During the canning season often a small quantity of rich juice will be left. If this is strained through a cloth and bottled boiling hot, it will make a splendid drink, diluted with water and served iced.
Before closing, let us consider some simple every day desserts that every little cook should know how to make. And first comes
For a small family, take a quart baking dish, cover the bottom with broken bread, sprinkle with raisins or currants, dot with tiny lumps of butter, and then repeat the process. Over this second layer pour a custard made by beating very light two eggs, adding two cups of milk, a pinch of salt, half a cupful of sugar, and a little grated nutmeg. Bake until a light brown on top, and serve with cream and sugar.
Butter thin slices of bread, line the bottom of the pudding dish, add a layer of sliced apples, sprinkle with sugar and cinnamon, and repeat these layers until the dish is full. Cover with a tin lid and bake twenty minutes, then remove lid and leave until brown on top. The cover is necessary to keep in the moisture, as the juice of the apples is the only liquid. Serve with cream and sugar, or hot sauce.
Cream one-third of a cup of butter with three-fourths of a cup of sugar, add one egg, beaten very light, one cup of milk, and two cups of flour sifted with two teaspoonfuls of baking powder. Stir thoroughly and bake in a shallow pan. Cut in squares and serve hot, with hot chocolate or lemon sauce.
Make a syrup by boiling for five minutes one cup of sugar with one-quarter cup of water and a teaspoonful of butter. Removing from the fire, add the strained juice of half a lemon.
Take one cup of flour, half a teaspoonful of salt, and one-half teaspoonful baking-powder, sifted well, half a cupful of sugar, and stir to a smooth batter with half cup of milk. Add one tablespoonful of melted butter, and two eggs, beaten light, then pour into a buttered pudding dish over two cupfuls of fresh fruit, either berries, sliced apples, bananas or peaches, and bake slowly half an hour. Serve immediately with hot pudding sauce, flavored with nutmeg.
Beat very light the yolks of three eggs, add one cup of sugar, half a cup of cold water, one and one-half cups of flour sifted several times with two scant teaspoonfuls of baking powder, flavor with half a teaspoonful of lemon extract, and lastly fold in the stiff whites. Bake in a sheet from thirty to forty minutes.