The home cook book

CREAM HORNS Roll out puff paste until it is very thin. Then cut it in long strips and wind it round floured irons or sticks, which must be round. Wind the paste so that its edges will meet. Or if you prefer wrap it so that it will have a corkscrew form. Bake until thoroughly done, and when the paste is cold slip it from the forms. Fill in with flavored whipped cream, or with preserves or jellies. To glaze the horns brush with the white of an egg, dust with sugar, and set in the oven till the glaze forms. [See illustration, Plate XXVIII.] FIG TARTS Put one pint of figs in a pint of hot water and let them gently stew almost three hours and a half. Use an earthenware or porcelain-lined saucepan. If the water boils out add enough hot to keep the figs stewing. When nearly cooked add a cup of sugar, and when you take from the stove add the juice of a good-sized lemon. Have ready some tiny shells of puff paste and into these drop the figs. If you wish to cap the figs with whipped cream, drop a spoonful on each fig filling. But the tarts will be rich enough without the cream. PASTRY FRUIT CAKES Roll pastry scraps left from making pies or puffs into a thin sheet and spread thick with chopped dates, raisins, nuts. figs, or any such fruits you have at hand. Lay another thin sheet of the pastry over the filHng, press Hghtly, cut into shapes with a biscuit or sandwich cutter, and bake till a golden brown. PUFF PASTE PATTIES [See Illustration, Plate XXVIII.] Wash half a pound of butter in a bowl of ice water till it becomes elastic and creamy. Put it into a long strip and lay it on ice- Sift half a pound of flour three times, adding half a teaspoon of salt, and then add gradually half a cup of ice water. Mix well. Work the dough by slapping it on your mixing board or marble paste slab, and use your rollingpin to pound it till it blisters. Chill the dough by laying it near ice for fifteen or twenty minutes. Next put it on your board and make it in a form a trifle larger and wider than the strip of cold butter. Lay on the strip of butter evenly and fold the flour dough over upon it, folding all four sides of the dough upon the butter. Upon a little sprinkled flour turn over the dough so that the butter side will be down, and roll out carefully. Do not break the dough and let the butter out. Fold the flat sheet threefold and set it by ice a quarter of an hour to chill. Next roll twice, fold again, and again put by ice to chill. Repeat the last directions. Finally roll out and chill before cutting into patties. Brush the under piece of the patty with ice water. Cut a piece the size of a half dollar out of the second piece, then lay the piece on the first and brush all with the yolk of a beaten egg. Set the patties near ice for an hour. Then bake in the lower part of a hot oven from twenty to thirty minutes. Puff paste scorches easily, and must be carefully baked. It is put in the hot oven thoroughly chilled, and the sudden change of temperature helps to puff it up. But if the oven is too hot, the paste browns before it puffs, and so becomes heavy and not puff paste at all, but a brown, greasy crust. This paste is used for holding all kinds of fruit preserves, and also creamed oysters, sweetbreads, and chicken. XXXII