bake them in the oven.  It is often customary to place in the centre of each cheese-cake a thin strip of candied peel.  As soon as the cheese-cakes are done, take them out of the oven, and if the mixture be of a bad colour finish it off with a salamander, but do not let them remain in the oven too long, so that the pastry becomes brittle and dried up.  These cheese-cakes can be made on a larger scale than the ordinary one so familiar to all who have looked into a pastry-cook’s window.  Suppose we make them of the size of a breakfast saucer, a very rich and delicious cheese-cake can be made by adding some chopped dried cherries to the mixture.  Sometimes ordinary grocer’s currants are added and the ratafias omitted.  Sultana raisins can be used instead of currants, and by many are much preferred.

This mixture can be baked in a shallow pie-dish and time edge of the dish lined with puff paste, but cheese-cakes made from curds are undoubtedly expensive.

CHEESE-CAKES FROM POTATOES.—­Exceedingly nice cheese-cakes can be made from remains of cold potatoes, and can be made very cheap by increasing the quantity of potatoes used.  Take a quarter of a pound of butter, four eggs, two fresh lemons, and half a pound of lump sugar.  First of all rub off all the outsides of two lemons on to the sugar; oil the butter in a tin in the oven and melt the sugar in it; squeeze the juice of the two lemons, and take care that the sugar is thoroughly dissolved before you begin to mix all the ingredients together.  Now beat up the eggs very thoroughly and mix the whole in a basin.  This now forms a very rich mixture indeed, a good-sized teaspoonful of which would be sufficient for the interior of an ordinary-sized cheese-cake, but a far better plan is to make a large cheese-cake, or rather cheese-cake pudding, in a pie-dish by adding cold boiled potatoes.  The plainness or richness of the pudding depends entirely upon the amount of potatoes added.  The pie-dish can be lined with a little puff paste round the edge, if preferred, or the pudding can be sent to table plain.  It should be baked in the oven till the top is nicely browned.  It can be served either hot or cold, but, in our opinion, is nicer cold.  If the lemons are very fresh and green—­if the pudding is sent to table hot—­you will often detect the smell of turpentine.  If a large quantity of potatoes is added more sugar will be required.

ORANGE CHEESE-CAKE.—­Proceed exactly as above, only substituting two oranges for two lemons.

ALMOND CHEESE-CAKES.—­Proceed exactly as above, only instead of rubbing the sugar on the outside of lemons add a small quantity of essence of almonds.

APPLE CHEESE-CAKES.—­Apple cheese-cakes can be made in a similar manner to apple custard, the only difference being that the mixture is baked till it sets.

CHAPTER XII.

STEWED FRUITS AND FRUIT ICES.