PUDDINGS AND CUSTARDS.

Plum-pudding, with Rum or Brandy (Gouffé).

Take three-quarters of a pound of chopped suet, three-quarters of a pound of stoned raisins, three-quarters of a pound of currants, quarter of a pound of citron, three-quarters of a pound of sugar, three-quarters of a pound of bread-crumbs, two apples cut into small dice, and the grated peel of a lemon; mix the whole in a basin, with three pounded cloves, a pinch of salt, six eggs, and half a gill of rum or brandy. Butter a pudding-mold, fill it with the mixture, and tie a cloth over the top. Place a plate at the bottom of a kettle which is three-parts full of boiling water. Put the pudding in, and boil for four hours, keeping the pot replenished with boiling water. Turn out the pudding on a hot dish; sprinkle over it sugar. Pour over half a pint of warm rum or brandy, and light it when putting the pudding on the table.

German Sauce.—Made with eight yolks of eggs, quarter of a pound of sugar, three gills of Madeira, and the grated peel of half a lemon. Stir it over the fire until the spoon is coated. Serve in a boat. Or serve a common brandy sauce, or the same kind of sauce flavored with rum, if rum should be used in the pudding.

Plum-pudding (Mrs. General Sherman).

Ingredients: One cupful of butter, one cupful of sugar, half a cupful of cream, half a cupful of rum, one cupful of ale, one cupful of suet (chopped), one cupful of fruit (currants and raisins), half a cupful of candied orange cut fine, six eggs well beaten, two grated nutmegs, one tea-spoonful of ground cinnamon, half a tea-spoonful of ground cloves, bread-crumbs.

Beat the butter and sugar together to a cream. The bread-crumbs should be dried thoroughly, and passed through a sieve. Beat all well together before adding the bread-crumbs, then add enough of them to give proper consistency. Put the pudding into a tin mold (not quite filling it), and boil it four hours.

The Sauce.—Use equal quantities of butter and sugar. Cream the butter, then add the sugar, beating them both until very light. Add then the beaten yolk of an egg, and a little grated nutmeg. Heat on the fire a large wine-glassful of sherry wine diluted with the same quantity of water, and when just beginning to boil, stir it into the butter and sugar.

Pudding with Remains of Plum-pudding.

Line a charlotte mold or basin with slices of cold plum-pudding, cut so that they will fit closely together. Fill the inside with a sufficient quantity of gelatine pudding (see page 272). Set it in a cool place to stiffen. Turn out the charlotte on a dish, with a brandy sauce on the bottom.

Plainer Fruit Pudding.

Ingredients: One cupful of sugar, one-quarter of a pound of raisins, one cupful of butter, one half-pound of English currants, three and a half cupfuls of flour, a little citron sliced, four eggs, the whites and yolks beaten separately. Put one tea-spoonful of saleratus with, one half-cupful of cream. Flour the raisins, currants, and citron before adding to the mixture.

Boil it three hours in a floured cloth, or in buttered forms, large or small. Pour some brandy on top, and set it on fire just before taking to the dining-room. Serve with brandy-sauce.

Suet-pudding (Mrs. Gratz Brown).

Ingredients: One cupful of suet chopped fine, one cupful of molasses, one cupful of sweet milk, one cupful of raisins, one tea-spoonful of salt, one small tea-spoonful of soda mixed in the molasses, three and a half cupfuls of flour.

Boil in a bag or form three hours; or, better, steam it. It may be steamed in tea-cups, filling them a little more than half full. Serve with brandy-sauce.

Prune-pudding (Grace Greenwood).

This is the same as the suet-pudding, excepting that one half-pound of prunes and one half-pound of English currants are substituted for the raisins.

Eve’s Pudding (Mrs. Frank Blair).

Ingredients: Six ounces of bread-crumbs, six ounces of sugar, six ounces of raisins or currants, six ounces of butter cut in small pieces, or beef suet chopped fine, six large apples chopped, one table-spoonful of flour, six eggs, one table-spoonful of cinnamon, one tea-spoonful of ground cloves.

Flour the fruit. Mix eggs and sugar together, and the suet and apples; then mix all, adding the beaten whites of the eggs the last thing. Boil it in a form or bag three hours, or bake it two hours. Serve with brandy-sauce.

A Spiced Apple-pudding.

Ingredients: Three tea-cupfuls of bread-crumbs, three tea-cupfuls of apples chopped, one tea-cupful of sugar, one-quarter of a pound of raisins, perhaps a little citron, two table-spoonfuls of brandy, one table-spoonful of ground cinnamon, half a tea-spoonful of ground cloves, one tea-spoonful of mace, two or three eggs beaten separately.

Cook the bread-crumbs a few minutes with a pint of milk before adding the other ingredients; add the whites of the eggs the last thing before baking. Bake half an hour, if the oven is quite hot. Serve with any sweet sauce.

Cottage-pudding.

Ingredients: One cupful of sugar, one and one-half cupfuls of flour, one table-spoonful of butter, one half-cupful of milk, two eggs beaten separately, one tea-spoonful of baking-powder, or one half-tea-spoonful of soda, and one tea-spoonful of cream of tartar. Brandy or wine sauce.

Minute-pudding.

Ingredients: One quart of milk, salt, two eggs, about a pint of flour.

Beat the eggs well; add the flour and enough milk to make it smooth. Butter the saucepan, and put in the remainder of the milk well salted; when it boils, stir in the flour, eggs, etc., lightly; let it cook well. It should be of the consistency of thick corn mush. Serve immediately with the following simple sauce, viz., milk sweetened to taste, and flavored with grated nutmeg.

Nantucket Berry-pudding.

Ingredients: One pint of grated cold boiled potatoes, one pint of flour, one quarter of a pound of butter, one tea-spoonful of salt, and almost any kind of berries.

Wet these with milk or water to the consistency of soft biscuit-dough; roll it; spread with blackberries, raspberries, cherries, or stewed dry berries. Roll, fasten in a cloth, and steam it an hour and a quarter. Serve with any sweet pudding-sauce.

Gelatine-pudding (Miss Colby, of Rochester).

Separate the whites and yolks of four eggs. With the yolks make a boiled custard (with a pint of milk, and sugar to taste). Set a third of a box of gelatine to soak a few minutes in a little cold water, then dissolve it with three-fourths of a cupful of boiling water. When the custard has cooled, add the gelatine water and the whites of the eggs beaten to a stiff froth; flavor with vanilla, stir all together, and put it into a mold or molds. It will settle into three layers, and is a very pretty pudding, tasting much like a charlotte-russe. A pretty effect can be obtained by using Coxe’s pink gelatine.

Tapioca-pudding.

Pare and core (with a tube) six or seven apples; lay them in a buttered dish. Pour over a cupful of tapioca or sago one quart of boiling water; let it stand an hour; add two tea-cupfuls of sugar, a little lemon, vanilla, or wine; pour this over the apples, and bake an hour. Peaches (fresh or canned) may be substituted, and are an improvement.

Tapioca Cream.

Soak a tea-cupful of tapioca overnight in milk. The next day, stir into it the yolks of three eggs well beaten and a cupful of sugar. Place a quart of milk on the fire, let it come to the boiling-point, and then stir in the tapioca, and let the whole cook until it has thickened; then take it off the fire, and stir in the whites of the eggs beaten to a froth. Flavor to taste. A small portion of the beaten whites of the eggs can be saved to decorate the top. Stir into the latter a little sugar, put it into a paper funnel, press it out over the top of the pudding according to fancy, and place it in the oven a few moments to color.

Cabinet-pudding (Mrs. Pope).

Butter a mold well; line the bottom with raisins and with citron cut into fancy shapes; cover this with pieces of cake, then more raisins and citron, alternating with the cake, until the mold is full to within an inch and a half of the top. Mix in a bowl three table-spoonfuls of sugar and the yolks of three eggs until they are a cream; then mix in slowly a pint of milk just brought to the boiling-point. Pour this over the cake, etc., in the mold. Put this into a pan of cold water, so that the water may cover one-third of the mold. Set it over the fire until the water boils; then put the whole into the oven to bake an hour. Serve with wine-sauce.

Batter-puddings Baked.

Ingredients: One quart of sifted flour, butter the size of an egg, one pint of milk, half a tea-spoonful of salt, four eggs.

Scald the milk, and melt the butter in it. When partly cooled, stir in the yolks of the eggs well beaten, then the salt and flour. When quite cold, stir in lightly the whites of the eggs beaten to a stiff froth. Bake in rather large patty-pans. Serve immediately with a sauce. The puddings should be light puffs. Strawberry-sauce is especially nice with these puddings.

Roly-poly Pudding Boiled.

Make a biscuit-dough and roll it out into a square about a fourth of an inch thick. Spread over it (leaving an inch uncovered at the edges) almost any kind of fruit, or berries, such as strawberries, raspberries, etc., sweetened, or preserves. Roll it tight. Sew it in a cloth, giving room for it to swell. Boil or steam it an hour. Serve with almost any kind of pudding sauce. A nice roly-poly pudding may be made with sponge-cake baked in sheets, spread with preserves or jelly, rolled, sprinkled on top with sugar, and served with wine-sauce.

Baked Berry Rolls.

Roll biscuit-dough thin, in the form of a large square, or into small squares. Spread over with berries. Roll the crust, and put the rolls into a dripping-pan close together until full; then put into the pan water, sugar, and pieces of butter. Bake them. Serve any of the pudding sauces.

Swedish Pudding.

Ingredients: One half-pound of flour, one half-pound of butter, half-pound of sugar, eight eggs, a little salt.

Rub the sugar and butter to a cream; add the yolks well beaten, the salt, flour, and, lastly, the whites of the eggs beaten to a stiff froth. Put the batter three-fourths of an inch deep into tea-cups. Cook by steaming them in a steamer about half an hour. The batter will fill the cups. Turn them out on a hot platter. Serve immediately with a clear brandy-sauce in the bottom of the dish. Half the above amount will be sufficient for a small family.

Cherry-pudding (Mrs. Bonner).

Ingredients: Two eggs, one cupful of sweet milk, three tea-spoonfuls of yeast powder, flour to make a stiff batter, as many cherries or fruit of any kind as can be stirred in.

Boil or steam it two hours. Serve with fruit sauce, made as in receipt for “fruit sauces” of the same kind of fruit of which the pudding is made.

A Corn-starch Pudding.

Many kinds of puddings can be made with this receipt by adding different flavorings. I consider it a great success; besides, it is very easily and quickly made. It may or may not be served with a boiled custard made with the yolks of the eggs.

Ingredients: One pint of rich milk, two table-spoonfuls of corn starch, a scant half-cupful of sugar, whites of three or four eggs, a little salt, flavoring.

Beat the eggs to a stiff froth. Dissolve the corn starch in a little of the milk. Stir the sugar into the remainder of the milk, which place on the fire. When it begins to boil, add the dissolved corn starch. Stir constantly for a few moments, when it will become a smooth paste; now stir in the beaten whites of the eggs, and let it remain a little longer to cook the eggs. It can be flavored with vanilla, and put into a form; yet it is still better as a

Cocoa-nut Pudding.

When the preceding pudding is just finished, add half a cocoa-nut grated; put it into a mold. Serve with whipped-cream around it, or a sauce of boiled custard made with the yolks of the eggs. As only half of a cocoa-nut is used for this pudding, sprinkle sugar on the other half, and spread it on something, when it will keep a month. In that time perhaps another pudding of the same kind may be wanted. Fresh cocoa-nut is better and cheaper than the desiccated cocoa-nut. It requires the whole of a twenty-five cent package of the desiccated cocoa-nut, and only half of a fresh one, which costs but ten cents.

Chocolate-pudding.

With still the same receipt for a corn-starch pudding, first flavor the whole with vanilla; now take out a third of the pudding; flavor the remainder in the kettle with a bar of chocolate, softened, mashed, and dissolved with a little milk. Put half of the chocolate-pudding in the bottom of a mold (which has been wet in cold water); smooth the top; next make a layer with the white pudding (the third taken out); smooth it also; next the remainder of the chocolate-pudding. Serve with whipped cream, or a boiled custard made with the yolks of the eggs and flavored with vanilla, around it; or, the one-third portion of pudding may be flavored with half a bar of chocolate, and placed in the centre of the two layers of white, as in the picture; or one can use the same receipt for a corn-starch pudding, and flavor it with chopped pine-apple, strawberries, or, in winter, with dried cherries swollen in water; or it may be flavored with chocolate, with the white centre part of cocoa-nut.

Cocoa-nut Puddings, in Paper Cases.

Melt over the fire butter the size of an egg, with a cupful of sugar, and a table-spoonful of water. Pour them into a dish when they have boiled a couple of minutes, and let them cool; mix with them half of a cocoa-nut grated, a table-spoonful of small cuts of citron, the grated rind and juice of half a lemon, and the yolks of four eggs beaten separately; add the whites (beaten to a stiff froth) the last thing. Fill little paper cases (see page 6), and bake immediately. They may be served hot or cold. Of course it may all be baked in one dish; but it makes a very dainty course to serve one of these cases placed on a plate for each person.

Egg Soufflé, in Paper Cases.

Make a boiled custard of cream with half a pint of milk, yolks of two eggs, three table-spoonfuls of sugar, a heaping tea-spoonful of flour, a very little butter, salt, and a flavoring of vanilla, or any thing else, as preferred. When it has just thickened a little, take it off the fire, and let it partly cool. Add then two raw yolks of eggs and four whites beaten to a stiff froth. Butter the paper cases, fill them with this preparation, and bake them ten or fifteen minutes in a moderate oven.

Snow-pudding (Miss Amelia Foote).

Cover one-third of a package of gelatine with a little cold water, and, when softened, stir into it a pint of boiling water; add one cupful of sugar, or sugar to taste, and either the juice of two lemons, or half a tea-cupful of wine: when cold, and beginning to thicken, add the well-beaten whites of three eggs. Beat all lightly and smoothly together, pour the mixture into a mold, and set it away until hard. Serve in the centre of a platter, with a boiled custard poured around, made with the yolks of three eggs, one pint of milk, and half a cupful of sugar.

Boiled Custard (No. 1).

I will venture a receipt for boiled custard (perhaps it should be granted that every one knows how to make it), as it is so often used in making many kinds of dessert, and as an excellent sauce for several puddings.

It is considered better made of the yolks only of the eggs (some whites may be used, however). A dessert-spoonful of sugar is enough for each egg, and five yolks are quite sufficient for a quart of milk. Beat the yolks and the sugar together to a froth, and stir in the milk; put it into a custard-boiler, or, if one has none, into a small tin pail. Place this in a kettle of boiling water; stir the mixture constantly until it is a little thickened. If it is well stirred, the custard will be a smooth cream; if allowed to remain a few moments too long in the boiling water after it begins to thicken, it will curdle and be spoiled. Do not flavor it with any of the essences, wines, or brandy, until after it is cooked; if either a vanilla-bean or peach-leaves are used, cook them with the custard.

If the whole eggs are preferred, for economy’s sake, to be used (and they make very good custard), allow four eggs to a quart of milk, and four dessert-spoonfuls of sugar. If the milk is first boiled before it is added to the other ingredients, there will be less danger of the custard curdling.

Boiled Custard (Miss Eliza Brown), No. 2.

Beat the yolks of three eggs very lightly; stir into them two small table-spoonfuls of corn starch, dissolved in a little milk, and one tea-cupful of sugar. Bring two quarts of milk to a boil, then take it off the fire; pour it into the eggs, etc., a little at first; return it to the fire, and stir it until it thickens, not allowing it to boil; let it remain long enough to well cook the starch. Now stir in lightly the whites of four eggs beaten to a stiff froth, allowing the custard to remain a half-minute on the fire to set the eggs. Flavor with vanilla or chocolate, or with both.

Apple Méringue (Mrs. Shaw).

Boil tart apples after they are pared and cored; rub the pulp through a colander, and sweeten it to taste. To a pint of the soft pulp stir in lightly the whites of three eggs, beaten to a stiff froth. Flavor with grated rind and juice of lemon, or with lemon or vanilla extract. Serve it with cream. It is a decided improvement to put this into a pudding-dish and cover it with the beaten whites of two or three eggs, sweetened and flavored. Color it in the oven. Serve with cream or custard.

Baked Apples.

Pare and core large, juicy pippins, without cutting them to pieces; fill the cavities with sugar, and a little lemon-juice or extract, and some thin slices of the yellow part of the lemon-rind; put them into a pan with a little water in the bottom; sprinkle sugar over the tops, baste them often, and, when done, set them away to cool. Serve them with cream, or they may be served with whipped cream, flavored with sugar and essence of lemon, poured over so as to nearly conceal them; or serve them with a boiled custard poured over them.

Friar’s Omelet (Mrs. Treat).

Stew six or seven good-sized apples as for apple-sauce; stir in, when cooked and still warm, butter the size of a pigeon’s egg, and one cupful of sugar; when cold, stir in three well-beaten eggs and a little lemon-juice. Now put a small piece of butter into a sauté pan, and when hot throw in a cupful of bread-crumbs; stir them over the fire until they assume a light-brown color. Butter a mold, and sprinkle on the bottom and sides as many of these bread-crumbs as will adhere; fill in the apple preparation, sprinkle bread-crumbs on top, bake it for fifteen or twenty minutes, and turn it out on a good-sized platter. It can be eaten with or without a sweet sauce.

Floating Islands.

Separate the whites and yolks of four eggs; with the yolks make a boiled custard with, say, a large pint of milk, four table-spoonfuls of sugar, and a flavoring of vanilla, essence of lemon, sherry-wine, peach-leaves, or any of the usual flavorings. Beat the whites to a stiff froth, sweetening and flavoring them a little also. Wet a long spoon, turn it around in the beaten egg, taking out a piece of oblong shape; poach it, turning it around in boiling water, or milk, which is better. When the custard is cold, pour it into a glass dish, and place these poached whites on top; or make a circle of the whites in a platter, and pour the custard between.

Tipsy-pudding.

Soak a sponge-cake baked in a form (or, in fact, dry pieces of cake of any kind can be used) in sherry-wine. When saturated enough, so that it will not fall to pieces, pour over it a boiled custard (No. 1), flavored with any thing preferred. If placed in a glass dish, decorate with the beaten whites of the eggs poached, and with dots of jelly. If served in a common platter, squeeze the beaten whites (sweetened and flavored) through a funnel in any fancy shapes over the pudding, and put it into the oven to receive a delicate color.

Lemon-pudding.

Beat the yolks of two eggs in a pudding-dish; add two cupfuls of sugar. Dissolve four table-spoonfuls of corn starch in a little cold water. Stir into it two tea-cupfuls of boiling water. Put in the juice of two lemons, with some of the grated peel. Mix all together with a tea-spoonful of butter. Bake it about fifteen minutes. When done, spread over the top the beaten whites of the eggs sweetened, and let it color a moment in the oven. To be eaten hot or cold.

Blanc-mange.

Put half a paper of gelatine, two ounces of sugar, half of the very thin rind of a lemon, and eight bitter almonds, blanched and bruised, into a pint of milk, and let it stand an hour. Place it over the fire, and let it come merely to the scalding-point, stirring it well to dissolve the gelatine.

Strain it into a bowl, add a pint of cream, and a little wine or brandy, to taste. Stir it occasionally, to prevent the cream from settling on the surface. Turn it, avoiding the settlings, into molds, to harden; or, in place of almonds, a stick of cinnamon may be substituted; or infuse a few more almonds, and omit the wine or brandy; or, the blanc-mange may be flavored with maraschino, or any other liqueur. I prefer blanc-mange made with corn starch, as the same ingredients necessary for a blanc-mange proper are better made into Bavarian creams.

Corn-starch Pudding.

Ingredients: One and one-half pints of rich milk, one large heaping table-spoonful of corn starch, one scant cupful of sugar, four eggs, omitting two whites, a little salt, and flavoring.

Bring the milk and the sugar almost to a boil, then add the corn starch (stirred smooth with a little milk), and a pinch of salt. Stir it at the back of the range for five minutes, not allowing it to boil. Then take it off the fire; when a little cooled, stir in the eggs, and when well and smoothly mixed, place the kettle again on the fire for only a few moments, to be sure that the eggs are slightly cooked. Now stir in the flavoring, if it is an extract. Zest (sugar rubbed on fresh lemon-peel) is an exceedingly delicate flavoring. The vanilla powder boiled in the milk is better than the extract.

It makes a pretty dish to pour this into cups or little molds, and, when cold and solid, to arrange them in a circle or, according to taste, on a platter, with strawberry, grape, or any kind of fruit sauce, or whipped cream poured into the bottom of the dish; or, mold it in a circular form, and pile up any kind of berries in the centre, with or without whipped cream. For an invalid I prefer the other receipt for “a corn-starch pudding.”

The common rule for corn-starch pudding is one quart of milk, three eggs, three table-spoonfuls of corn starch, one even cupful of sugar; add flavoring and a little salt.

Bread-pudding.

Soak some crumbled bread in milk. Put a layer of this (rather moist) in the bottom of a pudding-dish; sprinkle over some raisins and a little cinnamon powder, then another layer of soaked bread-crumbs, raisins, and cinnamon powder. Now beat up three eggs (to about a quart of soaked bread-crumbs) with two heaping table-spoonfuls of sugar; mix into it a quarter of a cupful of rum, brandy, or wine, and pour it all over the pudding in the dish. Bake about twenty minutes.

Bread-and-butter Pudding.

Strew layers of English currants between slices of buttered bread (crust cut off). Pour over them a boiled custard flavored with nutmeg or any other flavoring desired. Set them into the oven to soak, and bake about fifteen minutes.

Fried Bread-pudding.

Cut the crust from slices of bread. Cut them into pieces of the same shape and size. Soak them a few moments in custard—i.e., some milk, one or two eggs, and sugar to taste, and a flavoring of cinnamon. Sauté them in hot lard to a delicate brown. Serve with brandy-sauce, or almost any kind of sweet sauce.

Indian-corn Pudding.

Scald a quart of milk, and stir in seven table-spoonfuls of sifted corn-meal, a tea-spoonful of salt, one tea-cupful of molasses, a table-spoonful of ginger. Bake three hours.