Part 25

Butter a deep dish, and put a layer of the chopped apple at the bottom; sprinkle with sugar, a few bits of butter, and cinnamon; cover with bread-crumbs; then more apple. Proceed in this order until the dish is full, having a layer of crumbs at top. Cover closely, and steam three-quarters of an hour in a moderate oven; then uncover and brown quickly.

Eat warm with sugar and cream, or sweet sauce.

This is a homely but very good pudding, especially for the children’s table. Serve in the dish in which it is baked.

APPLE BATTER PUDDING. ✠

1 pint rich milk. 2 cups flour. 4 eggs. 1 teaspoonful salt. ¼ teaspoonful soda, dissolved in hot water.

Peel and core eight apples carefully, and range them closely together in a deep dish. Beat the batter very light and pour over them. Unless the apples are very ripe and sweet (for tart apples), fill the centre of each with white sugar. Bake an hour, and eat hot with sweet sauce.

APPLE AND PLUM PUDDING.

¾ lb. fine tart apples, pared and chopped. ¾ lb. sugar. ¾ lb. flour. ½ lb. beef suet, rubbed fine. ¾ lb. raisins, seeded and chopped. 6 eggs. 1 teaspoonful nutmeg and the same powdered cloves. 1 teaspoonful salt. ½ glass brown Sherry and the same of brandy.

Stir the beaten yolks and sugar very light, add the suet and apples with the spice; then the raisins, well dredged with flour; next the flour, and when this is all in, the liquor; lastly the whites beaten _very_ stiff. Bake in two buttered moulds, in a moderate oven, an hour and a half at least. Eat hot, with sauce.

You may boil this pudding if you like.

APPLE AND TAPIOCA PUDDING. ✠

1 teacupful tapioca. 6 apples—juicy and well-flavored pippins—pared and cored. 1 quart water. 1 teaspoonful salt.

Cover the tapioca with three cups of lukewarm water, and set it in a tolerably warm place to soak five or six hours, stirring now and then. Pack your apples in a deep dish, adding a cup of lukewarm water; cover closely and steam in a moderate oven until soft all through, turning them as they cook at bottom. If the dish is more than a quarter full of liquid, turn some of it out before you pour the soaked tapioca over all. Unless your apples are _very_ sweet fill the centre with sugar and stick a clove in each, just before you cover with the tapioca. Indeed, I always do this. It softens the hard acid of the fruit. Bake, after the tapioca goes in, one hour.

Eat warm, with sweet hard sauce.

BAKED APPLE DUMPLINGS. ✠

1 quart flour. 2 tablespoonfuls lard—or half butter is better. 2 cups of milk. 1 teaspoonful soda, dissolved in hot water. 2 teaspoonfuls cream-tartar sifted into the dry flour. 1 saltspoonful salt.

Chop the shortening into the flour after you have sifted this and the cream-tartar together; put in the soda and wet up quickly—just stiff enough to roll into a paste less than half an inch thick. Cut into squares, and lay in the centre of each a juicy, tart apple, pared and cored; bring the corners of the square neatly together and pinch them slightly. Lay in a buttered baking-pan, the joined edges downward, and bake to a fine brown. When done, brush over with beaten egg, and set back in the oven to glaze for two or three minutes. Sift powdered sugar over them, and eat hot with rich sweet sauce.

I greatly prefer the above simple crust for all kinds of dumplings, to the rich paste which becomes heavy so soon as it begins to cool. It is also more quickly and easily made, and far more wholesome than pastry.

TAPIOCA PUDDING. ✠

1 cup tapioca. 1 quart milk. 5 eggs—whites and yolks beaten separately. 2 tablespoonfuls butter, melted. 2 tablespoonfuls sugar.

Soak the tapioca, in enough cold water to cover it, two hours; drain off the water, if it be not all absorbed; soak two hours longer in the milk, which should be slightly warmed. When the tapioca is quite soft, beat the sugar and butter together; add the yolks, the milk and tapioca, lastly the whites. Stir very well, and bake in a buttered dish. Eat warm with sweet sauce.

You may make a sago pudding in the same way.

CORN-STARCH PUDDING. ✠

4 tablespoonfuls corn-starch. 1 quart milk. 4 eggs—whites and yolks separate. ¾ cup sugar. Nutmeg and cinnamon. 1 tablespoonful butter.

Dissolve the corn-starch in a little cold milk, and having heated the rest of the milk to boiling, stir this in and boil three minutes, stirring all the time. Remove from the fire, and while still very hot, put in the butter. Set away until cold; beat the eggs very light—the sugar and seasoning with them, and stir into the corn-starch, beating thoroughly to a smooth custard. Turn into a buttered dish, and bake half an hour. Eat cold, with powdered sugar sifted over it.

CORN-STARCH MÉRINGUE. ✠

5 eggs. 1 quart of milk. ¾ cup sugar. 4 teaspoonfuls corn-starch. ½ cup fruit-jelly or jam.

Heat the milk to boiling, and stir in the corn-starch, which has previously been dissolved in a little cold milk. Boil fifteen minutes, stirring all the while. Remove from the fire, and while still hot, add gradually the yolks of the eggs beaten up with the sugar and seasoned with vanilla, lemon, or bitter almond. Pour this into a buttered pudding-dish and bake fifteen minutes, or until the custard begins to “set.” Without withdrawing it further than the door of the oven, spread lightly and _quickly_ upon this a méringue of the whites whipped up stiff with a half-cup jelly—added gradually. Use crab-apple jelly, if bitter almond has been put into the custard; currant, for vanilla; strawberry or other sweet conserve, if you season the custard with lemon. Bake, covered, for five minutes. Then remove the lid, and brown the méringue _very_ slightly.

Eat cold, with powdered sugar sifted thickly over the top.

ARROW-ROOT PUDDING

Is made according to either of the foregoing receipts, substituting arrow-root for corn-starch. Farina pudding also.

BREAD PUDDING. ✠

1 quart of milk. 2 cups of fine bread crumbs—_always_ stale and dry. 4 eggs. 2 tablespoonfuls melted butter. Nutmeg to taste. ¼ teaspoonful soda dissolved in hot water.

Beat the yolks very light, and having soaked the bread-crumbs well in the milk, stir these together; then the butter and seasoning, with the soda; lastly the whites. Bake to a fine brown, and eat hot with pudding-sauce.

This, if well mixed and baked, is quite a different dish from the traditional and much-despised bread-pudding of stingy housekeepers and boarding-house landladies. “Which,” says an English Josh. Billings, “nothing can be more promiskus than a boarding-house bread-pudding.” Try mine instead, putting all the sugar into the sauce, and enough there, and you will cease to sneer.

You may boil this pudding, if you like, in a floured cloth or buttered mould.

FRUIT BREAD PUDDING. ✠

1 quart milk. 5 eggs. 2 tablespoonfuls melted butter. 2 tablespoonfuls (heaping) sugar. ¼ lb. raisins, seeded and chopped. ¼ lb. currants, well washed and picked over. Handful of shred citron, and 1 teaspoonful soda, dissolved in hot water. 2 _scant_ cups fine bread-crumbs, from a stale loaf.

Beat the yolks light with the sugar, add the bread-crumbs when they have been well soaked in the milk, and stir until smooth. Next put in the fruit, well dredged with flour, the soda, and finally the whites, whipped to a stiff froth.

This will require longer and steadier baking than if the fruit were not in. Cover it if it threatens to harden too soon on top. Send to table hot in the dish in which it was baked, or turn out very carefully upon a hot plate. Eat warm, with pudding-sauce.

BREAD-AND-BUTTER PUDDING.

4 eggs. 3 cups milk. ¾ cup sugar. Vanilla or other extract. Nutmeg to taste. Bread and butter.

Cut thin slices of bread (stale), spread thickly with butter, and sprinkle with sugar. Fit them neatly and closely into a buttered pudding-dish until it is half full. Lay a small, heavy plate upon them to prevent them from floating, and saturate them gradually with a hot custard made of the milk, heated almost to boiling, then taken from the fire, and the beaten eggs and sugar stirred in with the seasoning. Let the bread soak in this fifteen minutes or so, adding by degrees all the custard. Just before you put the pudding in the oven, take up the plate gently. If the bread still rise to the top, keep down with a silver fork or spoon, laid upon it from the side of the dish, until the custard thickens, when slip it out. Eat cold.

BREAD-AND-MARMALADE PUDDING ✠

Is made precisely as above, except that each slice is spread with marmalade or jam besides the butter.

Either of these puddings is good boiled.

ALICE’S PUDDING. ✠

1 quart of milk. 4 eggs. 1 cup very fine dry bread-crumbs. ½ cup strawberry or other sweet jam. ½ cup sugar.

Butter a pudding-dish; sprinkle the bottom with bread-crumbs; pour over these half a cup jam, and cover this well with the rest of the crumbs, wet with a very little milk. Heat the quart of milk until _near_ boiling, take it from the fire and add, gradually, the beaten yolks and sugar, stirring in the beaten whites lightly at the last. Heat this by degrees, stirring constantly until it begins to thicken; put it, spoonful by spoonful, upon the layer of bread-crumbs, taking care not to disturb these, and when all is in, bake until well “set” and very slightly browned.

Eat cold. Cream is a delicious accompaniment to it.

THE QUEEN OF PUDDINGS. ✠

1½ cup white sugar. 2 cups fine dry bread-crumbs. 5 eggs. 1 tablespoonful of butter. Vanilla, rose-water, or lemon seasoning. 1 quart fresh rich milk, and one half cup jelly or jam.

Rub the butter into a cup of sugar; beat the yolks very light, and stir these together to a cream. The bread-crumbs, soaked in milk, come next, then the seasoning. Bake this in a buttered pudding-dish—a large one and but two-thirds full—until the custard is “set.” Draw to the mouth of the oven, spread over with jam or other nice fruit-conserve. Cover this with a méringue made of the whipped whites and half a cup of sugar. Shut the oven and bake until the méringue begins to color.

Eat cold, with cream.

You may, in strawberry season, substitute the fresh fruit for preserves. It is then truly delightful.

CRACKER PUDDING. ✠

1 quart milk. 1 cup powdered cracker. 5 eggs. 2 tablespoonfuls melted butter. ½ teaspoonful soda—dissolved in boiling water.

Heat the milk slightly, and pouring it over the cracker, let them stand together fifteen minutes. Stir into this first the beaten yolks, then the butter and soda; beat all smooth and add the whipped whites.

Eat hot, with pudding sauce.

DORCHESTER CRACKER PLUM PUDDING.

2 quarts milk. 6 Boston crackers—split and buttered. 8 eggs—beaten very light. 2 cups sugar. Nutmeg, cloves, and cinnamon to taste. 1 teaspoonful of salt. 1 lb. raisins, seeded and cut in two.

Make a custard of the milk, eggs, and sugar, seasoned with the spices, by heating the milk _almost_ to boiling, then taking it from the fire and adding gradually the yolks, sugar, seasoning, and whites. Do not boil it again. Butter a pudding-dish; put a layer of crackers in the bottom, moistening with a few spoonfuls of the hot custard. On this lay some of the raisins—a thick stratum; cover with crackers—the buttered side downward; moisten with the custard, and proceed in this order until your crackers and fruit are used up. Pour in custard until only the top of the upper layer is visible, but not enough to float them; cover closely and set in the cellar over night. In the morning add the rest of the custard, at intervals of five or six minutes between the cupfuls.

Bake two hours in a moderate oven. Cover with paper if it should seem likely to harden too fast.

Eat hot, with sauce.

CRACKER SUET PUDDING. ✠

¼ lb. beef suet, freed from strings, and powdered. 1 cup fine cracker-crumbs. 2 tablespoonfuls sugar. 4 eggs. 3 cups milk. Pinch of soda. 1 teaspoonful salt.

Beat the yolks with the sugar; add to these the milk in which the cracker has been soaked for half an hour; work into a smooth paste before putting in the suet and soda. Whip the whites in last, and bake nearly, if not quite an hour. Cover, should the crust form too rapidly. Eat hot, with wine sauce.

You may also steam or boil this pudding.

FRUIT CRACKER PUDDING.

1 cup powdered cracker soaked in one pint of milk. ¼ lb. beef suet, cleared from strings and powdered. ½ lb. raisins, seeded and cut in two. ¼ lb. currants, washed and dried. 3 oz. almonds. 5 eggs. ½ cup sugar. 1 teaspoonful nutmeg, and same of cinnamon. Rose-water to taste.

Blanch the almonds and cut with a sharp knife into thin shavings. Beat the yolks with the sugar until light and thick; mix in the cracker and milk; the suet and the fruit well dredged; the spice and rose-water; then the whipped whites, finally the almonds.

Bake in a buttered mould one hour and a half. Turn out and eat with wine sauce.

_Or,_

Boil in a well-buttered mould. In this case, blanch, but do not cut the almonds, and do not stone the raisins. Butter the mould so thickly that you can stick the almonds to the sides in regular rows, alternately with rows of whole raisins. Put in the mixture gently, not to disturb these; cover the mould and boil or steam three hours. Treated in this way, it makes a pretty-looking pudding. It is palatable in any shape.

CRACKER AND JAM PUDDING.

3 eggs. ½ cup cracker-crumbs. ½ cup sugar. 1 tablespoonful butter. 1 teacup milk. ½ lemon—juice and grated rind. 3 tablespoonfuls jam.

Soak the cracker in the milk; rub the butter and sugar together, adding the lemon, and beating to a cream; then stir in the beaten yolks; next the cracker and milk; lastly, the whites. Butter a deep dish, and put the jam, which should be pretty stiff, at the bottom. Fill up with the mixture, and bake about half an hour.

Eat cold, with sugar sifted over the top.

RICE PUDDING (_Plain._) ✠

1 coffee-cup rice. 2 quarts milk. 8 tablespoonfuls sugar. 1 teaspoonful salt. Butter the size of an egg—melted. Nutmeg and cinnamon to taste.

Wash and pick over the rice, and soak in one pint of the milk two hours. Then add the rest of the milk, the sugar, salt, butter and spice. Bake two hours, and eat cold.

RICE AND TAPIOCA PUDDING. ✠

½ cup rice. ½ cup tapioca. ¾ cup sugar. 3 pints milk. Cinnamon to taste.

Soak the tapioca in a cup of the milk three hours; wash the rice in several waters, and soak in another cup of milk as long as you do the tapioca. Sweeten the remaining quart of milk; put all the ingredients together, and bake two hours in a slow oven. Eat cold.

RICE PUDDING WITH EGGS. ✠

1 quart milk. 4 eggs. ½ cup rice. ¾ cup sugar. 1 tablespoonful butter. Handful of raisins, seeded and cut in two.

Soak the rice in a pint of the milk an hour, then set the saucepan containing it where it will slowly heat to a boil. Boil five minutes; remove and let it cool. Beat the yolks, add the sugar and butter, the rice and the milk in which it was cooked, with the pint of unboiled; the beaten whites, and finally the raisins. Grate nutmeg on the top, and bake three-quarters of an hour, or until the custard is well set and of a light brown. Eat cold.

RICE-FLOUR PUDDING.

2 quarts of milk. ½ lb. rice flour. 1 cup sugar. 6 eggs. 1 tablespoonful butter. 1 small teaspoonful nutmeg. 2 teaspoonfuls vanilla or rose-water. 1 lemon—juice of the whole, and half the grated rind.

Heat the milk to a boil, and stir in the rice-flour wet to a smooth paste with a little cold milk; boil until well thickened, stirring all the time. Take from the fire, and while still hot stir in the butter, the yolks beaten light with the sugar, the lemon, nutmeg, and the whites of three eggs. Mix well, and bake in a buttered dish three-quarters of an hour. Just before you take it up, draw to the mouth of the oven and cover with a méringue of the remaining whites, beaten stiff with two tablespoonfuls powdered sugar, and flavored with vanilla or rose-water. Bake until the méringue begins to brown. Sift sugar on the top and eat cold.

BATTER PUDDING. ✠

1 pint of milk. 4 eggs—whites and yolks beaten separately. 2 even cups flour. 1 teaspoonful salt. 1 pinch of soda.

Bake in a buttered dish three-quarters of an hour. Serve in the pudding-dish as soon as it is drawn from the oven, and eat with rich sauce.

_Or,_

You may boil it in a buttered mould or floured bag, flouring it _very_ thickly. Boil two hours, taking care the boiling does not cease for a moment until the pudding is done.

BATTER PUDDING (_No. 2._)

1 quart milk. 10 tablespoonfuls flour. 7 eggs. 1 teaspoonful salt. ½ teaspoonful soda, dissolved in hot water. 1 teaspoonful cream-tartar, sifted into the flour.

Wet the flour gradually with the milk to a very smooth paste; next add the beaten yolks, then the salt and soda, lastly the whites, whipped to a stiff froth. Bake in a buttered dish for an hour, and serve at once. Eat hot, with sauce.

If you boil it, leave plenty of room to swell in the bag, and boil two hours.

COTTAGE PUDDING. ✠

1 cup of sugar. 1 tablespoonful of butter. 2 eggs. 1 cup sweet milk. 3 cups flour, or enough to make a tolerably stiff batter. ½ teaspoonful of soda. 1 teaspoonful cream-tartar, sifted with the flour. 1 teaspoonful salt.

Rub the butter and sugar together, beat in the yolks, then the milk and soda, the salt, and the beaten whites, alternately with the flour. Bake in a buttered mould; turn out upon a dish; cut in slices, and eat with liquid sauce.

This is a simple but very nice pudding.

GERMAN PUFFS. ✠

3 cups flour. 3 cups milk. 3 eggs—whites and yolks beaten separately and _very_ light. 3 teaspoonfuls melted butter. 1 saltspoonful salt.

Pour in nine well-buttered cups of same size as that used for measuring, and bake to a fine brown. Eat as soon as done, with sauce.

CUP PUDDINGS.

4 eggs. The weight of the eggs in sugar and in flour. Half their weight in butter. 2 tablespoonfuls milk. ¼ teaspoonful soda, dissolved in hot water.

Rub the sugar and butter together; beat the yolks light, and add then the milk and soda; lastly the flour and beaten whites alternately. Fill six small cups, well buttered, and bake twenty minutes, or until a nice brown. Eat warm.

LEMON PUDDING. ✠

1 cup of sugar. 4 eggs. 2 tablespoonfuls corn-starch. 2 lemons—juice of both and rind of one. 1 pint milk. 1 tablespoonful butter.

Heat the milk to boiling, and stir in the corn-starch, wet with a few spoonfuls of cold water. Boil five minutes, stirring constantly. While hot, mix in the butter, and set it away to cool. Beat the yolks light, and add the sugar, mixing very thoroughly before putting in the lemon juice and grated rind. Beat this to a stiff cream, and add gradually to the corn-starch milk, when the latter is cold. Stir all smooth, put in a buttered dish, and bake. Eat cold.

LEMON MÉRINGUE PUDDING (_very nice._)

1 quart milk. 2 cups bread-crumbs. 4 eggs. ½ cup butter. 1 cup white sugar. 1 large lemon—juice and half the rind, grated.

Soak the bread in the milk; add the beaten yolks, with the butter and sugar rubbed to a cream, also the lemon. Bake in a buttered dish until firm and slightly brown. Draw to the door of the oven and cover with a méringue of the whites whipped to a froth with three tablespoonfuls of powdered sugar, and a little lemon-juice. Brown very slightly; sift powdered sugar over it, and eat cold.

You may make an orange pudding in the same way.

COCOANUT PUDDING.

½ lb. grated cocoanut. ½ cup stale sponge cake, crumbed fine. 1 cup sugar. 1 _large_ cup rich milk—cream, if you can get it. 6 eggs. 2 teaspoonfuls vanilla, or rose-water.

Cream the butter and sugar, and add the beaten yolks. When these are well mixed, put in the cocoanut; stir well before adding the milk, cake-crumbs, flavoring; and lastly, the whites of three eggs. Whip the other whites stiff with three tablespoonfuls of powdered sugar; flavor with vanilla, and just before taking the pudding from the oven, spread this méringue over the top, and close the oven until the icing is slightly browned.

Bake in all three-quarters of an hour.

ORANGE MARMALADE PUDDING. ✠

1 cup fine bread-crumbs. ½ cup sugar. 1 cup milk or cream. 4 eggs. 2 teaspoonfuls butter. 1 cup orange or other sweet marmalade.

Rub the butter and sugar together; add the yolks well beaten, the milk, bread-crumbs, and the whites whipped to a froth. Put a layer of this in the bottom of a well-buttered mould, spread thickly with some pretty stiff marmalade—orange is nicest—then another layer of the mixture, and so on until the mould is full, having the custard mixture at top. Bake in a moderate oven about an hour, turn out of the mould upon a dish and serve, with sweetened cream or custard.

MACARONI PUDDING. ✠

1 cup macaroni broken into inch lengths. 1 quart milk. 4 eggs. ½ lemon—juice and grated peel. 2 tablespoonfuls butter. ¾ cup sugar.

Simmer the macaroni in half the milk until tender. While hot stir in the butter, the yolks, well beaten up with the sugar, the lemon, and lastly the whipped whites. Bake in a buttered mould about half an hour, or until nicely browned.

VERMICELLI PUDDING

May be made according to the foregoing receipt.

NEAPOLITAN PUDDING.—(_Very fine._) ✠

1 large cup fine bread-crumbs soaked in milk. ¾ cup sugar. 1 lemon—juice and grated rind. 6 eggs. ½ lb. stale sponge-cake. ½ lb. macaroons—almond. ½ cup jelly or jam, and one small tumbler of Sherry wine. ½ cup milk poured upon the bread-crumbs. 1 tablespoonful melted butter.

Rub the butter and sugar together; put the beaten yolks in next; then the soaked bread-crumbs, the lemon, juice, and rind, and beat to a smooth, light paste before adding the whites. Butter your mould _very_ well, and put in the bottom a light layer of dry bread-crumbs; upon this one of macaroons, laid evenly and closely together. Wet this with wine, and cover with a layer of the mixture; then with slices of sponge-cake, spread thickly with jelly or jam; next macaroons, wet with wine, more custard, sponge-cake, and jam, and so on until the mould is full, putting a layer of the mixture at the top. Cover closely, and steam in the oven three-quarters of an hour; then remove the cover to brown the top. Turn out carefully into a dish, and pour over it a sauce made of currant jelly warmed, and beaten up with two tablespoonfuls melted butter and a glass of pale Sherry.

A plain round mould is best for the pudding, as much of its comeliness depends upon the manner in which the cake and macaroons are fitted in.

It is a pretty and good pudding, and will well repay the trifling trouble and care required to manage it properly.

It is also nice boiled in a buttered mould.

RHUBARB PUDDING.

Prepare the stalks as for pies; cover the bottom of a buttered pudding-dish with slices of bread and butter; cover with the rhubarb cut into short pieces; sprinkle abundantly with sugar; then put on another layer of bread and butter, and so on until your dish is full. Cover and steam, while baking, for half an hour. Remove the lid and bake ten minutes, or until browned.

Eat with hot sauce.

GOOSEBERRY PUDDING. ✠

1 pint ripe or nearly ripe gooseberries. 6 or 8 slices toasted stale bread. 1 cup milk. ½ cup sugar. 1 tablespoonful butter, melted.