Fasten on a dish a wooden bottom about an inch thick and cover it with white paper. Heat a medium-sized biscuit mold, grease it over with melted veal kidney suet mixed with melted butter, and turn it over to drain out all the fat, then glaze with sugar mixed with fecula. Beat up vigorously in a basin twelve egg-yolks with three-quarters of a pound of powdered sugar, having one-quarter of it grated on two mandarins, and add a grain of salt. When this preparation becomes creamy, incorporate into it ten or eleven beaten whites, and at the same time let fall into it through a sieve a pound of fine flour and fecula mixed together; carefully work without breaking, and with it fill the mold nearly to the top; surround the exterior of the top with a band of buttered paper, then lay it on a small baking sheet covered with a thick layer of hot cinders, and push it into a moderate oven to bake for one hour, carefully turning the baking sheet around at frequent intervals. On removing the biscuit from the oven detach it from the top, inserting a small knife around the edges, and unmold on a grate, and when perfectly cold cut the bottom off straight, then let it get stale for seven or eight hours.

Should the surface of the biscuit not be smooth, or else too brown, stand it upright on the grate and brush over entirely with apricot marmalade (No. 3675), then cover with raw vanilla icing (No. 102); when this is dry, cut a round piece from the cut side, about a quarter of an inch from the edge, remove this piece and empty out the biscuit as neatly as possible, not approaching the edges too closely. Cut across through the center about twelve small, fresh and sound mandarins; remove the insides neatly from the peel, keeping these as whole as possible, and lay them on one side; suppress the white pith and seeds from the fruit, and crush the pulp to rub it through a sieve; put this into a vessel and mix with it a few spoonfuls of champagne, some syrup, a small bunch of lemon peel and a few spoonfuls of calf's foot jelly (No. 104), sweetened and clarified; let infuse together for fifteen minutes. With a vegetable spoon (Fig. 91) scoop out all the white part from the halved mandarin peels, and lncrust them in a thick layer of pounded, slightly salted ice, suppressing the lemon peel from the preparation; thicken it lightly while stirring on ice, and with it fill the empty peels: brush them over with jelly and keep on ice for a quarter of an hour.

Open five or six oranges from the stalk end; with a tin tube empty them out entirely, suppressing all the white pith; incrust them in pounded, unsalted ice, and then fill them with clear jelly flavored with orange (Mo. 3180), alternated with layers of blanc-manage. (No. 3138), also flavored with orange; harden both of these preparations on ice. Now fill the empty biscuit with well-drained and sweetened whipped cream flavored with Curacoa and orange peel. Close the opening with the removed piece and dress on the center of the wooden bottom. Surround with the filled halved mandarins, and the base of the dish with the oranges cut in six, then cut off straight on one end so as to maintain them upright.

Fig. 598.