Bread-crumbs, 8 oz.; beef-suet, 6 oz.; pounded sugar, 3-1/2 oz.; lemon, 1 large; currants, 6 oz.; eggs, 4 large, or 5 small: 1 hour, brisk oven.
BAKEWELL PUDDING.
This pudding is famous not only in Derbyshire, but in several of our northern counties, where it is usually served on all holiday-occasions. Line a shallow tart-dish with quite an inch-deep layer of several kinds of good preserve mixed together, and intermingle with them from two to three ounces of candied citron or orange-rind. Beat well the yolks of ten eggs, and add to them gradually half a pound of sifted sugar; when they are well mixed, pour in by degrees half a pound of good clarified butter, and a little ratifia or any other flavour that may be preferred; fill the dish two-thirds full with this mixture, and bake the pudding for nearly an hour in a moderate oven. Half the quantity will be sufficient for a small dish.
Mixed preserves, 1-1/2 to 2 lbs.; yolks of eggs, 10; sugar, 1/2 lb.; butter, 1/2 lb.; ratifia, lemon-brandy, or other flavouring, to the taste: baked, moderate oven, 3/4 to 1 hour.
Obs.—This is a rich and expensive, but not very refined pudding. A variation of it, known in the south as an Alderman’s Pudding, is we think, superior to it. It is made without the candied peel, and with a layer of apricot-jam only, six ounces of butter, six of sugar, the yolks of six, and the whites of two eggs.
RATIFIA PUDDING.
Flavour a pint and a half of new milk rather highly with bitter almonds, blanched and bruised, or, should their use be objected to, with three or four bay leaves and a little cinnamon; add a few grains of salt, and from four to six ounces of sugar in lumps, according to the taste. When the whole has simmered gently for some minutes, strain off the milk through a fine sieve or muslin, put it into a clean saucepan, and when it again boils stir it gradually and quickly to six well-beaten eggs which have been likewise strained; let the mixture cool, and then add to it a glass of brandy. Lay a half-paste round a well-buttered dish, and sprinkle into it an ounce of ratifias finely crumbled, grate the rind of a lemon over, and place three ounces of whole ratifias upon them, pour in sufficient of the custard to soak them; an hour afterwards add the remainder, and send the pudding to a gentle oven: half an hour will bake it.
New milk, 1-1/2 pint; bitter almonds, 6 or 7 (or bay leaves, 3 to 5, and bit of cinnamon); sugar, 4 to 6 oz.; eggs, 6; brandy, 1 wineglassful; ratifias, 4 oz.; rind 1/2 lemon: baked 1/2 hour.
THE ELEGANT ECONOMIST’S PUDDING.
We have already given a receipt for an exceedingly good boiled pudding bearing this title, but we think the baked one answers even better, and it is made with rather more facility. Butter a deep tart-dish well, cut the slices of plum-pudding to join exactly in lining it, and press them against it lightly to make them adhere, as without this precaution they are apt to float off; pour in as much custard (previously thickened and left to become cold), or any other sweet pudding mixture, as will fill the dish almost to the brim; cover the top with thin slices of the plum pudding, and bake it in a slow oven from thirty minutes to a full hour, according to the quantity and quality of the contents. One pint of new milk poured boiling on an ounce and a half of tous-les-mois, smoothly mixed with a quarter of a pint of cold milk, makes with the addition of four ounces of sugar, four small eggs, a little lemon-grate, and two or three bitter almonds, or a few drops of ratifia, an excellent pudding of this kind; it should be baked nearly three-quarters of an hour in a quite slow oven. Two ounces and a half of arrow-root may be used in lieu of the tous-les-mois.