rack it off, filter the lees perfectly fine, and put aU into the same cask again with three ounces of sugar-candy broken in large pieces. Fasten the bung as before, keep the wine eighteen months, and then bottle it. This excellent wine deserves keeping till it is very old.