DUMPLINGS, FLUMMERIES, AND OTHER INEXPENSIVE ARTICLES FOR DESSERT.

Apple Dumplings (boiled).

The best and most healthful crust for them is made like cream tartar biscuit, or with potatoes, according to the directions under the head of Pastry. It is better to make one or two large dumplings, than many small ones; because in drawing up the crust, there must necessarily be folds which, when boiled, are thick; and thus, in small dumplings, the proportion of crust to apple, is too great. Make a large crust and let the middle be nearly a third of an inch thick; but roll the edges thin, for the reason above mentioned. Wring a thick, square cloth in water, sprinkle it with flour, and lay it into a deep dish; lay the crust into it, and fill it with sliced apples; put the crust together and draw up the cloth around it. Tie it tight with a strong twine or tape, allowing no room for it to swell, and be sure to draw the string so close that the water cannot soak in. Boil a dumpling holding three pints of cut apple, two hours. When taken out of the pot, plunge it for a moment into cold water, then untie it and turn it out into a dish. Eat with cold sauce, or butter and sugar. Molasses and butter boiled together make a very good sauce for apple dumplings. The process of boiling molasses takes away, in some degree, its strong taste; and improves it for this purpose, and for making gingerbread. All boiled dumplings and puddings should be put into boiling water. Some persons prefer to boil dumplings in a buttered bowl, with a cloth tied close over it. This is a very good way.

Steamed.

Fill a tin pudding pan or pail three quarters with sour, sliced apples, lay upon the top a plain crust about an inch thick. A piece of light bread dough, with a little butter rolled into it, or a crust made like cream of tartar biscuit, is better than pie crust for this purpose. See that there is room for the dough to swell. Shut the lid close, and set it on the top of the stove or range, an hour and a half before dinner time. If the apple juice boils over, move the pan to a cooler part of the stove. Make a sauce, or use instead, butter and sugar.

Baked.

Pare large, fair apples, and take out the cores, lay each one into a piece of plain pie crust, just large enough to cover it. Fill the centre of the apple with brown sugar, and add a little cinnamon, or small strips of fresh orange peel. Close the crust over the apple, and lay them, with the smooth side up, into a deep, buttered dish, in which they can be set on the table. Bake them in a stove an hour and a half. If, after an hour, you find that the syrup begins to harden in the bottom of the dish, put in half a gill of hot water. Make a cold, or melted sauce as you choose.

Blackberry (baked or steamed).

Put a small cup of berries and two teaspoonfuls of sugar into a crust large enough to contain them. To close the crust well, dip your fingers in water and then in flour, and thus paste the folds together. Lay as many dumplings as you wish to have into a deep patty-pan, because blackberries are a very juicy fruit. Bake them an hour and a quarter in a moderate heat. Make a cold sauce for them.

To steam them, put the fruit and crust into a tin pudding pan, exactly like steamed apple dumpling.

Roley Poley.

Make a potato crust, or a paste of light bread, with butter rolled in, or one of cream tartar biscuit, as you prefer; roll it narrow and long, about a third of an inch thick; spread it with raspberry jam or apple sauce; take care that this does not come too near the edge of the crust; roll it up and close the ends and side as tight as possible, to keep the sauce from coming out and the water from soaking it. Sew it up in a cloth, and boil it an hour and a half or two hours, according to its size. Make a sauce.

[The quart measure used in the following articles, and throughout this book, is the beer quart, except where a small quart is specified. In cooking such dishes as those which immediately follow, the milk should always, as in making custards, be boiled in a pail set into a kettle of hot water. They are much more delicate than when it is boiled in a saucepan; and then there is no danger of its being burned.]

Potato Starch Flummery.

To one quart of boiled milk, put four beaten eggs and four spoonfuls of potato starch, wet in a little milk. Add the starch and a little salt first; then the eggs, and boil the whole a minute more. Take it up in a mould and eat it with sauce. Boil a few peach leaves in the milk if you like the flavor.

Ground Rice.

Measure a quart of milk, and then take out two cupfuls. Set the remainder into a kettle of hot water; then wet a teacupful of ground rice, and a teaspoonful of salt, with the reserved cold milk. When that which is in the kettle boils, add the ground rice mixture gradually, and continue to stir it, until it is well scalded, else it will be lumpy, or lie compactly at the bottom. Let it remain in the kettle eight or ten minutes, and stir it now and then. Just before you take it up, stir in a large table-spoonful of dry ground rice, and as soon as that is well mixed take the pail from the water-kettle, and put the mixture into a bowl, or blanc-mange mould, wet in cold water. If it is of the right consistency, it will turn out in good shape in fifteen or twenty minutes. To be eaten like blanc-mange with sugar and milk or cream. It is nice cold, and if it is made for the next day, a half a spoonful less of dry rice will be enough. It should be only stiff enough to retain the shape. For this and all similar milk preparations, peach leaves are better than any spice. Boil in the milk three or four fresh leaves from the tree. Remember to take them out before you stir in the rice. If you put in too many, they will give a strong flavor to the article. Experience will teach how many to use.

Farina.

Set a pail containing a quart of milk into a kettle of boiling water. Put in a few pieces of stick-cinnamon. When the milk boils, take out the cinnamon and add a teaspoonful of salt, and stir in, very gradually, four table-spoonfuls of dry farina; beat out the lumps, and stir it often during the first ten minutes, then leave it to boil half an hour or more, remembering to stir it repeatedly during that time. Put it in a mould till the next day. Serve it as blanc-mange.

Made thin, like gruel, it is excellent food for young children.

Tapioca.

Soak a cup of tapioca in a pint of cold water over night; then boil it in a pint of milk with a little salt. Add any essence you choose. It is very good without. Serve it warm, and use sugar and cream.

Sago Apple.

Wash a table-spoonful and a half of pearl sago, and put it into a teacup of cold water to soak. Pare and slice very thin two fair sour apples, and boil them very soft in a teacup of water; then add the sago and water with half a teaspoonful of salt, and stir it every minute or two. Boil it till the sago and apple are perfectly mixed, then add a large spoonful of white sugar, and boil it a minute more. Set it off and add lemon (the essence or juice as you prefer). Put it in a mould, and serve it like blanc-mange.

This is a very good article for an invalid, leaving out the essence.

The same preparation of sago, and two or three table-spoonfuls of currant jelly dissolved in it instead of the apple, is very pretty, and good.