Surprising Food For April Fool’s Day.

Tomorrow is April Fools' Day, the day when you are entitled to play tricks (before midday only) on your friends and family. There is no rule that I am aware of that says these must be of the embarassing or cruel variety.

If you are a tender-hearted or generous soul you can still play a trick on on the fun people in your life by cooking a Surprise Recipe. We have already collected a few of them in previous stories.

Surprise Potatoes [on the Companion Site]
Rabbits Surprised, from The London Art of Cookery, by John Farley (1800)
Rabbit Surprise [WW II recipe from Marguerite Patten]
Eggs en Surprise [2 recipes, from 1832 and 1912]

Here are a few more for your enjoyment:

Chicken Surprize.
If a small Dish one large Fowl will do, roast it, and take the Lean from the Bone, cut it in thin Slices, about an inch long, toss it with six or seven Spoonfuls of Cream, and a Piece of Butter roll’d in Flour, as big as a Walnut. Boil it up, and set it to cool; then cut six or seven thin Slices of Bacon round, place them in a Petty-pan, and put some Force-meat on each side, work them up into the form of a French Roll, with raw Egg in your Hand, leaving a hollow Place in the Middle. Put in your Fowl, and cover with some of the same Forcemeat, rubbing them smooth with your Hand with a raw Egg; make them the Height and Bigness of a French Roll, and throw a little fine grated Bread over them; bake them three Quarters of an Hour in a gentle Oven, or under a Baking Cover, till they come to a fine Brown, and place them on your Mazarine, that they may not touch one another, but place them so that they may not fall flat in the baking; or you may form them on your Table with a broad Kitchen Knife, and place them on the Thing you intend to bake them on: You may put the Leg of a Chicken into one of the Loaves you intend for the Middle; Let your Sauce be Gravy thickened with Butter and a little Juice of Lemon. This is a pretty Side Dish for a First Course, Summer or Winter, if you can get them.
[From Hannah Glasse’s Art of Cookery Made Plain and Easy; 1747]

Surprise French Rolls.
Take some French rolls of bread, cut a slit in the side. Remove some of the crumb from the centre, and insert strawberry or raspberry cream mixed with whipped or Devonshire Cream.
[From The Gentle Art of Cookery, by Mrs. C.F. Leyel and Miss Olga Hartley; 1925]

(T.O.F suggests they may well be delicious filled with a chocolate cream instead.)

Have Fun!