The Pattern cook-book

This is made with the ingredients mentioned in the preceding recipe. While the milk in the boiler is heating, have ready the whites of the eggs stiffly, beaten, and place them by spoonfuls on the boiling milk, placing no more than can easily float. Cook two minutes, turn each spoonful of eggs and cook the other side two minutes also ; then lift the eggs from the milk upon a skimmer, and place them in a wide, shallow dish. Put more spoonfuls of the raw eggs in the milk, and repeat the same process until all the egg has been cooked. These pieces are the "islands." When all are cooked, send the milk through a strainer, measure it, add sufficient more to make one pint, and return it to the boiler to heat. When scalding, make a soft custard with the yolks of the eggs, as in the preceding recipe. Pour the custard under the eggs, place the whole in the ice-chest, and serve as cold as possible. MERINGUE CUSTARD. This is made the same as soft custard. When the custard is made, set it aside in a rather small dish to cool, .Beat the whites of the eggs stiff, add to them two tablespoonfuls of powdered sugar, and stir well. Heap the eggs on a plate about the size of the top of the dish in which the custard was placed, and stand it in the oven in a good heat to brown delicately. When brown loosen the meringue from the plate, and slide it off gently on top of the custard. Serve very cold with sponge-cake. SOFT CUSTARD WITH CORN-STARCH. One pint of milk. Two eggs (yolks). One-half cupful of sugar. One table-spoonful of corn-starch. One tea-spoonful of vanilla. One-quarter tea-spoonful of salt. Place two table-spoonfuls of the cold milk with the corn-starch, and stir well. Beat the yolks light, add the same quantity of milk to them, stir until smooth, and then place them with the dissolved corn-starch. Set the rest of the milk on the fire in a double boiler, and when it is scalding, stir in the mixture of egg and corn-starch. Cook three minutes, season, and set aside to cool. Custard with corn-starch is not hard to make, as there is little or no danger of its breaking. BAKED CUSTARD. Four eggs. One quart of milk. One-half tea-spoonful of salt. Two-thirds cupful of sugar. One-quarter of a nutmeg, grated. Beat the eggs, both yolks and whites, well together, and add to them the milk, stirring it in by degrees ; then put in the salt. Stir the nutmeg into the sugar, and add this also, beating well. Let the whole stand ten minutes until the sugar is dissolved ; then pour the mixture into a small pudding-dish, and bake. Baked custard should never boil, but the heat should be moderate. When a knife-blade inserted in the custard will come from it clear and not milky, the custard has baked enough. This custard may also be cooked in cups made for the purpose. Set the cups in a pan of boiling water, and place the pan in the oven, baking the custard in this way. When done, lift the cups from the water, and set them away to cool. When the nutmeg is mixed with the sugar, it will be found evenly distributed through the milk, and will not all float on top. CUSTARD SoufflL This makes a delicious dessert, but is rather an expensive one. It is served hot and admits of no delay after it is cooked.