Having pared and cored them, stew 1 lb. of apples, or 1 quart of gooseberries, in a small stew-pan, with a very little water, a stick of cinnamon, 2 or 3 cloves, and grated lemon peel: when soft, pulp the apples through a sieve, sweeten them, or, if they want sharpness, add the juice of half, or a whole lemon, also ¼ lb. good fresh butter, and the yolks of 6 eggs well beaten; line a pudding dish, or patty-pans, with a good puff paste; pour the pudding in, and bake half an hour, or less, as required. A little brandy, or orange-flower water, may be used.—You may mix 2 oz. of Naples biscuit, with the pulp of gooseberries. Another.—Prepare the apples as in the last receipt: butter a dish and strew a very thick coating of crumbs of bread, put in the apples and cover with more crumbs; bake in a moderate oven half an hour, then turn it carefully out, and strew bits of lemon peel and finely sifted sugar over.—Rice may be used instead of crumbs of bread, first boiled till quite tender in milk, then sweetened, and flavoured with nutmeg and pounded cinnamon; stir a large piece of butter into it.
Quince Pudding.
Scald 1 lb. fruit till tender, pare them, and scrape off all the pulp. Strew over it pounded ginger and cinnamon, with sugar enough to sweeten it. To a pint of cream, put the yolks of 3 eggs, and stir enough pulp to make it as thick as you like. Pour it into a dish lined with puff paste, and bake it. Any stone fruit may be coddled, then baked in the same way.
Swiss Apple Pudding.
Break some rusks in bits, and soak them in boiling milk. Put a layer of sliced apples and sugar in a pudding dish, then a layer of rusks, and so on; finish with rusks, pour thin melted butter over, and bake it.
Peach, Apricot, and Nectarine Pudding.
Pour a pint of boiling, thin cream, over a breakfast-cupful of bread-crumbs, and cover with a plate. When cold, beat them up with the yolks of 5 eggs, sugar to taste, and a glass of white wine. Scald 12 large peaches, peel them, take out the kernels, pound these with the fruit, in a mortar, and mix with the other ingredients; put all into a dish with a paste border, and bake it. Another Apricot Pudding.—Coddle 6 large apricots till quite tender, cut them in quarters, sweeten to your taste, and when cold, add 6 yolks of eggs and 2 whites, well beaten, also a little cream. Put this in a dish lined with puff paste, and bake it half an hour in a slow oven: strew powdered sugar over, and send it to table.
For this and all delicate puddings requiring little baking, rather shallow dishes are best; and if the pudding is not to be turned out, a pretty paste border only is required; this formed of leaves neatly cut, and laid round the dish, their edges just laying over each other.
A Charlotte.
Cut slices of bread, an inch thick, butter them on both sides, and cut them into dice or long slips, and make them fit the bottom, and round the sides of a small buttered dish or baking tin, and fill up with apples which have been stewed, sweetened, and seasoned to taste; have some slices of bread soaked in warm milk and butter, cover these over the top, put a plate or dish on the top, and a weight on that, to keep it down, and bake in a quick oven: when done, turn it out of the dish.—This is very nice, made of layers of different sorts of marmalade or preserved fruit, and slices of stale sponge cake between each layer. Another of Currants.—Stew ripe currants with sugar enough to sweeten them: have ready a basin or mould buttered and lined with thin slices of bread and butter, pour in the stewed fruit hot, just off the fire, cover with more slices of bread and butter, turn a plate over, and a weight on that: let it stand till the next day, then turn it out, and pour cream or a thin custard round it, in the dish.