Soyer's standard cookery

Remove skins from six bananas and cut in halves lengthwise. Put in a shallow granite pan or on an old platter. Mix two tablespoonfuls melted butter, one-third cupful sugar, and two tablespoonfuls lemon juice. Baste bananas with one-half the mixture. Bake twenty minutes in a slow oven, basting during baking with remaining mixture. Baked Bananas. (Another Method.) Arrange bananas in a shallow pan, cover, and bake until skins become very dark in color. Remove from skins, and serve hot sprinkled with sugar. Sautéd Bananas. Remove skins from bananas, cut in halves lengthwise and again halved. Dredge with flour, and saute in clarified butter. Drain, and sprinkle with powdered sugar. Baked Peaches. Peel, cut in halves, and remove stones from six peaches. Place in a shallow granite pan. Fill each cavity with one teaspoonful sugar, one-half teaspoonful butter, a few drops of lemon juice, and a slight grating of nutmeg. Cook twenty minutes, and serve on circular pieces of buttered dry toast. Baked Pears. Wipe, quarter and core six pears. Put in a deep puddingdish, sprinkle with sugar or a little molasses, then add water to prevent pears from burning. Cover, and cook two or three hours in a very slow oven. Baked Quinces. Wipe, quarter, core, and pare eight quinces. Put in a baking-dish, sprinkle with three-fourths of a cupful of sugar, add one and one-half cupfuls water, cover, and cook until soft in a slow oven. Quinces require a long time for cooking. Cranberry Sauce. Pick over and wash three cupfuls cranberries. Put in a stewpan, add one and one-fourth cupfuls sugar and one cupful boiling water. Cover, and boil ten minutes. Care must be taken that they do not boil over. Skim and cool. Cranberry Jelly. Pick over and wash four cupfuls of cranberries. Put in a stewpan with one cupful boiling water, and boil twenty minutes. Rub through a sieve, add two cupfuls sugar, and cook five minutes. Turn into a mold or glasses. Stewed Prunes. Wash and pick over prunes. Put in a saucepan, cover with cold water, and soak two hours; then cook in same water until soft. When nearly cooked, add sugar or molasses to sweeten. The addition of a small quantity of lemon juice is a great improvement. Rhubarb Sauce. Peel and cut rhubarb into one inch pieces. Put in a saucepan, sprinkle generously with sugar, and add a small quantity of water to prevent rhubarb from burning. Rhubarb contains such a large percentage of water that but little additional water is needed. Cook until soft. If rhubarb is covered with boiling water, allowed to stand five minutes, then drained and cooked, less sugar will be required. Rhubarb is sometimes baked in an earthen pudding-dish. If baked slowly for a long time it has a rich red color. Pears, Border of. Take four pounds of small stewing pears, one pound of loaf sugar, four ounces of castor sugar, two ounces of butter, six sponge cakes, four whole eggs, two yolks of eggs, the grated rind of one lemon, two inches of cinnamon, two gills of milk, carmine or cochineal.