Miss Beecher's Housekeeper and Healthkeeper. Catharine Esther Beecher

of salt, and stir it till it boils again. Then beat up four eggs and put in, and sweeten it to your taste, and pour it out for pies or pudding. More eggs make it a rich custard.

      Bake as pudding, or boil in a tin pail set in boiling water, stirring often, and pour into cups.

      Another Custard.—Boil six peach-leaves, or a lemon-peel, in a quart of milk, till it is flavored; cool it, add three spoonfuls of sugar, a tea-spoonful of salt, and five eggs beaten to a froth. Put the custard into a tin pail, set it in boiling water, and stir it till cooked enough. Then turn it into cups; if preferred, it can be baked.

      Mush, or Hasty Pudding.—Wet up the Indian-meal in cold water, till there are no lumps, stir it gradually into boiling water which has a little sugar and more salt added; boil till so thick that the stick will stand in it. Boil slowly, and so as not to burn, stirring often. Two or three hours’ boiling is needed. Pour it into a broad, deep dish, let it grow cold, cut it into slices half an inch thick, flour them, and fry them on a griddle with a little lard, or bake them in a stove oven.

      Stale Bread Pudding, (fine.)—Cut stale bread in thick slices, and put it to soak for several hours in cold milk.

      Then cook on a griddle, with some salt, and eat it with sugar, or molasses, or a sweet sauce. To make it more delicate, take off the crusts. It is still better to soak it in uncooked custard. Baker’s bread is best.

      To prepare Rennet Wine.—Put three inches square of calf’s rennet to a pint of wine, and set it away for use. Three table-spoonfuls will serve to curdle a quart of milk.

      Rennet Custard.—Put three table-spoonfuls of rennet wine to a quart of milk, and add four or five great-spoonfuls of white sugar and a salt-spoonful of salt. Flavor it with wine, or lemon, or rose-water. It must be eaten in an hour, or it will turn to curds.

      Bird’snest Pudding.—Pare tart, well-flavored apples, scoop out the cores without dividing the apple, put them in a deep dish with a small bit of mace, and a spoonful of sugar in the opening of each apple. Pour in water enough to cook them. When soft, pour over them an unbaked custard, so as just to cover them, and bake till the custard is done.

      A Minute Pudding of Potato Starch.—Take four heaped table-spoonfuls of potato flour, three eggs, and a tea-spoonful of salt, and one quart of milk. Boil the milk, reserving a little to moisten the flour. Stir the flour to a paste, perfectly smooth, with the reserved milk, and put it into the boiling milk. Add the eggs well beaten, let it boil till very thick, which will be in two or three minutes, then pour into a dish and serve with liquid sauce. After the milk boils, the pudding must be stirred every moment till done.

      Tapioca Pudding.—Soak eight table-spoonfuls of tapioca in a quart of warm milk and tea-spoonful of sugar, till soft, then add two table-spoonfuls of melted sweet lard or butter, five eggs well beaten, spice, sugar, and wine to your taste. Bake in a buttered dish, without any lining. Sago may be used in place of tapioca.

      Cocoa-Nut Pudding (plain).—Take one quart of milk, five eggs, and one cocoa-nut, grated. The eggs and sugar are beaten together, and stirred into the milk when hot. Strain the milk and eggs, and add the cocoa-nut, with nutmeg to the taste. Bake about twenty minutes like puddings.

      

      New-England Squash or Pumpkin-Pie.—Take a pumpkin or winter-squash, cut in pieces, take off the rind and remove the seeds, and boil it until tender, then rub it through a sieve. When cold, add to it milk to thin it, and to each quart of milk five well-beaten eggs. Sugar, cinnamon, and ginger to your taste. The quantity of milk must depend upon the size and quality of the squash.

      These pies require a moderate heat, and must be baked until the centre is firm.

      Ripe Fruit Pies—Peach, Cherry, Plum, Currant, and Strawberry.—Line your dish with paste. After picking over and washing the fruit carefully (peaches must be pared, and the rest picked from the stem), place a layer of fruit and a layer of sugar in your dish, until it is well filled, then cover it with paste, and trim the edge neatly, and prick the cover. Fruit-pies require about an hour to bake in a thoroughly-heated oven.

      Mock Cream.—Beat three eggs well, and add three heaping tea-spoonfuls of sifted flour. Stir it into a pint and a half of boiling milk, add a salt-spoon of salt, and sugar to your taste. Flavor with rose-water or essence of lemon.

      This can be used for cream-cakes or pastry.

      A Pudding of Fruit and Bread Crumbs.—Mix a pint of dried and pounded bread-crumbs with an equal quantity of any kind of berries, or of dried and chopped sour apples. Add three eggs, half a pint of milk, three spoonfuls of fine flour, and half a tea-spoonful of salt. Bake on a griddle or in an oven in muffin-rings, or, when made thinner, as griddle-cakes. If dried fruit is used, more milk is needed than for fresh berries.

      This may also be boiled for a pudding. Flour the pudding-cloth and tie tight, as it will not swell in cooking.

      Bread and Apple Dumplings.—Mix half a pint of dried bread-crumbs and half a pint of fine flour. Wet it with water and two eggs thick enough to roll. Then put it around large apples peeled and cored whole, and boil for dumplings in several small floured cloths, or put all into one large floured cloth, tied tight, as they will not swell. Try with a fork, and when the apples are soft, take up and serve with a sweet sauce.

      An excellent Indian Pudding without Eggs.—Take seven heaping spoonfuls of scalded Indian meal, half a tea-spoonful of salt, two spoonfuls of butter or sweet lard, a tea-cup of molasses, and two tea-spoonfuls of ginger or cinnamon, to the taste. Pour into these a quart of milk while boiling hot. Mix well and put in a buttered dish. Just as you set in the oven, stir in a tea-cup of cold water, which will produce the same effect as eggs. Bake three-quarters of an hour in a dish that will not spread it out thin.

      Boiled Indian and Suet Pudding.—Three pints of milk, ten heaping table-spoonfuls of sifted Indian meal, a tumblerful of molasses, two eggs. Scald the meal with the milk, add the molasses and a tea-spoonful of salt. Put in the eggs when it is cool enough not to scald them. Put in a table-spoonful of ginger. Tie the bag so that it will be about two-thirds full of the pudding in order to give room to swell. The longer it is boiled the better. Some like a little chopped suet with the above.

      A Dessert of Rice and Fruit.—Pick over and wash the rice, and boil it fifteen minutes in water, with salt at the rate of a heaping tea-spoonful to a quart. Rice is much improved by having the salt put in while cooking. Pour out the water in fifteen minutes after it begins to boil. Then pour in rich milk and boil till of a pudding thickness. Then pour it into cups to harden, when it is to be turned out inverted upon a platter in small mounds. Make an opening on the top of each, and put in a pile of jelly or fruit. Lastly, pour over all a custard made of three eggs, a pint of milk, and a tea-spoonful of salt boiled in a tin pail set in boiling water. This looks very prettily. Sweet cream with a little salt can be used instead of custard. This can be modified by having the whole put in a bowl and hardened, and then inverted and several openings made for the fruit.

      Another Dessert of Rice and Fruit.—Boil the rice in salt and water, a tea-spoonful to a quart of water. When cooked to a pudding consistency, cool it, and then cut it in slices. Then put a thin layer of rice at the bottom of a pudding-dish, cover it with a thin layer of jelly or stewed fruit half an inch thick. Continue to add alternate layers of rice and jelly or fruit, smooth it at top, grate on sugar, and then cut the edges to show stripes of fruit and rice. Help it in saucers, and have cream or a thin custard to pour on it. Make the custard with two eggs, half a pint of milk, and half a tea-spoonful of salt. Boil it in a pail set in boiling water.

      Dessert of cold Rice and stewed or grated Apple.—Cut cold boiled rice in slices, and then lay in a buttered pudding-dish alternate layers of rice and grated or stewed apples. Add sugar and spice to each layer of apples. Cover with the rice, smooth with a spoon dipped in cold water or milk, and bake three-quarters of an hour if the