Part 27

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.