For a large family, have two quarts of corn meal, two quarts of milk, and one quart of _West India_ mola.s.ses; two table-spoonfuls of ginger, and one of cinnamon.

What is left may be tied in a cloth, and boiled over again next day, for half an hour or longer.

MOLa.s.sES PIE.--Make a plain paste, allowing a quart of flour to a quarter of a pound of fresh b.u.t.ter, and a quarter of a pound of lard.

Cut up the b.u.t.ter into the pan of flour, and rub it into a dough, with a half tumbler of cold water. Too much water is injurious to any paste, rendering it tough and hard. Roll out the paste into a sheet, and with a broad knife spread all over it one-half of the lard. Sprinkle it with flour, fold it, and roll it out again. Spread on the remainder of the lard, dredge it slightly, fold it again, and then divide it into two sheets. Line with one sheet the inside of a pie-dish, and fill it with mola.s.ses, mixed with b.u.t.ter, and flavored with ginger and cinnamon, or lemon or orange. Put on the other sheet of paste as a lid to the pie.

Crimp or notch the edges. Bake it of a pale brown, and send it to table fresh, but not hot.

MOLa.s.sES POT-PIE.--Make plenty of paste, allowing to _each quart_ of flour a small half pound of finely minced suet. Line the pot three-quarters up the sides with paste, and put in a quart of West India mola.s.ses, flavored with ginger and cinnamon, lemon or orange grating, and juice. Cover it with a lid of paste, _not fitting closely_ round its edges, and cut a cross slit in the top. Have ready six or eight extra pieces of suet paste, cut into squares, and boiled by themselves. When the pie is done, put these little cakes (ready boiled) into the mola.s.ses, having removed the lid or cover of the pie, and cut it up.

Take out the inside paste, and cut it in pieces also. Serve up the whole in one large dish.

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 s.p.a.ce 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 mola.s.ses, or b.u.t.ter 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 s.p.a.ce 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 b.u.t.ter. 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 quant.i.ty of nice fresh b.u.t.ter, 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 b.u.t.ter 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 gla.s.ses 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 b.u.t.ter, 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 subst.i.tute 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 b.u.t.ter, 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 s.p.a.ce for it to swell. Keep the water very hot all the time. Eat it with b.u.t.ter 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 ma.s.s, 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 b.u.t.ter. 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 b.u.t.tER PUDDING.--Cut large even slices of yesterday's bread, (_leaving on_ the crust) and spread them well with fresh b.u.t.ter. 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 b.u.t.ter 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 b.u.t.ter. Then put in another layer of cut apples and sugar, followed by a second layer of bread-crumbs and b.u.t.ter. Next more apples and sugar; then more bread-crumbs and b.u.t.ter; 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 b.u.t.ter 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 b.u.t.ter; 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 b.u.t.ter 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 b.u.t.ter 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 b.u.t.ter 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 b.u.t.ter--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 b.u.t.ter 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 b.u.t.ter, but it must be quite fresh, and very nice. Allow half a pound of b.u.t.ter to a large quart (or a pound) of sifted flour.

Rub half the b.u.t.ter 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 b.u.t.ter 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 b.u.t.ter.