Strawberry Custard

Make a custard of one pint of milk, the yolks of three eggs, and four tablespoonfuls of sugar. Set it aside to cool. Beat the whites of the eggs until stiff, add to them four tablespoonfuls of powdered sugar, and beat again until stiff and white. Put about a pint of strawberries into a deep dish, pour over the custard, heap the whites in spoonfuls over the top, dust with sugar, place in the oven a moment to brown. Serve ice-cold.

Arrow-Root Custards

Scald two cupfuls of milk, and stir into it a heaping table-spoonful of arrow-root wet up with a little cold milk. Cook until it thickens; take from the fire and pour upon the yolks of two eggs, beaten smooth with four tablespoonfuls of sugar. Return to the fire., stir for two minutes, season to taste, and pour into custard-cups. Set these in a pan of hot water in the oven. Beat the whites of the eggs to a meringue with two tablespoonfuls of sugar, and when the cups have been three minutes in the oven, heap them with the meringue, sift powdered sugar over it, and leave in the oven to color lightly. Eat ice-cold.

Orange Custards

Take a pint of orange-juice into which the juice of one lemon has been squeezed. Put to it the yolks of six eggs very well beaten, a pound of granulated sugar, and the grated peel of one orange. Stir these over a slow fire till they are just ready to boil, then pour into custard-cups. Eat cold.

Strawberry Floating Island

Make a custard of a quart of milk, the yolks of five eggs, and a cupful of sugar. Cook until smooth, and when it is cool flavor it with lemon-juice. Beat the whites of the eggs stiff with three tablespoonfuls of powdered sugar, and into this whip the sweetened juice from a pint of crushed strawberries. Serve the custard, when ice-cold, in a glass dish with spoonfuls of the strawberry meringue floating on top. The meringue should not be made until just before it is to be eaten.

PLAIN FLOATING ISLAND is made as in the last recipe, but the meringue is flavored with vanilla, or other essence, or beaten up with fruit jelly of some kind. It is pretty when speckled by currant jelly, broken up just enough to leave red bits here and there in the stiffened whites.