soaked up, strew sifted sugar over, and pour in the dish a rich custard. Ornament the top of the cake by sticking a light flower in the centre, or bits of clear currant jelly; or, sweet almonds blanched and split.
Crême Patisserie.
Boil a quart of new milk with cinnamon and lemon peel. Rub a heaped table-spoonful of flour quite smooth with a little cold milk; stir the boiled milk, by degrees, into it; add 5 eggs, and sugar to taste. Stir it over a slow fire till it thickens; pour it into a dish, and stir it slowly a few minutes. Flavour with vanilla, orange-flower water, ratafia, or brandy. This is flavoured with tea or coffee, in the following manner: put a heaped table-spoonful of green tea into the milk, boil it up, cover the saucepan, simmer it a few minutes, then strain it. This will give a strong flavour of tea. For coffee: make a breakfast-cupful of very strong coffee, and put it into the milk just before it boils: use no other flavouring ingredient, and sweeten the cream sufficiently.—Or: boil in a pint of thin cream, the peel of a large lemon grated or pared very thin, sugar to taste, and a very small piece of cinnamon. Work up a table-spoonful of flour with the juice of the lemon; pour the boiling cream to it, by degrees, and stir it over the fire till the flour is cooked; pour it into a dish, and stir slowly till nearly cold; garnish with candied sweetmeats.
Chocolate Cream.
Boil a quart of cream, having first scraped into it 1 oz. scented chocolate; add nearly ¼ lb. lump sugar, and 8 whites of eggs; whisk well, and, as the froth rises, take it off, and put into glasses.
A Plain Cream.
Boil together, or separately, a pint of cream and a pint of new milk, with lemon peel, cinnamon, and sugar to taste; then add 12 sweet and 3 bitter almonds, pounded to a paste, with a little rose water, also a table-spoonful of rice flour rubbed smooth in cold milk; scald it, pour into a jug to cool. Serve in glasses, or a glass dish.
