of the butter, cut the white of an egg to a stiff froth; reserve half
a spoonful of it, and stir the rest, and the water into the flour with
a knife; then proceed to roll in the remainder of the butter in the
usual way. Cut rounds in the paste of the size you wish to have them,
and twice as many as you intend to have of puffs. Then cut out of half
of them, a small round in the centre, so as to leave a circular rim
of crust. Take up these rims with a wide-bladed knife, and lay them
upon the large rounds so as to form a raised edge, and with the knife
lay them, thus prepared, on tin sheets, or a nice sheet-iron pan. Take
a feather, and lightly brush the edges with a little of the reserved
white of egg. This will make them brown handsomely. Bake them in a
quick oven. Bake also the small rounds which were cut out from the
rims. When all are baked, put raspberry jam, quince, currant, or lemon
jelly in the puffs and lay the small rounds over it. Some people like
them best, without covering the jelly.
To make lemon jelly for the purpose, beat one egg and a cup of sugar
together; when well mixed, add the juice of a lemon, and then two
table-spoonfuls of cold water. Put the mixture in a shallow dish, set
it on the stove, and stir it steadily, until it thickens, then take it
off immediately. Be careful it does not boil. When it is cool, put it
into the puffs.
DIRECTIONS ABOUT PUDDINGS.
The eggs for all sorts of puddings in which they are used, should be
well beaten, and then strained. If hot milk is used, the eggs should
be added after all the other ingredients. Milk for pumpkin, squash,
cocoanut, tapioca, ground rice, sago, arrow-root, and sweet potato
puddings, should be boiled; for bread and plum puddings also, unless
the bread is soaked in milk over night. When suet is used in puddings,
it should be chopped fine as possible.
In making batter puddings, but a small portion of the milk should be
put to the flour at first, as it will be difficult to stir out the
little lumps, if the whole quantity is mixed together at once. After
the flour is stirred smooth, in a part of the milk, add the eggs not
beaten, and beat the mixture well; then add the remainder of the milk,
and stir all together till equally mixed. A flour pudding is much
lighter, when the materials are all beaten together, than if the eggs
are done separately. When berries or cherries are to be used, put them
in last. A batter pudding, with berries, requires at least a third more
flour than one without. For cherry pudding but a small addition of
flour is needed.
A buttered earthen bowl, with a cloth tied up close over it, is a very
good thing in which to boil a pudding or dumpling; but some persons
think they are lighter boiled in a cloth. A large square of thick tow
or hemp cloth does very well; but if a bag is preferred, it should be
so cut that the bottom will be several inches narrower than the top,
and the corners rounded. The seam should be stitched close with a
coarse thread on one side, and then turned and stitched again on the
other, in order to secure the pudding from the water. When used, let
the seam be outside. A strong twine, a yard long, should be sewed at
the middle to the seam, about three inches from the top of the bag.
When the bag is to be used, wring it in cold water, and sprinkle the
inside thick with flour,[7] and lay it in a dish; pour in the batter
and tie up the bag quickly, drawing the string as tight as possible.
Allow a little room for the pudding to swell. (An Indian pudding made
with cold milk, swells more than any other.) Lay it immediately into
the boiling pot, and after ten minutes, turn it over to prevent the
flour from settling on one side. If there is fruit in the pudding, it
should be turned three or four times during the first half hour. Keep
it covered by adding water from the tea-kettle if necessary, and be
careful that it boils steadily. If it does not, the pudding will be
watery. When you take it up, plunge it for a moment in a pan of cold
water; then pour off the water, untie the twine, and gently lay back
the top of the bag. Have a dish ready, and turn the pudding out upon
it. A batter pudding without berries cooks very nicely in a tin pudding
pan, set upright in a kettle of boiling water.
[7] Some persons prefer to spread the inside with butter and then flour
it. Perhaps this method excludes the water most effectually. Either way
does well. Always butter the dish in which a pudding is to be baked.
To cut a boiled pudding without making it heavy, lay the knife, first
one side and then the other, upon it, long enough to warm the blade.
If these directions seem needlessly minute, it should be remembered
that those things which seem perfectly obvious to the experienced, are
often very perplexing to the uninitiated.
=Elegant Pudding Sauce.=
To four large spoonfuls of fine white sugar, put two of butter, one of
flour, and stir them together to a cream in an earthen dish. Cut the
white of an egg to a stiff froth, and add it; then pour into the dish a
gill of boiling water, stirring the mixture very fast. Put it into the
sauce tureen and add essence of lemon, or rose, or grate nutmeg over
the top as you prefer.
=A Plainer Sauce.=
To three large spoonfuls of clean brown sugar, put rather more than one
spoonful of butter, and half a one of flour; stir all together in an
earthen dish until white, then add a gill of boiling water, and stir
it steadily till it is all melted, then set it upon the coals long
enough just to boil up. Add rose-water, a few drops of lemon juice, or
a spoonful of boiled cider.
=Cold Sauce.=
Take the same measure of butter and sugar as given in either of the
above receipts, and stir them to a cream. Omit the flour; but add the
white of egg.
=Sour Cream Sauce.=
Put together a cup of sugar and a cup and a half of thick sour cream.
Stir the mixture five or six minutes, then put it into a sauce tureen
and grate nutmeg over it.
This sauce is specially appropriate for Indian puddings, baked or
boiled, and for the boiled suet puddings.
=Apple Pudding.=
To a quart of stewed sour apple, put while it is hot, a piece of
butter the size of an egg, and sugar enough to make it quite sweet.
Beat it several minutes in order to mix it thoroughly. Beat four eggs
and stir into it, add lemon or any essence you choose. Butter a cold
dish thick, with cold[8] butter, and strew the bottom and sides with
cracker crumbs, or very fine bread crumbs; then pour in the mixture,
sift plenty of the cracker crumbs on the top, grate a little nutmeg
upon it, and sprinkle it with sifted sugar. Bake forty or fifty minutes
in one dish, or half an hour in two. It is as good cold, the second
day, as when first baked. It is an improvement to eat it with cream.
[8] In all cases, where the sides of a dish are to be strewed with
crumbs, both the dish and the butter should be cold.
=Another (Marlborough).=
Make a nice paste and lay into your dishes. Take one quart of strained
apple, one quart of sugar, eight eggs, three nutmegs, a pint of cream,
a quarter of a pound of butter, a fresh lemon, pulp and juice, and
the rind grated. If you have no cream, milk will do, but it should be
boiled, and half a pound of butter, instead of one quarter, melted into
it. The apples should be very sour. This will fill six deep dishes or
soup plates. Bake three quarters of an hour.
=Another (Pemberton).=
To six large, sour apples, put a pint of cream, an ounce of butter, six
eggs, one lemon, sugar to the taste.
To be prepared exactly in the same way as the Marlborough pudding.
=Almond.=
Blanch (that is, peel off the brown skin) of five bitter, and ten
sweet almonds; to do this, easily, pour boiling water on them, then
pound them fine in a mortar. Set a pail with a quart of rich milk into
a kettle of hot water; when it boils, put in the almonds. Mix two and
a half table-spoonfuls of ground rice smooth, with a large tumbler of
milk, and stir it in. Boil it half an hour, stirring it often; then
add the yolks of three eggs beaten with half a coffee cup of fine
sugar, and in about a minute take the pail from the kettle, and stir
in another half cup of sugar. Pour it into a dish and set it away to
cool. Cut the whites of the eggs, and a large spoonful of fine sugar
to a stiff froth, drop them on the top with a large spoon, and set the
pudding into the oven till the top is brown. To be eaten cold.
=Baked Batter.=
Allow a pint of cold milk, four table-spoonfuls of flour, two eggs, and
a little salt.
Stir the flour smooth in a part of the milk, then put in the eggs
without first beating, and beat them well with the mixed flour. Then
add the remainder of the milk, and the salt, and when well stirred
together, pour it into a buttered dish, and bake it half an hour. When
it is done, the whole top will have risen up. So long as there is a
little sunken spot in the centre, it is not baked enough. Make a cold
or melted sauce as you prefer. This makes an ample pudding for a family
of four. A flour pudding will not be light unless it is put into the
oven immediately on being made.
=Boiled Batter.=
Use the very same proportions; butter a tin pudding-pan having a close
cover, and put in the mixture; set it immediately into a kettle of
boiling water. See that the water comes up high enough around it to
cook the pudding, but so that it will not boil quite up to the top. If
it boils away, add more hot water.
=Another.=
To a quart of milk put six eggs, eight spoonfuls of flour, and a
teaspoonful of salt. To be boiled two hours.
If you wish to make a nice addition to your dinner on short notice,
prepare this batter, and butter little cups that hold about a gill,
fill them three quarters full, and bake in the stove. They will bake in
fifteen minutes. They should be turned out upon a dish, and be eaten
with sauce. Such a pudding requires forty minutes to bake in one dish.
=Rye Batter.=
To a pint of cold milk, put three heaping spoonfuls of sifted rye meal,
a little salt, and three eggs. Boil it an hour and a half in a buttered
bowl with the cloth tied very tight over it. The bowl should be of a
size to allow a very little for swelling.
=Bird's Nest.=
For a pint of cold milk allow three eggs, five spoonfuls of flour, six
medium sized, fair apples, and a small teaspoonful of salt.
Pare the apples, and take out the cores; arrange them in a buttered
dish that will just receive them (one in the centre and five around
it). Wet the flour smooth in part of the milk, then add the eggs and
beat all together a few minutes; then put in the salt, and the rest of
the milk. Stir it well and pour it into the dish of apples. Bake it an
hour, and make a melted sauce. For a large family make double measure,
but bake it in two dishes, as the centre apples of a large dish will
not cook as quickly, as those around the edge.
=Bread.=
Take nice pieces of light bread, break them up, and put a small pint
bowl full into a quart of milk; set it in a tin pail or brown dish on
the back part of the stove or range, where it will heat very gradually,
and let it stand an hour or more. When the bread is soft enough to be
made fine with a spoon, just boil it up; set it off, and stir in a
large teaspoonful of butter, a little salt, and from two to four beaten
eggs. Bake it an hour. Make a sauce for it. To be eaten without sauce,
put in twice the measure of butter, beat the eggs with a cup of nice
brown sugar, a teaspoonful of cinnamon, and half as much powdered clove.
=Bread and Butter.=
Cut five slices of light bread across the loaf, very thin; spread them
thick with butter; cut the slices in two or four parts; butter a dish
and lay them in with a few dried currants between each slice. Lay them
so that the top will be even, and not quite as high as the dish; pour
over them a quart of custard made with boiled milk, and five or six
eggs, and flavored with peach and nutmeg. It will bake in less than an
hour. Some persons prefer to toast the bread.
=Cottage.=
One teacup of sweet milk, three of flour, one coffee-cup of brown
sugar, one egg, one table-spoonful of butter, half a teaspoonful of
saleratus. Melt the butter. Dissolve the saleratus in a little of the
milk, and stir it in after the other ingredients are mixed. Bake half
an hour. To be eaten with sweet sauce.
=Another (more rich).=
One teacup of sugar, three table-spoonfuls of melted butter, one
egg, one teacup of milk, two heaping cups of flour, a teaspoonful of
saleratus or soda, and two of cream of tartar. If it is made with sour
milk, the cream of tartar is to be left out.
=Cocoanut.=
Grate a cocoanut, and save the milk. Boil a quart of milk and pour
upon it; add five eggs, with a coffee-cup of sugar beaten in them, an
ounce of butter, two table-spoonfuls of rose-water, a little salt. If
you have cream and plenty of eggs, make it of cream instead of milk,
and add three more eggs, and any essence or spice you choose, and bake
in one dish nearly an hour; or make a nice paste, and bake it in three
deep plates like squash pies, forty minutes.
=Cracker.=
To a pint of boiled milk, put four crackers, pounded and sifted,
three eggs, and a small teaspoonful of salt. Add whortleberries if
convenient, and in that case, half of another cracker. Make a sweet
sauce. Bake half an hour, or forty minutes. The same mixture made with
cold milk is a nice pudding boiled an hour and a half.
=Another.=
Take the same proportions as in the previous receipt, of crackers,
milk, and eggs; and add a cup of sugar, a table-spoonful of butter,
cinnamon, a very little clove, and a cup of chopped raisins, and eat it
with a sauce, or without. It is good cold.
=Farina.=
Two table-spoonfuls of farina, a pint of milk, two eggs, a small cup
of sugar, and a half teaspoonful of salt; flavor with lemon or nutmeg.
To mix it, set the milk in a pail into a kettle of hot water. When the
top of the milk foams up, stir in the farina gradually, and add the
salt. Let it remain in the kettle ten or fifteen minutes, and stir it
repeatedly. Take the pail from the kettle, beat the eggs and sugar
together, and stir them in; add the essence, and pour the mixture
into a buttered dish. Bake half an hour or forty minutes. No sauce is
necessary.
=Potato.=
Weigh two pounds of good potatoes, after they are pared; boil them, and
when done, dry them; then pound them well in the kettle with a pestle.
While they are still hot, add half a pound of sugar and half a pound
of butter, which have been previously stirred together to a cream; and
last, and a little at a time, seven eggs, a glass of wine, and spice to
your taste. Bake with or without a paste. Omit the wine if you prefer,
both in this, and the next receipt, and use lemon-juice.
=Another.=
To half a pound of boiled potato, rolled or pounded, put two ounces
of butter, two eggs, half a gill of cream, one table-spoonful of white
wine, sugar to your taste, and a very little salt. Beat it to a froth,
and bake with or without a paste. If it is wanted more rich, add
almonds and another egg.
=Sweet Potato.=
Boil the potatoes and rub them through a sieve; add eggs, milk, sugar,
and spice precisely as for squash pies, only making the mixture a very
little thicker with the potato. Bake in a deep dish with a paste, or
without if preferred.
=Sweet Potato Pone.=
Pare and grate several sweet potatoes, and to three pounds of grated
potato add two of sugar, twelve eggs, a little more than three pints
of milk, the juice and grated rind of a lemon, a quarter of a pound of
butter (melted), a table-spoonful of rose-water, a nutmeg, a little
cinnamon and mace, a teaspoonful of salt. Mix thoroughly together and
bake in deep pans two hours. It is usually eaten cold, as cake.
=Plum.=
A pound of bread or six pounded crackers, one quart of milk, six eggs,
a large spoonful of flour, a teacup of sugar, one nutmeg, a teaspoonful
of cinnamon, half a one of powdered clove, a piece of butter the size
of an egg, the same quantity of chopped suet, and a pound of raisins.
Boil the milk. It is very well to soak the bread in the milk over
night; then the entire crust becomes soft, and mixes well with the
other ingredients.
These puddings are served with a rich sauce, if eaten warm, but are
excellent cold, cut up like cake. People that are subject to a great
deal of uninvited company, find it convenient in cold weather to bake
half a dozen at once. They will keep several weeks, and when one is to
be used, it may be loosened from the dish by a knife passed around it,
and a little hot water be poured in round the edge. It should then be
covered close, and set for half an hour into the stove or oven.
=Another.=
Soak a pound of soft bread in a quart of boiled milk till it can
easily be strained through a coarse hair sieve; then add seven eggs,
two gills of cream, a quarter of a pound of butter (melted), a gill of
rose-water, or some extract of rose, a little cinnamon or nutmeg, and a
pound of raisins. For a small family, bake it in two dishes, an hour;
and reserve one for another day. To warm it, see the directions in the
last receipt.
=Rice.=
Boil a teacupful of rice in two teacups of water. When it has swelled
so as to absorb the water, add a quart of milk and five or six peach
leaves, and boil it until the rice is perfectly soft. Take it from
the fire, remove the peach leaves, add a small piece of butter, a
little salt, and three or four eggs, beaten with a teacup of sugar.
Put it into a buttered dish, grate nutmeg over the top, and bake three
quarters of an hour. Most people prefer this pudding cold.
=Another (White Top).=
Prepare the same measures of rice and milk, and in the same way as in
the last receipt. Boil the rice very slowly after the milk is added,
so that it may become very soft, and not get burned. Break six eggs,
the yolks and whites separate; beat the yolks with a large cup of white
sugar; and stir them, with salt, and a small bit of butter into the
rice and milk. Then return the kettle to the fire two or three minutes,
and see that it does not burn. Then put the mixture into a buttered
dish, and cut the six whites and two large spoonfuls of fine sugar to
a stiff froth. Flavor the froth with lemon, lay it over the pudding in
folds like a turban, and set it into the oven long enough to brown the
top. Ten minutes will be sufficient.
=Ground Rice.=
To a teacup of ground rice, allow a quart and a gill of milk, six
eggs, a heaping teacup of sugar, a piece of butter the size of a small
nut, one teaspoonful of salt, and any spice you prefer. Rose-water and
nutmeg are generally considered best. Bake it from three quarters to
one hour. The milk should be boiled, and the ground rice wet with a
part of it reserved for the purpose. When the milk boils up, stir in
the rice; mix it thoroughly with the milk, then let it boil up one or
two minutes. When it has become a little thick, take it off, put in the
butter and salt, add the eggs and sugar, and last of all, the spice.
Bake it in one dish, in a moderately hot oven, an hour. If your family
is small, bake it in two dishes, forty minutes. It is quite as good the
second day as the first.
=Sago.=
A pint of milk, a table-spoonful and a half of _pearl_ sago, two eggs,
two large spoonfuls of sugar, and half a teaspoon of salt. Wash the
sago in warm, but not hot water, twice; then put it with the milk into
a pail and set it into a kettle of hot water. Stir it very often, as it
swells fast, and will else lie in a compact mass at the bottom. When
it has boiled two or three minutes, take the pail from the kettle, add
the salt, and the eggs beaten with the sugar. Flavor it with vanilla or
a few drops of essence of lemon, put it into a dish, and grate nutmeg
over it. Set it immediately into the oven, and bake it about three
quarters of an hour. If you make a quart of milk, three eggs answer
very well. It should then bake an hour. With this number of eggs, the
sago settles a little. To have it equally diffused take five eggs.
=Squash, or Pumpkin.=
A pint of milk, a large coffee-cup of strained pumpkin or squash, two
eggs, three large spoonfuls of sugar, a teaspoonful of butter, a little
salt, a small teaspoonful of cinnamon, half as much ginger, and some
nutmeg.
To prepare it--first, stir the cinnamon and ginger into the squash,
as, if they are added after the milk, they will float dry on the top;
add salt, then the eggs beaten with the sugar; boil the milk and melt
the butter in it, and add it slowly to the other ingredients, stirring
fast meantime. Butter a cold dish with cold butter, and sprinkle the
bottom and sides with sifted cracker, pour in the mixture, grate nutmeg
over the top and then sprinkle it with pounded cracker, sift white
sugar over, and bake it forty minutes.
To make a more economical pudding, use the same measure of milk,
squash, sugar, ginger, and cinnamon, with but one egg. Stir a pounded
and sifted cracker into the squash, before the boiled milk is added;
simply butter a dish in the usual way; omit the nutmeg and also the
sugar and cracker on the top.
The receipt for squash pies (see page 71) is a very nice rule for a
pudding; omit the paste, and substitute the cracker crumbs in the dish.
Such puddings, when made with a quart of milk, should be baked in two
dishes, because if baked in one, the edges become too dry, before the
centre is cooked.
=Tapioca.=
To a quart of milk, put two thirds of a cup of tapioca, five or six
eggs, a dessert spoonful of butter, a cup of sugar, a teaspoonful of
salt, and flavor with lemon, nutmeg, or extract of rose. Do not wash
the tapioca, as the fine powder is the nicest part; but pick it over
carefully, and soak it over night in half of the milk. If you have not
done this, and need the pudding for dinner, it will soak in cold water
(twice as much water as tapioca) in two or three hours. Boil it in the
milk, set into a kettle of hot water; stir it often, beat the eggs and
sugar thoroughly, together; stir them and all the other ingredients
into the milk while it is yet hot. If the pudding is put immediately in
the oven, it will bake in three quarters of an hour, or a little less.
Three eggs to a quart of milk will make a very good tapioca pudding.
[Illustration: Decorative flourish]
PUDDINGS WITHOUT EGGS.
=Berry.=
To a quart of washed whortleberries, put a pint of flour in which you
have put a small teaspoonful of salt. Add a very little water. That
which is upon the berries will be nearly enough. Boil it two hours in
a cloth tied close, allowing no room to swell. To be eaten with melted
sauce.
=Another.=
A pint of berries, a pint of flour, a pint of sour milk, a teaspoonful
of salt, and one of saleratus. Boil it two hours. All boiled fruit
puddings should be turned often in the pot, to prevent the fruit from
settling on one side. Make a sweet sauce.
=Baked Indian.=
Boil a pint of milk, and set it off from the fire. Then stir in a
large teacup of Indian meal, a cup of finely chopped suet, half a cup
of white flour, the same of molasses, and a teaspoonful each of salt,
ginger, and cinnamon. Grease thick a deep fire-proof patty pan, or a
brown earthen one with a small top, such as are made for baking beans,
and pour in the mixture; then stir in half a pint of cold milk. Bake it
in a moderate heat two hours. If you object to using suet, substitute
two eggs well beaten. An excellent sauce for this, and all kinds of
Indian pudding, is made by mixing sour cream and sugar, seasoned with
nutmeg.
The modern ovens do not bake this kind of pudding as well as a brick
oven.
=Another (with Sweet Apples).=
Pare twelve sweet apples and slice them, or take out the cores with a
tap-borer. Stir up a pudding of a quart of milk, and almost a quart of
Indian meal; the measure may be filled quite full by using a spoonful
or two of wheat flour. Add some salt, a teacup of molasses, and a
little chopped suet. The milk should be boiled, and after it is taken
from the fire, the meal and other ingredients stirred in. Then pour the
whole over the apples. Bake three hours.
=Boiled Plum.=
Put to a quart of boiled milk twelve pounded crackers, a quarter of a
pound of suet, a pound of currants, half a pound of raisins, a little
salt, and a teacup of molasses. Steam in a pudding-pan, or boil it
three hours and a half in a cloth or buttered bowl. To be eaten with
sauce.
=Railroad.=
One cup of molasses, one of sweet milk, one of suet or of salt pork
chopped fine; four cups of flour, one teaspoonful of saleratus, and if
suet is used, one of salt, one cup of chopped raisins, one of currants.
Warm the molasses and stir the saleratus into it; mix the suet or
pork with the flour, then stir all together, and steam it four hours,
according to the directions for Steamed Brown Bread (see page 31). Make
a melted sauce, or the sour cream sauce.
=Rice.=