Chapter XIV: Preface (13)

BATTER PUDDING.--Having beaten eight eggs till very thick and smooth, stir them gradually into a pan of milk, in turn with eight table-spoonfuls of flour, added by degrees. Give the whole a hard stirring at last. Dip a square pudding cloth into hot water, shake it out, dredge it with flour, and spread it over the inside of an empty pan. Pour the pudding mixture into it. Gather up the cloth, leaving ample space for the pudding to swell in boiling, and securing the string tightly. Put the pudding into a large pot of boiling water, and boil it fast and steadily for two hours. Turn it with a large fork once or twice while boiling. When done, dip it for a moment in cold water, that you may turn it out easily. Send it to table hot, and eat it with any sauce you like, from molasses, or butter and sugar, to wine sauce. This, if exactly followed, is the very best receipt for a plain batter pudding. It may be made of corn meal, or wheat bread-crumbs, (eight table-spoonfuls to eight eggs, and one quart of milk.) Corn meal requires with it one or two spoonfuls of wheat flour for this pudding.

We cannot approve of boiling batter puddings in moulds, as they are rarely allowed sufficient space for swelling, and are therefore tough and solid. Also, it is frequently very difficult to get a hot pudding out of a mould.

The above pudding is very nice baked in the dripping pan under a piece of roast beef or veal.

FRITTERS.--Make the same mixture as for batter pudding. Eight eggs beaten very light and thick, and stirred gradually into a quart of milk, in turn with eight spoonfuls of flour; and, when all are united, beat the whole very hard. In a large frying-pan melt a pound of lard, and when it comes to a boil, put in with a large spoon a half tea-cupful of batter. Fry them fast, a panful at a time, and as they require no stirring they will soon be done. For the next panful, add half a pound more of lard, and see that it is boiling well all the time. If there is not enough of lard, or if it only simmers, the fritters will stick to the bottom, and be heavy, dark, and greasy. Send them to table "hot and hot," sprinkled with sugar. Eat them with sugar, cinnamon, and white wine. This is the best possible receipt for plain fritters.

ORANGE FRITTERS.--For frying fruit fritters use nice fresh butter. Peel, and cut into round slices (not very thin) some fine oranges, removing the seeds carefully. Put into each fritter (while frying) a slice of orange, and dredge with sugar. Eat them with sweetened orange juice. These are fritters for company.

PEACH FRITTERS.--Take large ripe free-stone peaches, the best you can get. Peel them, cut them in half, remove the stones, and put some loaf sugar into the cavities from whence you took them. Have ready, in a large frying-pan over the fire, an ample quantity of nice fresh butter, boiling fast. Put in the batter, and to every spoonful allow half a peach, laid on its back. When done take them up separately, and drain the butter back into the pan. Serve up the fritters dredged with white sugar. You may color these fritters pink by mixing in the batter a little prepared alkanet, the chips tied up in a thin muslin bag, and laid in a small saucer of sweet oil. Stir the colored oil into the batter; it has no taste, but the color is beautiful. Fritters may be colored green by mixing in the batter some of the juice obtained from pounded spinach leaves.

APPLE OR QUINCE FRITTERS.--Pare and core some pippin or bell-flower apples, or ripe quinces. Cut them into round slices, and fry one in every fritter. Eat them with sweetened lemon juice. You may make fritters with a large table-spoonful of any thick marmalade in the centre. Or, with a large fresh oyster in the middle of each. Or, with a table-spoonful of minced meat. These, also, are company fritters.

PANCAKES--Are very inferior to good fritters, and much more troublesome to bake. They are the same ingredients mixed thinner; are also fried in lard, and must be turned by tossing them over (one at a time) in the frying-pan.

JUNKET.--Having turned a quart of rich milk, by stirring into it a half tea-cupful of the water in which two or three square inches of rennet has been soaked for several hours, set the milk in a covered pitcher, in a warm place, till it becomes a firm curd, the whey separating from it, and looking thin and greenish. Keep it on ice till just before it is wanted for table. Then transfer it to a large bowl, and sweeten it well with white sugar. Mix in two glasses of sweet wine, and grate over it a nutmeg. It is very nice with extract of vanilla added to the wine, &c.

It is not a good way to preserve a rennet by cutting it into little pieces, and keeping it in wine, stirring the wine into milk when you wish to form a curd. If turned with rennet wine, the curd will never separate completely from the whey, which will therefore be always thick and whitish. By using rennet water, the whey will be pure, thin, and of a light green, and the curd very white and firm. In Philadelphia market, dried rennets (which will keep a year or two hanging up in a cool dry closet) are universally used to make curds, and are always to be bought at small prices. They are cured by salting them, and stretching on a bent rod. To use this rennet, cut off a small bit, and soak it several hours, or over night, in a cup of lukewarm water. Then stir this water into the milk.

MILK POTTAGE OR FARMER'S RICE.--Take some rich milk, and put it on to boil in a pot of sufficient size. When it has begun to boil, stir in, by degrees, enough of wheat flour to make it about as thick as the general consistence of rice milk, and boil it well, stirring it frequently down to the bottom. Add a few blades of mace, or some powdered cinnamon. Knead together some flour and fresh butter, forming a lump of white paste. Divide the paste into small round dumplings about the size of a cent, and put them to boil with the milk. When the pottage is well boiled, take it up, and transfer it to a tureen or deep white-ware dish, and make it very sweet with good brown sugar. Grate some nutmeg over the surface.

This is an excellent addition to a winter supper-table, and is much liked by children, for whom it is also good at the end of a plain dinner. As a substitute for rice milk, it is better and more wholesome than rice itself.

PLAIN RICE PUDDING.--Pick some rice, carefully removing from it the husks, and all impurities; and if you find it the least sour or musty, throw it away, and get some that is perfectly good. Wash it through two or three waters, till it drains off quite clean. Stir a quarter of a pound of this rice into a quart of good rich milk. If the milk is poor and thin, and has been skimmed till it is blue, or mixed with water, the pudding will be poor accordingly. In the country where cream is easily to be obtained, add some to the milk which you use for the rice pudding. Stir in also a quarter of a pound of good brown sugar, and a tea-spoonful of powdered cinnamon. Set the pudding into an oven, and bake till a brown skin covers the surface, and the rice is quite soft, which you may ascertain by lifting a bit of the brown skin from the edge and trying the rice. Eat it warm or cold. It is usual in the country to put several of these rice puddings into the oven on baking days.

They will be greatly improved by the addition of two or three beaten eggs, and a few bits of fresh butter, stirred in with the rice and sugar. Also powdered cinnamon. Rice is in itself so tasteless, that it requires good flavoring.

PLAIN BOILED RICE PUDDING.--Pick, wash, and drain a pound of rice. Moisten it with a quart of milk. Have ready a pound of seedless raisins. Dredge them well all over with flour to prevent their sinking. Stir them gradually into the rice and milk. Boil it in a cloth, leaving ample space for it to swell. Keep the water very hot all the time. Eat it with butter and sugar, seasoned with ground cinnamon.

RICE CUPS.--Boil in water, in the usual manner, a pound or more of cleaned rice till it is perfectly soft. Drain it well, and mix it with a quart of milk, seasoned with a mixed table-spoonful of powdered cinnamon and nutmeg or mace. Boil it a second time till all the grains are dissolved into a smooth mass, and their form cannot be distinguished. Mould it in large tea-cups, pint bowls, or blanc-mange moulds; and when it has taken the desired form, turn it out on dishes, and serve up with it a small tureen of wine sauce, or of boiled custard made very sweet, and seasoned, by boiling in the milk of which the custard was made a few peach leaves, or some bitter almonds broken up, or a broken-up stick of cinnamon, to be taken out when it is done.

BREAD PUDDING.--Grate or crumble as much stale wheat bread (omitting the crust) as will fill a pint bowl when done. Boil a pint of good milk with a broken-up stick of cinnamon in it. Strain the milk, and pour it (boiling) over the bread. Sweeten it with three large table-spoonfuls of sugar. Stir in one or two large table-spoonfuls of fresh butter. Beat four eggs till very thick and smooth, and add them, gradually, to the mixture, when it is lukewarm. It will be much improved by the grated peel and juice of a lemon or orange. Bake it in a deep dish or mould; sift white sugar over it. Eat it warm, with sweet sauce flavored with nutmeg.

BREAD AND BUTTER PUDDING.--Cut large even slices of yesterday's bread, (_leaving on_ the crust) and spread them well with fresh butter. Strew over them thickly half a pound of Zante currants, picked and washed. Make a batter of four beaten eggs and a large pint of milk, seasoned with powdered nutmeg or mace. Pour some of this batter into the bottom of a deep white dish. Then put on as many slices of bread and currants as will cover the bottom. Next, add the remainder of the batter, and finish with slices of bread and butter strewed with currants. Bake till the batter is set and firm. When done, serve it up warm.

A BROWN BETTY.--Pare, core, and slice thin some fine _juicy_ apples. Cover with the apples the bottom of a large deep white-ware dish. Sweeten them well with plenty of brown sugar; adding grated lemon or orange peel. Strew over them a thick layer of bread-crumbs, and add to the crumbs a _very few_ bits of fresh butter. Then put in another layer of cut apples and sugar, followed by a second layer of bread-crumbs and butter. Next more apples and sugar; then more bread-crumbs and butter; repeat this till the dish is full, finishing it with bread-crumbs. Bake it till the apples are entirely done and quite soft. Send it to table hot. It will be improved (if in the country at cider-making season) by adding to each layer of apples a very little sweet unfermented cider, fresh from the press.

This pudding is in some places called an Apple Pandowdy. We believe it is Brown Betty in the South; Pandowdy in the North. It is a good plain pudding if the butter is fresh and sweet, and not too much of it. The apples must be _juicy_ and _not_ sweet. Sweet apples never cook well.

SWEETENED SWEET POTATOS.--The sweet potatos should be all about the same size, or else so large as to require splitting. Boil them till, on probing them with a fork, you find them soft all through. Peel off the skin, and trim off the sharp points of each end. Place them in a large baking dish, and lay among them some pieces of fresh butter; sprinkle powdered sugar _profusely_ over them and among them, especially in the vacancies between the potatos. Set the dish into a moderate oven, and bake slowly till the butter and sugar are all melted and blended together, forming a nice crust. They should be eaten not with the meat, but _after_ it. They make a good supper or luncheon dish, and a plain dessert at dinner for plain-living people.

Sufficient butter and sugar will make the crust like a thick syrup, when broken. They should be cooked this way only when in the height of their season, and perfectly fresh and nice. When sweet potatos are old enough to decay at the ends, give them up. Large sweet potatos may be first boiled; then peeled and sliced thick, sprinkled thick with sugar, and fried in fresh butter or lard; the lard well drained from them as they are taken up. Eat _them_ with meat.

They are good boiled very soft, peeled and sent to table mashed, (while hot) with fresh butter--or made into thick flat cakes, and browned on the top.

It is a great waste to bake sweet potatos whole. If baked enough, (as they seldom are) they "go all to skin."

APPLE DUMPLINGS.--For dumplings the apples should be large and juicy--pippins, bellflowers, or the best you can get. Small sweet apples make very poor dumplings. Having pared the apples, extract the cores with a tin apple-corer, so as to leave them smooth and whole. Why is it that so many families "have never had an apple corer in their house?" They cost, at the utmost, but twenty-five cents, are to be had at all the tinsmiths' and furnishing stores; and they screw out an apple core in a minute; saving time and trouble. The apples being ready, make a nice paste in the proportion of a small pint of finely-minced suet, to a large quart of flour; one-half of the suet rubbed into the pan of flour, (adding _a very little_ water) the other half sliced thin, and spread all over the sheet of dough after it is rolled out; then folding it, and rolling it out again. Cut the sheet of dough in as many circular pieces as you have apples, allowing them large enough to close entirely over the top, and rolling it thick enough to hold the apple securely without danger of its breaking through. Put an apple on every piece of paste, and fill with brown sugar the hole from whence the core was taken. Squeeze on the sugar some fresh lemon juice, with the grated yellow rind; or, add some powdered nutmeg or mace, or some rose-water. This will make them very nice. They should be boiled in small cloths kept clean for the purpose, dipped in hot water, and sprinkled with flour, and room left for the dumpling to swell. Put them into a pot of boiling water, and boil them steadily for near an hour. Serve them up very hot, as they become heavy when cold. Eat with them butter and sugar, or cream sauce.

PEACH DUMPLINGS.--Take large fine free-stone peaches. Peel them, cut them in half, and extract the stones; fill the sockets with white sugar, and put the two halves together. Make a nice suet paste, or, if more convenient, of butter, but it must be quite fresh, and very nice. Allow half a pound of butter to a large quart (or a pound) of sifted flour. Rub half the butter into the pan of flour, and make it into a dough, with a very little cold water. Too much water always makes tough heavy paste. Then roll the paste into a sheet, and put on it with a knife the remainder of the butter in regular bits. Fold it, roll it out again, and divide it into circular pieces. Lay a peach on each. Gather up the dough over the top, so as to form a well-shaped dumpling. Boil them in cloths for full three-quarters of an hour or more. Eat them with cream sauce.

Dumplings of raspberries, or blackberries, may be made as above. Also, of gooseberries or currants, made very sweet. Quinces preserved whole make excellent dumplings.

APPLE PUDDINGS--Are made like large dumplings, with suet paste, and flavored with lemon, or rose, or nutmeg. The apples must be sliced. The pudding should be tied in a cloth; put into a pot of fast-boiling water, kept steadily boiling for two hours or more, and sweetened with brown sugar as soon as it is taken up, cutting a round piece of paste out of the top, and putting in with the sugar a small piece of fresh butter.

Large puddings may be made in this manner of stoned cherries, damsons, or plums, or of gooseberries, or currants--allowing plenty of fruit, and making it very sweet; besides sending sugar to table with it.

ROLLED PUDDING.--Have ready a quart or more of apples stewed with _very little_ water, sweetened with brown sugar, and flavored with lemon or rose. Prepare a nice suet paste. Roll it out, and cut it into a square sheet. Spread it _thickly_ with the stewed fruit, (not extending the fruit quite to the edges of the dough) and roll it up as far as it will go. Close it nicely at each end. Tie it in a cloth, dipped in hot water and floured, and put it into a fast-boiling pot. Boil it well. Cut it down in round slices. Eat it with butter and sugar beaten together, or with cream sauce. You may make this pudding of any sort of thick marmalade, spread over the sheet of paste; or, with ripe uncooked currants, raspberries, or blackberries, mashed raw, sweetened, and spread on thickly. This pudding is the same that common English people call a "Jack in a blanket;" and sometimes "a Dog in a blanket." The _blanket_ is supposed to mean the paste; the _dog_ is probably the fruit.

FRUIT POT-PIES.--These are made in a pot lined with paste, interspersed with small squares of the same dough, and covered with a paste lid. The filling is of dried apples, peaches quartered, blackberries, raspberries, ripe currants, or gooseberries; all well sweetened, and cooked in their own juice, with a small tea-cupful of water at the bottom to "start them." Both fruit and paste must be perfectly well done.

Fruit pot-pies are easier made and cooked, than fruit puddings or dumplings. We recommend them highly for plain tables. They require more sugar when they are dished. A large _bain-marie_ is excellent for cooking any sort of pot-pie, the water being all in the outside kettle.

PLAIN BAKED CUSTARD.--Boil a quart of milk, with a small bunch of green peach leaves in it, or a half dozen of peach kernels broken up. When the milk has boiled well strain it into a broad pan, and set it away to cool. In a shallow pan beat six eggs till very light, thick, and smooth. Stir them, gradually, into the milk, in turn with a tea-cup of white sugar, and a tea-spoonful of powdered cinnamon or mace. Transfer the mixture to a deep white dish, set it into the oven, and bake it till the top is well browned, but not scorched. When done, set it away to cool, and grate nutmeg over the surface.

BOILED CUSTARD.--Make exactly the above mixture; but instead of baking, boil it in a porcelain lined sauce-pan, stirring it all the time. As soon as it comes to a boil, take it immediately from the fire, or it will curdle. Put it into a glass or china pitcher, and set it to cool. A _bain-marie_ is excellent for boiled custard.

If custards are baked in cups, set them in an iron pan half full of warm water. If too hot, or kept baking too long, they will be tough and porous, and have whey at the bottom. So they will if the milk is warm when the eggs are added. Good custards will cut down to the very bottom as smooth and firm as the best blanc-mange.

APPLES BAKED WHOLE.--Never bake apples without paring and coring. They will be found nearly all skin and core, and are troublesome and inconvenient to eat. Have fine large apples; take off a thin paring, and extract the core with a tin corer. Fill up the holes with brown sugar. Place the apples, side by side, in a square tin pan, set them in an oven, and bake them till, when tried with a fork, you find them soft all through. Send them to table warm, but not burning hot. If you have country cream to eat with them, so much the better.

BAKED PEARS.--Take good-sized pears. Small ones are not worth the trouble of cooking. Peel them, split them in half, and remove the core, the stem, and the blossom end. Strew them well with brown sugar, and lay them on their backs in a large baking dish. A narrow slip of the yellow rind of lemon or orange, (cut so thin as to look transparent,) will be a great improvement, laid in the hollow of each pear. Also the juice squeezed. Put into the dish sufficient molasses or steam-syrup to well cover the pears. Place them in an oven, and bake them till they are soft, but not till they break. If you have no lemon or orange, season them with ground ginger or cinnamon.

The great pound pears are baked as above, with the addition of port wine and a few cloves, and colored red with a little cochineal.

COUNTRY CHARLOTTE.--Slice or quarter some fine juicy apples, having pared and cored them. Put them on a large dish, sweeten them well with brown sugar, set them in the oven, and bake them till soft enough to mash smoothly. Then cut some slices of bread, butter them slightly, and dip every one in sweet cider fresh from the press. Let them soak in the cider a short time, but not till they break. Take them out of the cider, spread every one thickly with the mashed apple, (sprinkling on more sugar) and send them to the dinner table in a deep dish or pan.

A PLAIN CHARLOTTE.--Stew very nicely any sort of ripe fruit, (currants, gooseberries, blackberries, stoned cherries, or stoned plums,) and as soon as you take them from the fire make them very sweet with brown sugar. Prepare some large slices of buttered bread, with the crust pared off. Cover each slice thickly with the stewed fruit. Lay some in the bottom of a deep dish, and stand up others all round its sides. Fill up the dish with the same, and sift white sugar over the surface.

It may be made of sliced sponge-cake, spread thickly with stewed dried peaches.

GOOSEBERRY FOOL.--This foolish name signifies an excellent preparation of gooseberries; stewed, mashed, and made very sweet with brown sugar. Have ready in another dish a good boiled custard. When all has become cool, mix well together in a large bowl the stewed gooseberries and the custard, and season the mixture well with nutmeg. It will be found very good.

Any other "fool" may be made in the same manner, of stewed fruit and boiled custard. It saves the trouble and expense of making paste, or can be prepared at a shorter notice. It is good either at dinner or tea.

We hope somebody will think of a better name for it.

POTATO PASTE.--Boil three moderate-sized potatos till very soft. Then peel and mash them fine and smooth. Put them into a deep pan, and mix them well with a quart of flour and a half pint of lard; or what is better, with that quantity of beef dripping, or the dripping of fresh roast pork. Never for any sort of crust use mutton dripping. Having mixed the mashed potato, dripping, and flour into a lump, roll it out into a thick sheet. Sprinkle it with flour, and spread over it evenly a thin layer of dripping or lard. Fold it again, and set it in a cool place till wanted. It is good for meat pies, and for boiled meat pudding, or any sort of dumplings.

VERY PLAIN PIE-CRUST.--Sift a quart of flour into a pan. Mix together, with a knife, a quarter of a pound of fresh butter, and a quarter of a pound of lard, and when they are well blended mix them with the flour, and form them into a dough with as little water as possible--the water being very cold. Use ice water in summer. Avoid touching the paste with your hands, but use a knife almost entirely. If your hand is warm, do not rub butter into flour with it, but manage all the mixing with a knife. If you have a cool hand, you may rub the butter into the flour, and reserve the lard to spread all over the sheet of dough. Roll it out lightly. Dredge with flour, fold it, spread on the lard, and roll it again. Divide it into two pieces, and roll out each of them. Trim the edges nicely, and make them to fit your pie-dish. If one is for bottom crust, roll it out thinnest towards the centre, having for this part of the process a very small rolling-pin, but a finger long. Grease with lard a deep dish, or soup plate, and line it with the bottom crust. Fill it up with the fruit you intend for the pie, sweetened well with brown sugar, and heaping the fruit high in the centre. Cover it with a lid of paste, trim, and notch the edges neatly, and make a cross slit in the top; set it in the oven, and bake it steadily till it is a light brown. When it seems to be done, lift up a small piece at one side to try if the fruit is soft. Apples for pies should be pared, cored, and sliced very thin. If green, stew them before they are baked.

If you have saved enough of the dripping of roast beef, veal, or pork, (skimmed and put away in a covered crock) it will be good shortening for common pies--far superior to salt butter, and much lighter. Salt renders pastry hard and heavy.

Never use suet for _baked_ paste. It is only for dumplings and pot-pies. Bread dough, or any dough made with yeast, is not good when boiled, becoming tough and leathery, and being very unwholesome.

Except in very plain country places a fruit pie, with two crusts, (under and upper) is now seen but rarely. _Meat_ pies, or birds, however, should have two crusts. The gravy is a great improvement to the under one. English people usually make their fruit pies with a top-crust only, putting a turned down tea-cup under the centre of the lid to collect the juice, (of course removing the cup when the pie is cut.) It is a good method in a country where the cost of flour is high.

Too much economy in the shortening will infallibly make the crust very poor, hard, heavy, and unwholesome. If you cannot afford dessert paste, do not attempt pies at all; but substitute a plain charlotte, or slices of bread and butter, covered with stewed fruit, sweetened, and laid in a deep dish.

COMMON FRUIT PIES.--Make the paste as above. For baking, use only apples that are juicy, and rather sour. If green, stew them before they are put in the pie, and make them very sweet with brown sugar. Peaches should be peeled and quartered, leaving out the stones. Of cherries, take the large red juicy pie cherries. Black cherries, (when baked) go all to stones, and they are not worth the trouble of cooking, though very good when eaten from the trees. Currants must be carefully stripped from the stems, and made very sweet. Gooseberries must be "top and tailed," and require great sweetening; so do cranberries. Blackberries make good plain pies, and are very juicy if ripe. All pies should be well filled.

Pies may be made of ripe wild grapes, stewed in molasses or maple sugar.

EXCELLENT PLAIN PASTE.--Sift into a deep pan a quart and a pint of the best superfine flour. Have ready (set on ice, and covered with a thick double cloth) a pound of the very best fresh butter. When you want to use it, cut it into four quarters. Cut one quarter into very little bits, and with a broad knife mix it well into the flour, adding, by degrees, a very little water, no more than half a tumbler. Some flour, however, requires more water than others. Avoid touching the dough with your hands, in case they should be warm. Take out the lump of dough, dredge it with flour, and lay it on your pasteboard. Keep on a plate near you a little extra flour for sprinkling and rolling. Roll out the sheet of dough very thin, having floured the rolling-pin to prevent its sticking. Place, with a knife, the second quarter of butter in little bits all over the sheet of paste, at equal distances. Then fold it square, (covering the butter with the corners of paste) dredge it, and roll it out again to receive the third quarter of butter. Repeat this again, till all the butter is in; always rolling very fast, and pressing on _lightly_. You will see, towards the last, the paste puffing into little blisters all over the surface; a sign of success. When the last layer of butter is all in, roll the whole into a large sheet; roll it round like a scroll, and put it away in a cold place, but not so cold as to freeze it, for it will then be spoiled. When you are ready for it bring it out, cut it down, and roll out each piece ready for use. There is no better family paste than this, for all sorts of pies; meat or bird pies, especially.

LEMON BREAD PUDDING.--Mince very fine a quarter of a pound of beef suet. Have ready a pint and a half of finely-grated bread-crumbs. Prepare the yellow rind of a large lemon, grated off from the white skin beneath, and squeeze the juice among it. Mix together in a deep pan the bread-crumbs and suet, adding four or five table-spoonfuls of powdered sugar, and a tea-spoonful of mixed spice, cinnamon, nutmeg and mace. Beat in a broad shallow pan five eggs till very smooth and thick. Add them gradually to the other ingredients, a little at a time. Have ready a square pudding-cloth, scalded and floured. Pour in the mixture, and tie the cloth tightly, but not closely, as room must be left for the pudding to swell in boiling. Put it into a pot of hot water, and boil it steadily for two hours. Send wine sauce to table with it--or cold sauce, of beaten butter, and sugar, and nutmeg.

If you use butter instead of suet, you can bake this pudding.

PLAIN PLUM PUDDING.--This is for a small plain-living family. Chop very fine half a pound of nice fresh beef suet. Stone a half pound of very good raisins, or use the sultana or seedless sort. Dredge them well on all sides with flour to prevent their sinking to the bottom. Grate the yellow rind of a large fresh lemon, and strain the juice into the saucer on which you have grated the rind. It will be still better if you use the rind and juice of an orange as well as of a lemon. Put into a bowl half a pint of grated bread-crumbs, and a heaped table-spoonful of flour, and pour on them a half pint of boiling milk. Beat in a shallow pan four eggs till very thick and light. Mix the suet gradually into the bread, adding alternately the beaten egg, (a little at a time) the lemon and orange, and four heaped table-spoonfuls of sugar. Lastly, stir in by degrees, the raisins, well floured. Put the mixture into a square pudding-cloth spread out into a deep pan, and dipped in boiling water. Tie it securely, leaving room to swell. Boil it three hours.

Eat with it a sauce of butter, sugar, and nutmeg, beaten together.

FINE DESSERTS.

THE BEST PUFF-PASTE.--To a pound of the best fresh butter allow a pound of the finest flour, sifted into a deep pan. Have on a plate some additional sifted flour for sprinkling and rolling in. Divide the pound of butter into four equal parts, and three of those parts divide again into two portions. Mix the first quarter of butter into the mass of flour, cutting it with a broad-bladed knife. If your hands are naturally warm, avoid touching the dough with them, as their heat will render it heavy. Paste, to be very good, should be made on a marble slab. All well-furnished kitchens or pastry rooms should be provided with marble-topped tables, and marble mortars. Add gradually to the lump of dough a _very little cold_ water, barely sufficient to moisten it with the first quarter of butter, and mix it well with the aid of the broad knife; but proceed as fast as you can, and do not work with it too long. Too much water will render it tough, and too much working will make it heavy. Then sprinkle the marble slab with some of the spare flour, take the lump of paste from the pan, and roll it out into a sheet. Divide one of the portions of butter into little bits, and with the knife disperse them equally all over the sheet of paste. Then sprinkle it again with flour, fold it up so as to cover the butter, and roll it out again. Proceed in this manner till you have got in all the butter, rolling always lightly, and you will soon see the surface of the dough puffing up in little blisters, a sign that it is becoming light. Besides the first mixing in the lump, the butter will then be put in with what are called six turns. When baked, you will see that every turn makes a layer or sheet. If you choose to multiply them, you may make nine sheets. We have seen twelve. All this must be done fast and lightly. Then put away the paste to cool for ten minutes before arranging it in the dishes. This quantity will make two pies or four tarts. In baking, let the oven be hot, and keep up a steady heat, so the paste may not fall after it has first risen. When pale brown, it is done.

SHELLS.--For shells take the best puff paste, and line with it large deep plates, the size of a soup-plate. They should have broad rims. Notch the edges of the paste handsomely with a sharp penknife, and be careful not to plaster on, afterwards, any bits by way of mending or rectifying an error. When baked, every patch in the border will show itself plainly. Bake the shells entirely empty, till pale brown all over. When cool fill them, _quite up the top_, with whatever marmalade or stewed fruit you have prepared for the purpose. In this way (baking them empty,) the shells are thoroughly done, and not clammy and heavy at the bottom, as they always are when filled _before_ baking. The fruit requires no other cooking, having been done once already. Sift white sugar over the surface. If for company whip some cream, sweeten it, and flavor it with lemon, orange, pine-apple, strawberry or vanilla, and pile it on the surface of the shell before it goes to table.

Small tarts may, in this way, be baked empty, for patty-pans, and filled with ripe fruit, such as strawberries, raspberries, or grated pine-apple, made very sweet, and creamed on the top--or you may fill the shells with any sort of sweetmeats, either preserves or marmalade, or with mince-meat. Shells may be made thus, and filled with stewed oysters, or reed-birds, cooked previously, and served up warm; or with nicely-dressed lobster. You may make lids for them of the same paste baked by itself on a shallow plate, and when taken off fitting well as a cover to put on afterwards before sending to table.

BORDERS OF PASTE.--These are made of fine puff-paste cut into handsome patterns, or wreaths of leaves or flowers. They are laid round the broad edge of the deep plate that contains a rich pudding, such as lemon, orange, almond, cocoa-nut, pine-apple, &c.; the dish being full down to the bottom and up to the top, and having no paste but the border round the edge. They must be baked in the dish on which they come to table, and not in tin or iron, as the pudding cannot be transferred. At handsome tables, a pudding baked with a paste _under_ it (lining the dish,) is now seen but seldom.

Instead of wreaths, you may make a puff-paste border by laying a thick evenly cut band of paste round the flat rim of the dish, and notching it, forming with a penknife small squares about an inch wide, and turning one square up and one square down alternately, _cheveux de frize_ fashion. Or you may make the squares near two inches wide and turn over one corner sharp, leaving the other flat. This looks pretty when baked, if the paste is _very puff_.

LEMON PUDDING.--To make two puddings take two fine large ripe lemons, and rub them under your hand on a table. Grate off the thin yellow rind upon a large lump of loaf sugar. Cut the lemon, and squeeze the juice into a saucer through a strainer, to avoid the seeds. Put half a pound of powdered white sugar into a deep earthen pan, (including the sugar on which you have rubbed the lemons) and cut up in it half a pound of the best fresh butter, adding the juice. Stir them to a light cream with a wooden spaddle, which is shorter than a mush-stick, and flattened at one end; that end rather thin, and rather broad. Beat in a shallow pan, (with hickory rods) six eggs, till very thick and smooth, and stir them gradually into the mixture. Have ready some of the best puff-paste, made in the proportion of a pint or half a pound of very nice fresh butter to a pint or half a pound of sifted flour. Take china or white-ware dishes with broad rims. Butter the rim, and lay round it neatly a border of the paste. _Put no paste inside the dish beneath the mixture._ Fill each dish to the top with the pudding mixture, and set it immediately into the oven. It will bake in about half an hour When done, and browned on the surface, set it to cool, and send it to table in the dish it was baked in.

Fine puddings are now made without an under crust, but merely a handsome border of puff-paste laid round the edge, and helped with the pudding. Sift sugar over the surface. This quantity will make one large pudding, or two small ones.

To almost all puddings the flavor of lemon or orange is an improvement. A genuine _baked_ lemon pudding, (such as was introduced by the justly celebrated Mrs. Goodfellow,) and is well known at Philadelphia dinner parties, must have _no flour_ or bread whatever. The mixture only of butter, sugar, and eggs, (with the proper flavoring) and when baked it cuts down smooth and shining, like a nice custard. Made this way, they are among the most delicious of puddings; but, of course, are not intended for children or invalids. We have already given numerous receipts for _plain_ family desserts. In this _chapter_ the receipts are "for company." The author was _really_ a pupil of Mrs. Goodfellow's, and for double the usual term, and while there took notes of every thing that was made, it being the desire of the liberal and honest instructress that her scholars _should learn in reality_.

ALMOND PUDDING.--Blanch in hot water a quarter of a pound of shelled sweet and two ounces of bitter almonds, and as you blanch them throw them into a bowl of cold water. When all are thus peeled, take them out singly, wipe them dry in a clean napkin, and lay them on a plate. Pound them one at a time in a marble mortar till they become a smooth paste, adding frequently a few drops of rose-water to make them light and preserve their whiteness, mixing the bitter almonds with the sweet. As you pound them, take out the paste and lay it in a saucer with a tea-spoon. Without the rose-water they will become oily and dark-colored. Without a few bitter almonds the others will be insipid. The almonds may be thus prepared a day before they are wanted for use. Cut up a large quarter of a pound of fresh butter in a large quarter of a pound of powdered sugar, and stir them together with a spaddle till very light and creamy. Add a large wine-glass of mixed wine and brandy, and half a grated nutmeg. Beat, till they stand alone, the whites only of six eggs, and stir them gradually into the butter and sugar, in turn with the pounded almonds. Stir the whole very hard at the last. Put the mixture into a deep dish with a broad rim, and fill it up to the top, laying a border of puff-paste all round the rim. Serve up the pudding cool, having sifted sugar over it.

_Boiled Almond Pudding_--Is made as above; only with whole eggs, both yolks and whites beaten together. Boil it in a _bain-marie_ or in a thick square cloth, in a pot of boiling water. When done, turn it out and send it to table warm. Eat it with sugar, wet with rose-water.

_Orange Pudding_--Is made exactly like lemon pudding; the ingredients in the same proportion, and baked without an under crust, having a border of puff-paste all round the edge, and sent to table in the dish it was baked in. These fine-baked puddings should have no addition whatever of bread-crumbs or flour. They should cut down smooth and glassy.

_Boiled Lemon or Orange Pudding_--Make the foregoing mixture either with two lemons or two oranges, adding to the other ingredients a half pint finely-crumbled sponge cake. Boil the mixture either in a _bain-marie_ or a thick pudding cloth, and serve it up warm. For sauce, have ready butter and sugar beaten to a cream, and flavored well with lemon or orange, and grated nutmeg.

COCOA-NUT PUDDING.--Break up a ripe cocoa-nut. Having peeled off the brown skin, wash all the pieces of nut in cold water, and wipe them dry on a clean napkin. Then grate the cocoa-nut _very fine_ into a pan, till you have a quart. In a deep pan cut up a quarter of a pound of fresh butter, and add a very light quarter of a pound of powdered white sugar. Stir together (with a spaddle,) the butter and sugar till they are very light and creamy, and add a grated nutmeg. Beat, (till they stand alone) the _whites only_ of six eggs; the yolks may be reserved for soft custards. Stir the beaten white of egg gradually into the pan of butter and sugar, alternately with the grated cocoa-nut, a little at a time of each, and a glass of mixed brandy and white wine. Stir the whole very hard. Fill with it a broad-edged deep white dish, and lay a puff-paste border all round the rim. Bake it light brown, and when cool sift white sugar over it, serving it up in the dish it was baked in.

_Boiled Cocoa-nut Pudding._--For this make the above mixture, and boil it in a mould, or in a _bain-marie_, with the water in the outside kettle. Eat it either warm or cold.

SWEET POTATO PUDDING.--Wash, boil, and peel some fine sweet potatos. Mash them, and rub them through a coarse sieve--this will make them loose and light. If merely _mashed_ the pudding will clod and be heavy. In a deep pan stir to a cream a quarter of a pound of fresh butter, and a quarter of a pound of powdered sugar; adding a grated nutmeg, a tea-spoonful of powdered cinnamon, a half glass of white wine, and a half glass of brandy. Beat in a shallow pan three eggs, till very thick and smooth, and stir them into the mixture of butter and sugar, alternately with the sweet potato. At the last mix all thoroughly with a very hard stirring. Put the mixture into a deep dish, and lay a border of puff-paste all round the rim. Set the pudding immediately into a rather brisk oven, and when cool sift white sugar over it. For two of these puddings _double_ the quantities of all the ingredients.

_White Potato Pudding_--Is made exactly as above. Chestnut pudding also--the large Spanish chestnuts, boiled, peeled, and mashed.

_Fine Pumpkin Pudding_--Also, allowing to the above ingredients a half pint of stewed pumpkins, squeezed dry and rubbed through a sieve.

_Cashaw Pudding._--A similar pudding may be made of stewed cashaw, or winter squash.

PINE-APPLE TART.--Take a fine large ripe pine-apple. Remove the leaves, and quarter it without paring, standing up each quarter in a deep plate, and grating it down till you come to the rind. Strew plenty of powdered sugar over the grated fruit. Cover it, and let it rest for an hour. Then put it into a porcelain kettle, and steam it in its own syrup till perfectly soft. Have ready some empty shells of puff-paste, baked either in patty-pans or in soup plates. When they are cool, fill them full with the grated pine-apple; add more sugar, and lay round the rim a border of puff-paste.

QUINCE PIES.--Wash well, pare, and core some fine ripe quinces, having cut out all the blemishes. Put the cores and parings into a small sauce-pan, and stew them in a little water, till all broken to pieces. Then strain and save the quince water. Having quartered the quinces, or sliced them in round slices, transfer them to a porcelain stew-pan, and pour over the quinces water extracted from boiling the cores and parings. Let them cook in this till quite soft all through. Make them very sweet with powdered sugar, and fill with them two deep soup plates that have been baked empty, with a puff paste border round the rims. Fill them up to the top, (they are already cooked) and sift sugar over them--or, you may pile on the surface of each some ice-cream. You may cook the quinces whole, and lay one on each tart.

FINE APPLE PIES--May be made in the same manner, flavored with the grated yellow rind and juice of a lemon. The apples should be fine juicy pippins. If done whole, lay one on each patty-pan tart, and stick into the core hole a slip of the yellow rind of lemon, pared so thin as to be nearly transparent.

A MERINGUE PUDDING.--Rub off upon a large lump of _sugar_ the yellow rind of two fine ripe lemons, and mix it with a pound of powdered loaf sugar, adding the juice. Whip, to a stiff froth, the _whites only_ of eight eggs; and then, gradually, beat in the sugar and lemon, adding a heaped table-spoonful of the finest flour. Spread part of the mixture thickly over the bottom of a deep dish, the rim of which has been bordered with a handsome wreath of puff-paste, and baked. Lay upon it a thick layer of stiff currant or strawberry jelly. Then fill up the dish, and set it, a few minutes in a rather cool oven to brown slightly. This pudding is for dinner company. If you use oranges, omit half the grated peel.

You may flavor the meringue with vanilla. Split, and break up a small vanilla bean, and boil it in a _very little_ cream till all the vanilla flavor is extracted, the cream tasting of it strongly. Then strain it well, and mix the vanilla cream with the white of egg. Or, a little _home-made_ extract of vanilla will be still better. This is obtained by splitting and breaking up some vanilla beans, and steeping them for a week or two in a bottle of _absolute_ alcohol; then straining the liquid, transferring it to a clean bottle, and keeping it closely corked. Very little of what is called "Extract of Vanilla" is good, and it is more expensive than to make it yourself. Also, what is generally sold for essence of lemon is very inferior to real lemon juice.

JELLY OR MARMALADE PUDDING.--Divide the paste equally and line two puff-paste shells. Bake them empty; and while baking, beat till very light and thick, the yolks of six eggs. Mix the beaten egg with a liberal portion of any nice kind of fruit, jelly or marmalade, and boil it ten minutes in a sauce-pan, stirring it well. Take it up and set it away to cool. When cold, fill with it the baked shells. Fill them up to the top with the mixture, and before they go to table sift powdered white sugar over the surface of the puddings.

CHEESE PUDDING.--Take a quarter of a pound of excellent cheese; rich, but not strong or old. Cut it in small bits, and then beat it (a little at a time) in a marble mortar. Add a quarter of a pound of the best fresh butter. Cut it up, and pound it in the mortar with the cheese, till perfectly smooth and well mixed. Beat five eggs till very thick and smooth. Mix them, gradually, with the cheese and butter. Put the mixture into a deep dish with a rim. Have ready some puff-paste, and lay a broad border of it all round the edge, ornamenting it handsomely. Set it immediately into a moderate oven, and bake it till the paste is browned, and has risen very high all round the edge of the dish. Sift white sugar over it before it goes to table.

It is intended that the cheese taste shall predominate. But, if preferred, you may make the mixture very sweet by adding powdered sugar; it may be seasoned with nutmeg and mace. Either way is good.

It may be baked in small patty-pans, lined at the bottom and sides with puff-paste. Remove them from the tins as soon as they come out of the oven, and place them on a large dish.

This pudding is very nice made of rich fresh cream cheese; the rind, of course, being pared off. Cream cheese pudding will require sugar and spice--that is, a heaped tea-spoonful of powdered nutmeg, mace, and cinnamon, all mixed; two ounces of fresh butter, and six eggs.

FLORENDINES.--These are made of any sort of fruit, stewed in its own juice or in sweetmeat syrup, but when practicable, without any water. A pint of this fruit is mixed with half a pint of fresh butter, and half a pint of powdered sugar stirred together to a light cream, and then mixed with three well-beaten eggs, and the fruit stirred in alternately with the beaten butter and sugar. Have ready baked shells of puff-paste, ready to be filled with the mixture. The fruit may be apples, quinces, peaches, gooseberries, currants, raspberries. Cranberries, gooseberries, and currants, require additional sugar, as they are naturally very sour. If you use plums or cherries for any sort of cooking, stone them first.

PEACH PIES.--Take a sufficient number of fine juicy freestone peaches. Clingstones are very hard and insipid when raw, and still more tasteless when cooked. Peel the peaches and quarter them, having removed the stones. Stew them in their own juice, and while hot make them very sweet with white sugar. When you put them to stew, place among them a bunch of fresh green peach leaves, to be removed when the peaches are done. Or, cook with them some peach kernels, blanched in hot water, to be picked out when the stewing is finished. Peach leaves or kernels communicate a flavor which to most persons is pleasant. Have ready some puff-paste shells; baked, and beginning to cool. Fill them to the top with the stewed peaches, and pile on them some whipped cream sweetened, and flavored with noyau or rose-water.