Large puddings may be made in this manner of stoned cherries, damsons, or plums, or of gooseberries, or currants--allowing plenty of fruit, and making it very sweet; besides sending sugar to table with it.

ROLLED PUDDING.--Have ready a quart or more of apples stewed with _very little_ water, sweetened with brown sugar, and flavored with lemon or rose. Prepare a nice suet paste. Roll it out, and cut it into a square sheet. Spread it _thickly_ with the stewed fruit, (not extending the fruit quite to the edges of the dough) and roll it up as far as it will go. Close it nicely at each end. Tie it in a cloth, dipped in hot water and floured, and put it into a fast-boiling pot. Boil it well. Cut it down in round slices. Eat it with b.u.t.ter and sugar beaten together, or with cream sauce. You may make this pudding of any sort of thick marmalade, spread over the sheet of paste; or, with ripe uncooked currants, raspberries, or blackberries, mashed raw, sweetened, and spread on thickly. This pudding is the same that common English people call a "Jack in a blanket;" and sometimes "a Dog in a blanket." The _blanket_ is supposed to mean the paste; the _dog_ is probably the fruit.

FRUIT POT-PIES.--These are made in a pot lined with paste, interspersed with small squares of the same dough, and covered with a paste lid. The filling is of dried apples, peaches quartered, blackberries, raspberries, ripe currants, or gooseberries; all well sweetened, and cooked in their own juice, with a small tea-cupful of water at the bottom to "start them." Both fruit and paste must be perfectly well done.

Fruit pot-pies are easier made and cooked, than fruit puddings or dumplings. We recommend them highly for plain tables. They require more sugar when they are dished. A large _bain-marie_ is excellent for cooking any sort of pot-pie, the water being all in the outside kettle.

PLAIN BAKED CUSTARD.--Boil a quart of milk, with a small bunch of green peach leaves in it, or a half dozen of peach kernels broken up. When the milk has boiled well strain it into a broad pan, and set it away to cool. In a shallow pan beat six eggs till very light, thick, and smooth.

Stir them, gradually, into the milk, in turn with a tea-cup of white sugar, and a tea-spoonful of powdered cinnamon or mace. Transfer the mixture to a deep white dish, set it into the oven, and bake it till the top is well browned, but not scorched. When done, set it away to cool, and grate nutmeg over the surface.

BOILED CUSTARD.--Make exactly the above mixture; but instead of baking, boil it in a porcelain lined sauce-pan, stirring it all the time. As soon as it comes to a boil, take it immediately from the fire, or it will curdle. Put it into a gla.s.s or china pitcher, and set it to cool. A _bain-marie_ is excellent for boiled custard.

If custards are baked in cups, set them in an iron pan half full of warm water. If too hot, or kept baking too long, they will be tough and porous, and have whey at the bottom. So they will if the milk is warm when the eggs are added. Good custards will cut down to the very bottom as smooth and firm as the best blanc-mange.

APPLES BAKED WHOLE.--Never bake apples without paring and coring. They will be found nearly all skin and core, and are troublesome and inconvenient to eat. Have fine large apples; take off a thin paring, and extract the core with a tin corer. Fill up the holes with brown sugar.

Place the apples, side by side, in a square tin pan, set them in an oven, and bake them till, when tried with a fork, you find them soft all through. Send them to table warm, but not burning hot. If you have country cream to eat with them, so much the better.

BAKED PEARS.--Take good-sized pears. Small ones are not worth the trouble of cooking. Peel them, split them in half, and remove the core, the stem, and the blossom end. Strew them well with brown sugar, and lay them on their backs in a large baking dish. A narrow slip of the yellow rind of lemon or orange, (cut so thin as to look transparent,) will be a great improvement, laid in the hollow of each pear. Also the juice squeezed. Put into the dish sufficient mola.s.ses or steam-syrup to well cover the pears. Place them in an oven, and bake them till they are soft, but not till they break. If you have no lemon or orange, season them with ground ginger or cinnamon.

The great pound pears are baked as above, with the addition of port wine and a few cloves, and colored red with a little cochineal.

COUNTRY CHARLOTTE.--Slice or quarter some fine juicy apples, having pared and cored them. Put them on a large dish, sweeten them well with brown sugar, set them in the oven, and bake them till soft enough to mash smoothly. Then cut some slices of bread, b.u.t.ter them slightly, and dip every one in sweet cider fresh from the press. Let them soak in the cider a short time, but not till they break. Take them out of the cider, spread every one thickly with the mashed apple, (sprinkling on more sugar) and send them to the dinner table in a deep dish or pan.

A PLAIN CHARLOTTE.--Stew very nicely any sort of ripe fruit, (currants, gooseberries, blackberries, stoned cherries, or stoned plums,) and as soon as you take them from the fire make them very sweet with brown sugar. Prepare some large slices of b.u.t.tered bread, with the crust pared off. Cover each slice thickly with the stewed fruit. Lay some in the bottom of a deep dish, and stand up others all round its sides. Fill up the dish with the same, and sift white sugar over the surface.

It may be made of sliced sponge-cake, spread thickly with stewed dried peaches.

GOOSEBERRY FOOL.--This foolish name signifies an excellent preparation of gooseberries; stewed, mashed, and made very sweet with brown sugar.

Have ready in another dish a good boiled custard. When all has become cool, mix well together in a large bowl the stewed gooseberries and the custard, and season the mixture well with nutmeg. It will be found very good.

Any other "fool" may be made in the same manner, of stewed fruit and boiled custard. It saves the trouble and expense of making paste, or can be prepared at a shorter notice. It is good either at dinner or tea.

We hope somebody will think of a better name for it.

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 quant.i.ty 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 b.u.t.ter, 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 b.u.t.ter into flour with it, but manage all the mixing with a knife. If you have a cool hand, you may rub the b.u.t.ter 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 b.u.t.ter, 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 subst.i.tute a plain charlotte, or slices of bread and b.u.t.ter, 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 mola.s.ses 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 b.u.t.ter. 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 b.u.t.ter in little bits all over the sheet of paste, at equal distances. Then fold it square, (covering the b.u.t.ter with the corners of paste) dredge it, and roll it out again to receive the third quarter of b.u.t.ter. Repeat this again, till all the b.u.t.ter 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 b.u.t.ter 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 b.u.t.ter, and sugar, and nutmeg.

If you use b.u.t.ter 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 b.u.t.ter, sugar, and nutmeg, beaten together.

FINE DESSERTS.

THE BEST PUFF-PASTE.--To a pound of the best fresh b.u.t.ter 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 b.u.t.ter into four equal parts, and three of those parts divide again into two portions. Mix the first quarter of b.u.t.ter into the ma.s.s 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 b.u.t.ter, 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 b.u.t.ter 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 b.u.t.ter, and roll it out again.

Proceed in this manner till you have got in all the b.u.t.ter, 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 b.u.t.ter 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 quant.i.ty 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.

Sh.e.l.lS.--For sh.e.l.ls 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 sh.e.l.ls 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 sh.e.l.ls 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 sh.e.l.l 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 sh.e.l.ls with any sort of sweetmeats, either preserves or marmalade, or with mince-meat. Sh.e.l.ls 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.