[The eggs for these articles, except for the wafers, need not be broken separately, but yolks and whites may be added without beating, after the sugar and butter have been stirred. When all has been well beaten together eight or ten minutes, add part of the flour, then the saleratus and spice or ginger; and then place the pan upon a table, and work in flour enough to enable you to handle it without its sticking.
Dough for cookies or gingerbread, is much more easily and neatly rolled out and stamped the day after it is made, than on the same day. In cold weather, set it when made where it will not become hard, or else bring it into a warm room an hour or two before it is to be rolled out. Cookies should be about as thick as the end of your little finger; gingerbread half as thick. These things bake very quickly, and should be carefully attended to. Sugar gingerbread should be cut up as it lies in the pan, before it has time to cool, and laid upon a sieve. It cannot be cut after it is cold without being very much broken.]
Cream Cakes.
A pint of water, half a pound of butter, three quarters of a pound of flour, and ten eggs. Boil the water, melt the butter in it, stir in the flour dry while it boils; when it is cool, add a teaspoonful of saleratus, and the eggs well beaten. Drop the mixture on buttered tins with a table-spoon, and bake twenty minutes.
To make the inside, take one cup of flour, two cups of sugar, one quart of milk, and four eggs. Beat the flour, sugar, and eggs together, and stir into the boiling milk. When the mixture is sufficiently scalded, season it with lemon.
When the cakes are cool, cut them open and add the cream.
Cookies.
To one teacup of butter, three of sugar, half a cup of milk or cream, three eggs, one small teaspoonful of saleratus, and flour to make it rather stiff.
Another.
Seven teacups of flour, three of sugar, two of butter, one of milk or cream, one nutmeg, three eggs, one large teaspoonful of saleratus.
Wafers.
One cup of butter, two of sugar, six of flour, half a cup of new milk, three eggs, half a nutmeg, a few drops of essence of lemon, and one teaspoonful of saleratus. Roll the dough thin, then take it up and sift a little white sugar upon the board, and lay it down upon the sugar and make it very thin. Then cut it in rounds, and with a wide knife take them from the board and turn them over upon the baking pan, so that the sugared side will be uppermost. Bake five or six minutes.
Kisses.
Beat the whites of nine fresh eggs to a stiff froth, then mix with it fifteen spoonfuls of finest white sugar, and five or six drops of essence of lemon. Drop them on paper with a teaspoon, sift sugar over them, and bake them in a slow oven.
Cocoanut Drops.
Grate a cocoanut, and weigh it, then add half the weight of powdered sugar, and the white of one egg cut to a stiff froth. Stir the ingredients together, then drop the mixture with a dessert spoon upon buttered white paper, or tin sheets, and sift sugar over them. Bake in a slow oven fifteen minutes.
Fruit Jumbles.
A pound and a quarter of flour, a pound of sugar, three quarters of a pound of butter, five eggs, a quarter of a pound of currants, a gill or small teacup of milk, half a teaspoonful of saleratus, half a wine-glass of wine. Drop them on tins with a spoon, and bake in rather a quick oven.
Hard Sugar Gingerbread.
Two cups of butter, four of sugar, two eggs, a cup and a half of milk, two teaspoonfuls of ginger, and two of saleratus. Flour to make rather a stiff dough.
Another (very plain).
Ten ounces of butter, twenty ounces of sugar, a cup and a half of milk, four teaspoonfuls of ginger, one large teaspoonful of saleratus, a few drops of essence of rose, or half a cup of rose-water; in which case omit the half cup of milk.
Soft Sugar Gingerbread.
Two pounds of flour, one of butter, one and a half of sugar, seven eggs, half a gill of rose-water or wine. To be baked in such pans as are used for cup cake. This keeps good a long time, and is very nice.
Another (without eggs).
One pound of butter, two of sugar, three of flour, a pint of milk, a large spoonful of ginger, two teaspoonfuls of cream of tartar mixed in the flour, and one teaspoonful of saleratus. Stir the butter and sugar to a cream, then add half of the milk, and a large part of the flour; then the remainder of the milk having the saleratus dissolved in it, and the rest of the flour. Make half the quantity for a small family. Bake it in cup-cake pans.
Ginger Crackers.
A pint of molasses, two cups of butter, one and a half of sugar, one teaspoonful of saleratus, and two of ginger; add flour enough to make it easy to roll out. Stir the butter and sugar together, boil the molasses and pour it into the pan, and stir steadily until the butter and sugar are melted, then put in a few handfuls of flour, and add the saleratus. Stir it a few minutes, and then work in all the flour. To be rolled very thin, and baked but a few minutes.
New York Ginger Snaps.
Half a pound each of butter and sugar, two and a half pounds of flour, a pint of molasses, a teaspoonful of saleratus, caraway seeds, or ginger. Mix it just like the ginger crackers, and bake them thin.
Soft Molasses Gingerbread.
For three pints of flour, allow a pint of molasses, a pint of sour milk, or butter-milk, a gill of butter, half a gill of nice drippings, three teaspoonfuls of ginger, two of saleratus, and a very little salt.
To mix it, boil the molasses with the butter and shortening cut up in it, and pour it hot upon the flour. Stir it a little, and then add the sour milk with the saleratus and ginger. Stir it well. Gingerbread is as much better for being thoroughly beaten, as any other cake. You can make it rather more delicate by using butter only, adding a gill of brown sugar, and substituting cinnamon and clove instead of ginger. On the other hand, very good gingerbread is made by omitting the butter, and using shortening instead, and cold water or cider in place of the sour milk. A teaspoonful of salt is necessary where the butter is omitted.
Hard Molasses Gingerbread.
A half a pint of molasses, a gill of butter, half a gill of nice drippings, half a gill of sour milk, two teaspoonfuls of saleratus, and the same of ginger. Melt the butter, drippings, and molasses together, and pour hot upon a quart of flour; add the ginger and saleratus, and when well mixed add more flour until it can be handled without sticking. Then roll it out about as thick as the little finger, stamp or mark it, and bake it in shallow iron or tin pans. Bake it in a moderate heat. When done, cut it up before you take it out of the pans, as it cannot be done after it is cold without crumbling the edges.
If you prefer to have it thin, and cut into rounds like cookies, it is a very good way.
By omitting the sour milk and adding a cup of sugar, a rather nicer gingerbread is made.
Another.
Melt one cup of butter in two of molasses, pour it hot upon a quart of flour; dissolve one teaspoonful of saleratus in a little hot water and add it. Put in flour enough to roll it out neatly. Make it very thin, cut it in rounds, and bake it quick. These cakes are very crisp, and keep so in a tin chest.
On Frying Cakes.
[To have fried cakes good, it is necessary that the fat should be of the right heat. When it is hot enough, it will cease to bubble, and be perfectly still. It is best to try it with a little bit of the cake to be fried. If the heat is right, the dough will rise in a few seconds to the top, and occasion a bubbling in the fat; it will swell, and the under-side quickly become brown. It should then be turned over. Cakes should be turned two or three times. The time necessary to fry them, depends on their thickness; if about as thick as the little finger, they will be done in seven or eight minutes. It is best to break open one, in order to judge. When done, drain them well with a skimmer. If the fat is too hot, the outside will be burned before the centre is cooked at all; if too cool, they will become fat-soaked, which makes them very unhealthy and disagreeable. The fire must be carefully regulated. A person who fries cakes must attend to nothing else; the cakes, the fat, and the fire will occupy every minute. The use of many eggs prevents cakes from absorbing much fat. But they can be so made without eggs, as not to take up much fat.]
Crullers.
To two pounds of flour, put three quarters of a pound of sugar, half a pound of butter, nine eggs, mace, and rose-water unless the butter has been kept in rose leaves.
Another.
To six teacups of flour, put two of sugar, half a one of butter, half a one of cream, eight eggs, one nutmeg; or if more convenient, nine eggs, no cream, and a full cup of butter.
Another (plainer, but very good).
To a pint of warm milk, put two spoonfuls of lard, and three of butter cut into little bits. Beat four eggs and five heaping spoonfuls of sugar together, and stir into the milk. Grate in a nutmeg, put in a very heaping teaspoonful of saleratus, and knead in flour enough to roll out.
Cream of Tartar.
Make them precisely like the cream of tartar biscuit (see page 34 ), with the addition of five spoonfuls of sugar, half a nutmeg, one egg, and a small piece more of butter.
Boil a quart of milk, and rub smooth in a little cold milk a large gill of ground rice; when the milk boils up, stir in the rice and a little salt. Let it boil till it thickens, stirring it two or three times. Pour it, hot, upon a quart of flour; when cool enough, add a gill of yeast, and flour enough to make it stiff as bread. Knead it a great deal. Let it rise over night, and when very light, work in three quarters of a pound of butter, a pound and a half of sugar beaten in five eggs, and add nutmeg and lemon, juice and rind. Let it rise again, and then roll out and fry it.
Light bread dough, which is wet with milk, may be made into plain, or rich dough-nuts, as preferred, with very little trouble. Prepare the dough as directed in the receipt for rusk, and add two or three eggs, if convenient. It is not necessary.
Work a piece of batter the size of an egg into a large pint of light bread dough. When it has risen again, roll it very thin, cut it into circles or squares, and fry them for breakfast. Eat them with salt, or with cider and sugar. All crullers and dough-nuts are much more healthful fried in clarified drippings of roast meat, than in lard; and it is, besides, good economy.
The flour, as in making bread or cake, should be sifted. The best-looking pastry is made with lard, but it is not so healthy or good, as that which is made with half or two thirds butter. Whichever you use, rub a third of it into the flour, but do not try to rub out every lump; the less the hands are used the better. Add cold water; in summer, ice water. If your crust is shortened wholly with lard, allow a teaspoonful of salt to a pound (or quart) of flour, and a small teaspoonful of saleratus to every three pounds. Sprinkle the salt into the flour, and dissolve the saleratus in the water. If butter only or chiefly is used, omit the saleratus. When you have put in the water, stir it quickly, rather stiff, with a knife. Do not mould it; it will make it tough; but when it is barely stirred together, put it on the board, roll it out, lay thin shavings of butter on every part, sprinkle a little flour over it, and roll it out again, then lay on butter as before. To avoid much handling of the crust, roll it so thin that all the butter will be taken up by two or three times rolling in. When it is all rolled in, fold up the crust in a long roll, and double it, laying the ends together; then lay it aside, and cut from it for each pie. In rolling out for the plates press the pin equally, so as to make all parts of the same thickness, and as nearly circular as possible. Have the plates ready buttered, or greased with lard, lay in the crust, and see that all parts touch the plate. Take the dish up on the palm of the left hand, and with the right trim the edges, holding the knife under and aslant, and so cut the crust that the edge of the dish will be perfectly covered. People differ in regard to the proper thickness of pie-crust. A pie in which the fruit constitutes one third of the thickness, and the two crusts the other two thirds, although it may look more elegant, is neither so healthful or good as one made with thinner crust and plenty of fruit. Some fruit requires thicker crust than others; for apple, peach, and pumpkin it should be thin as a common earthen plate; for juicy fruits, such as berries, cherries, currants, plums, and for mince, it should be a little thicker. Lay some of the trimmings round the rim of the plate to make the edge of the pie handsome, and put the rest by themselves, and when there are enough, roll them out for an under-crust.
In making cherries, currants, &c., into pies, use deep dishes, and be careful not to fill them even full, as the syrup will boil over, and thus, much of the richness of the pie be lost. There is one way effectually to prevent the loss of syrup. After you have laid in the fruit, or mince, and rolled out the upper-crust, wet the rim of the under-crust all around with cold water [not omitting a single spot, if you do the syrup will escape at that spot], and sprinkle a very little flour upon it, lay the trimming upon the rim, wet and flour that in the same manner, then lay the upper-crust immediately over, and press it down gently upon the rim. The flour and water act as a paste to fasten the crusts together. Trim the edge as before, and prick the top eight or ten times with a fork. This is necessary for the escape of the steam, and without it, the closing of the edge will not avail to keep in the syrup. It is a good way to invert a teacup in the centre of a juicy fruit-pie, as in making an oyster-pie.
A clammy lower-crust is neither good or digestible. Therefore never fill pies made of moist materials until just before putting them into the oven. Squash pies, cocoanut, and Marlborough puddings, &c., should not be filled until the last minute, and mince and stewed apple should only stand long enough for the upper-crust to be laid on. Pie-crust becomes yellow from standing long before being baked; therefore, delay rolling out the upper-crust for any kind of pies until the oven is nearly ready. Pastry should be baked in a quick oven, to be light, and be slightly browned to be healthy. When you bake pumpkin and similar kinds of pies, if you have the least doubt whether the crust is well done, set the dishes a few minutes on embers, or the top of a cooking stove. This sort of pies requires nearly an hour to bake; more, if the dishes are very deep. When done enough, the top will be gently swelled all over, and in moving, tremble like jelly; if not done, the middle will look like a thick liquid. Most pies require an hour to bake; those made of stewed apple or cranberry, three quarters of an hour. Much depends on the kind of oven used.
It is difficult to make flaky crust in warm weather. But cooling the butter and water with ice, and having the pastry-table in the cellar, will insure tolerable success.
There is hardly another article of food in which so much is sacrificed to appearance as in pastry. Everybody likes a light crust, a little brown, and not excessively rich, better than one that is half butter or lard, and baked white.
Cherries should not be stewed or stoned for pies. Apples, after they are pared, cut, and cored, should be washed. Steam pumpkin and squash, or stew it with very little water. Meat for pies must not be chopped till after it is cold.
After a little practice and observation, it will be just as well to omit weighing the materials for pastry. One very heaping handful of flour will make a common-sized pie; not, however, allowing for the flour to be used in rolling the paste.
When all the pies but the last one are made, scrape the remains of crust from the moulding-board and the rolling-pin, and add any parings of edges that you have, work them together, and use for the under-crust.
For almost all kinds of pies, good brown sugar is nice enough. The Havana is seldom clean. The Porto-Rico and Santa Cruz are considered the best. The New Orleans is very sweet.
The very early apples, when used for pies or sauce, should not be pared, as the greatest part of the richness of the fruit, at that season, is in the skin. Some kinds are so delicate, that when stewed, the skin is entirely absorbed in the pulp, so as not to be visible, and the color, if it is red, is beautifully diffused through the whole mass.
Rich Puff Paste.
For a pound and a half of flour, take one pound of butter; divide it into three parts, and reserve a third of the flour for use in rolling in two parts. Rub one third of the butter into the flour, add water enough just to make it a stiff dough, then roll it out, and put in the rest of the butter as directed above.
A plainer Paste.
Three pounds (or quarts) of flour, half a pound of lard, and a pound of butter.
Good common Pie-crust.
Allow one heaping handful of flour for a pie, and a table-spoonful of lard or butter for each handful.
Bread-dough Pie-crust.
Take very light dough and roll in shavings of butter three times, using as little flour as you can.
Potatoe-crust.
Boil six good-sized mealy potatoes, and mash them fine; add salt, a spoonful of butter and two of water while they are hot. Then work in flour enough for making a paste to roll out, or put in two or three spoonfuls of cream, and no butter or water. This is a good crust for pot-pies or dumplings.
Of Stewed Apple.
Stew the apple with water enough to prevent its burning; sweeten and flavor it to your taste, and, while it is hot, add butter in the proportion of a dessert spoonful to a quart of apple. The spices most appropriate are nutmeg and lemon, cinnamon and orange. Two kinds are enough; one does very well. When you have laid the under crust in the plate, roll out the upper one, so that it may be laid on the moment the apple is put in, as the under crust will be clammy if the pie is not put immediately into the oven.
Another (without an upper crust).
Pare and quarter fourteen or eighteen fair sour apples, weigh them, and make a syrup of the same weight of sugar and a little water. Grate off the outside of a lemon and set it aside; take out the seeds, cut up the inside, and put it into the syrup. When the syrup is boiled clear, lay in half of the apples and boil them, but not till they are very soft. Take them out carefully, and lay them separately on a dish, so as not to break them. Stew the rest of the apples, and when they are taken out, boil the syrup a little while longer. Have ready three or four medium sized deep plates, with a nice paste in them. If any of the apple is broken or stewed soft, lay that into the middle of the plate, then put the quarters around in regular tiers, one above another, so as to form a sort of half sphere or pyramid, then sprinkle the grated lemon over the top, and pour on some of the syrup. Bake in a quick oven half an hour. When they are taken out, sift fine sugar over the top.
Of uncooked Apples.
To eat immediately, the following is excellent. Lay the slices into the plate upon an under crust; fill it quite full; sprinkle the rim with a little flour, to prevent the upper crust from adhering to the under one. Bake forty minutes, or till the apple is tender, and then slide off the upper crust and add a small bit of butter, some nutmeg or lemon, and sugar to your taste. Mix them well with the apple with a silver spoon, and return the upper crust to its place.
Another.
The other method is to lay the apples into a deep dish with an under crust, and for a large family, no matter how large a dish is used; grate a whole or half nutmeg over, according to the size of the pie, or if you have a fresh orange, cut small the peel of half a one, and sprinkle in with the apple; add a few sticks of cinnamon, a few little bits of butter, and lastly, put on as much sugar as your judgment directs. Cover it, and close the edge, so that the syrup will not escape. Bake from an hour and a half to two hours.
Another (sweetened with molasses).
Make a plain crust, and line a deep dish; fill it with sliced apples, grate a good deal of nutmeg over them, and lay on two or three thin shavings of butter. Then pour over a teacupful or two of good molasses, according to the size of the pie; lay on the upper crust, and close it so that the syrup cannot escape. Bake it two hours and a half.
For directions how to make a pie of Dried Apples, see the receipt for stewing them.
Whortleberry.
Fill the dish not quite even full, and to each pie of the size of a large soup plate, add four large spoonfuls of sugar; (for blackberries and blueberries, five). Dredge a very little flour over the fruit before you lay on the upper crust. Close the edge with special care.
Cherry.
The common red cherry makes the best pie. Bake it in a deep dish. Use sugar in the proportion directed for blackberries. All cherries, except the very sweet ones, are good for pies.
Cranberry.
Take the sauce as prepared to eat with meat; grate a little nutmeg over it, put three or four thin shavings of butter on it, and then lay on the upper crust. If not sweet enough, add more sugar. Make it without an upper crust, if you prefer, and lay very narrow strips across diagonally.
Green Currants and Gooseberries.
These require a great deal of sugar, at least two thirds as much in measure as of fruit. Currant pies should be made in a deep plate or a pudding dish, and with an upper crust.
Gooseberries should be stewed like cranberries, sweetened to suit the taste, and laid upon the under crust, with strips placed diagonally across the top, as directed for the cranberry tarts. Currants that are almost ripe make a nice pie, and require the same measure of sugar as blackberries.
Lemon.
Make a nice paste, and lay into two medium-sized plates; then prepare the following mixture. To the juice, and grated rind of one lemon, made very sweet with white sugar, add three well-beaten eggs, and a piece of butter half the size of an egg, melted. Stir these ingredients together, then add a pint of rich milk, or thin cream, stirring very fast. Fill the plates and bake immediately.
Another.
An egg, a lemon, and a cup of sugar prepared as directed in the last receipt; then add half a cup of water, and two small crackers, pounded and sifted. Bake in a plate, with a paste.
Rich Mince.
To one beef's tongue, allow a pound of suet, a pound of currants, another of raisins, a pound and a quarter of sugar, half a pound of citron, eight large apples, a quart of wine or boiled cider, salt, a nutmeg, cinnamon, cloves, the juice and pulp of a lemon, and the rind chopped fine. Let the meat be chopped very fine, then add the apples and chop them fine also. Put the sugar into the cider or wine, and just boil it up so as to skim off the top; let it stand a few minutes, and then pour it off into a pan containing all the other ingredients. Be careful, in pouring it, not to disturb any sediment there may be from the sugar. Use loaf sugar if you choose.
Another (not as rich).
Chop the meat, apples, and suet separately, and then measure the ingredients thus: three bowls of meat, three of apple, one of suet, one of citron cut small, two of raisins, four of sugar, one of molasses, one of vinegar, one of some kind of syrup (quince or peach), or wine instead, if you prefer. Add powdered clove, nutmeg and cinnamon to suit the taste.
Temperance.
Boil five pounds of meat in water enough to have one quart when it is done; chop the meat very fine when it is cold, and add a quarter of a pound of suet, or salt pork, three pounds and a half of sugar, three of chopped apple, two and a half of box raisins and one of Sultana raisins, one of citron, and a pint of syrup of preserved peach, quince, or both; or any other syrup you may have; add salt, nutmeg, and powdered clove. To mix the ingredients, remove the fat from the juice of the meat and put it into a kettle with the apple, sugar, raisins, and citron, and let them boil a few minutes; if froth rises, take it off; have the meat ready in a pan mixed with the spices, pour the mixture boiling hot upon it, and stir it together; add, if you choose, the juice and pulp of three lemons. This process cooks the ingredients so thoroughly that, if you prefer, you can bake the paste first and then fill the dishes; and if you choose to reserve part of it, it will keep in a cool place several weeks.
Very Plain.
These may be made of almost any cheap pieces of meat, boiled till tender; add suet or salt pork chopped very fine, half or two thirds as much apple as meat; sugar and spices to your taste. If mince pies are eaten cold it is better to use salt pork than suet. A lemon, and a little syrup of sweetmeats will greatly improve them. Clove is the most important spice.
Without Suet.
Boil up a quart of good brown sugar in three pints of cider; set it off, and after a few minutes take off the scum; then put in a pint of chopped meat, a quart of chopped apple, and four large crackers pounded and sifted. Add a grated nutmeg, a large teaspoonful of powdered clove, and any other spice you prefer. Make the mixture more sweet if you choose. Boil it again four or five minutes. This will not keep so long as mince which contains no cracker.
Without Meat.
To twelve apples chopped fine, add six beaten eggs, and a half pint of cream. Put in spice, sugar, raisins or currants just as you would for meat mince pies.
Another.
A cup of molasses, a cup of sugar, half a cup of vinegar, and half a cup of butter, boiled up together for a minute. Then add three crackers pounded and sifted, a half a pint of chopped raisins, two beaten eggs, and spice to suit the taste.
Peach.
If the peaches are dried, stew them first in a little water; if fresh, pare them, but do not take out the stones. Make the pie in a large deep dish, and close the edge well, to prevent the escape of the syrup. The free-stones are best, because most tender; the cling-stones require long cooking.
Rhubarb.
Peel the stalks, and cut them into pieces about an inch long; lay them in a soft cloth in order to absorb some of the juice, as the quantity is very great. Put them in a sauce-pan and stew gently; add sugar enough to make it sweet as you wish, but no water; cover close. Be careful not to stew it so long as to break the pieces. Lay it into dishes for the table, and having baked your paste of the right size, lay it over. Some persons prefer the rhubarb without spice. If any is used, it should be the rind of a lemon.
Rhubarb tarts are good made, like the gooseberry, with a lower crust, and strips laid across the top.
Squash or Pumpkin.
To a pint and a gill of strained squash, put three gills of sugar, three eggs, two crackers, pounded and sifted (or four eggs without the crackers), a teaspoonful of salt, one nutmeg, a dessert spoonful of powdered cinnamon, or some essence of lemon, a teaspoonful of ginger, and a table-spoonful of butter, melted in a quart of milk. Boil the milk. To mix it, stir the spice and salt into the strained squash first, then add the cracker, and sugar, and when these are mixed, pour in half the milk, and when this is well stirred, add the remainder, and lastly the eggs, which should be thoroughly beaten. If you make up two quarts of milk, use five eggs, and five pounded crackers, and double the other ingredients.
Another.
Six eggs, eight table-spoonfuls of strained squash, one quart of boiled milk, a little salt, two table-spoonfuls of rose-water, a lemon (juice and rind), sugar to your taste, a spoonful of butter melted. Grate nutmeg over the top. Mix the ingredients as directed in the last receipt. The mode of making pumpkin puddings or pies, may be almost endlessly varied. They are very good without eggs, substituting a little more pumpkin and three crackers pounded and sifted, to a quart of milk; omitting rose-water, use cinnamon and a very little ginger. When you have only one or two eggs to a quart, use two crackers.
Puffs.
Make a rich paste of a quart of flour; after you have rubbed in part 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.
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.
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.
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.