- Three spoonfuls of flour.
- One pint of milk.
- A tea-spoonful of salt.
- Ten heaping table-spoonfuls of Indian meal.
- Three gills of molasses.
- A piece of butter as large as a hen’s egg.
- One tea-spoonful of salt, and one of pepper.
- One egg beaten into two table-spoonfuls of flour.
SAUCES FOR PUDDINGS.
Liquid Sauce.—Six table-spoonfuls of sugar. Ten table-spoonfuls of water. Four table-spoonfuls of butter. Two table-spoonfuls of wine. Nutmeg, or lemon, or orange-peel, or rose-water, to flavor.
Heat the water and sugar very hot. Stir in the butter till it is melted, but be careful not to let it boil. Add the wine and nutmeg, just before it is used.
Hard Sauce.—Two table-spoonfuls of butter.
Ten table-spoonfuls of sugar.
Work this till white, then add wine or grated lemon-peel, and spice to your taste.
Another Hard Sauce.—Mix half as much butter as sugar, and heat it fifteen minutes in a bowl set in hot water. Stir till it foams. Flavor with wine or grated lemon-peel.
A Healthful Pudding Sauce.—Boil, in half a pint of water, some orange or lemon-peel, or peach-leaves. Take them out and pour in a thin paste, made with two spoonfuls of flour, and boil five minutes. Then put in a pint of sugar, and let it boil. Then put in two spoonfuls of butter, add a glass of wine, and take it up before it boils.
An excellent Sauce for any Kind of Pudding.—Beat the yelks of three eggs into sugar enough to make it quite sweet. Add a tea-cup of cream, or milk, and a little butter, and the grated peel and juice of two lemons. When lemons can not be had, use dried lemon-peel, and a little tartaric acid. This is a good sauce for puddings, especially for the Starch Minute Pudding. Good cider in place of wine is sometimes used.
PASTE FOR PUDDINGS AND PIES.
This is an article which, if the laws of health were obeyed, would be banished from every table; for it unites the three evils—animal fat, cooked animal fat, and heavy bread. Nothing in the whole range of cooking is more indigestible than rich pie-crust, especially when, as bottom crust, it is made still worse by being soaked, or slack-baked. Still, as this work does not profess to leave out unwholesome dishes, but only to set forth an abundance of healthful ones, and the reasons for preferring them, the best directions will be given for making the best kinds of paste.
Pie-Crusts without Fats.—Good crusts for plain pies are made by wetting up the crust with rich milk turned sour, and sweetened with saleratus. Still better crusts are made of sour cream, sweetened with saleratus.
Mealy potatoes boiled in salt water and mixed with the same quantity of flour, and wet with sour milk sweetened with saleratus, make a good crust.
Good light bread rolled thin makes a good crust for Pan-Dowdy, or pan-pie, and also for the upper crust of fruit-pies, to be made without bottom crusts.
Pie-Crust made with Butter.—Very plain paste is made by taking a quarter of a pound of butter for every pound of flour. Still richer, allow three quarters of a pound of butter to a pound of flour.
Directions for making rich Pie-Crust.—Take a quarter of the butter to be used, rub it thoroughly into the flour, and wet it with cold water to a stiff paste.
Next dredge the board thick with flour, cut up the remainder of the butter into thin slices, lay them upon the flour, dredge flour over thick, and then roll out the butter into thin sheets, and lay it aside.
Then roll out the paste thin, cover it with a sheet of this rolled butter; dredge on more flour, fold it up and roll it out, and repeat the process till all the butter is used up.
Paste should be made as quick and as cold as possible. Some use a marble table in order to keep it cold. Roll from you every time.