Apple Tart And Custard

Place a border of rich puff-paste around the pie-dish and put in some apples pared, cored and cut into thin slices; sprinkle over them a little sugar and grated rind of lemon. Mix a little lemon-juice with some water, pour it over the apples and cover with a crust of paste. Place in the oven, baking for about three-quarters of an hour, then remove and with a sharp knife cut away all the inside of the crust, leaving merely the border. Pour over the apples a little boiled custard, grate over a little nutmeg and allow the tart to cool, and serve.

Apple Open-Tart

Place the quantity of apples to be used in a saucepan after peeling, coring and slicing them, and add a little sugar and water together with a small quantity of lemon-peel and grated nutmeg. Cook gently until the apples are quite tender, then put the mixture in a basin to cool. Cover a shallow pie-dish lined with rich puff-paste with the mixture to a depth of about half an inch. Then place on top more of the paste rolled out into strips running from side to side to the edge of the crust. Trim and bake in a moderate oven until done, which is known by the crust being easily separated from the dish. Turn out carefully onto another dish, and serve.

Cranberry Tart

Put about a quart of cranberries into a saucepan with one gill of water, sprinkle over one teacupful of moist sugar, place it on a brisk fire, stir gently with a spatula, and cook for about fifteen minutes. Remove from the fire, rub the fruit through a sieve into a basin, and pour it into a flat dish lined with paste. Put it in the oven and bake for twenty minutes, take out and let it cool. Beat to a stiff froth the whites of three eggs, and stir in three ounces of powdered sugar; spread half of this over the tart, make the surface flat with a knife, place the remainder in a pastry-bag, and decorate with any design. Then sprinkle over a liberal quantity of powdered sugar, brown the tart in the oven for about ten minutes, allow it to get cold, and then serve.

Cream Tart

Put one quart of milk into a saucepan, flavor it with vanilla, place it over the fire, stir in gradually four tablespoonfuls of the finest sifted flour, sweeten to taste with caster-sugar, and continue stirring over the fire until thick. When ready, move the cream to the side of the fire, and stir in the beaten yolks of six eggs, taking care to keep the mixture free from lumps. Rub one-half pound of butter into one pound of flour till quite smooth, and add the beaten yolk of three eggs, and sufficient milk to make a stiff paste. Sprinkle a little flour over the table, roll the paste out, stick about two ounces of butter over it in little pieces, fold over, and leave again for half an hour, then beat the paste again with a rolling-pin, dust it over with a little more flour, and roll it out. Butter a tart-dish, line it with the paste and pour in the prepared cream, using the trimmings of the paste to make a rim to the tart and strips across. Brush the paste over with a feather or a fine brush dipped in the beaten yolk of an egg, and bake in a quick oven. Serve either cold or hot.

Chocolate Cream Tarts

Boil a pint of milk with one ounce of grated chocolate and a little sugar. Mix two ounces of flour with a quarter of a pound of sugar, and beat them in the boiling milk, then add one ounce of butter and four yolks of beaten eggs, removing the pan before the eggs are cooked. Line tart-pans with tart-paste, fill with the chocolate cream, and bake in a slack oven. Whip the whites of the eggs, add two tablespoonfuls of powdered sugar, and make a meringue. Squeeze this from a bag over the tops of the tarts, and brown.

Currant Tart

Place three breakfast cupfuls of thoroughly cleaned currants in a basin with four ounces of powdered sugar. Line a tart-dish with paste and spread over it a tablespoonful of apple sauce; place the currants and sugar over this, put a rim of paste round the edge of the dish and moisten with beaten egg on both sides before putting it on, fasten it securely at the ends, put the dish in a moderate oven and bake for about fifty minutes. Take it out, sprinkle the surface well with powdered sugar, return it to the oven to melt the sugar, take out again, spread over some sweet jelly, and serve.

Gooseberry-And-Cream Tarts

Line some small patty-pans with puff paste and bake them gently in the oven; turn them out when done, half fill them with well-whipped cream and cook for a few minutes until the cream is firm, put ripe gooseberries glazed with syrup over the top, and serve either warm or cold.