Weigh a pound of good boiling apples after they are pared and cored, and stew them to a perfectly smooth marmalade, with six ounces of sugar, and a spoonful or two of wine; stir them often that they may not stick to the pan. Mix with them while they are still quite hot, three ounces of butter, the grated rind and the strained juice of a lemon, and lastly, stir in by degrees the well-beaten yolks of five eggs, and a dessertspoonful of flour, or in lieu of the last, three or four Naples’ biscuits, or macaroons crushed small. Bake the pudding for a full half hour in a moderate oven, or longer should it be not quite firm in the middle. A little clarified butter poured on the top, with sugar sifted over, improves all baked puddings.
Apples 1 lb.; sugar, 6 oz.; wine 1 glassful; butter, 3 oz.; juice and rind, 1 lemon; 5 eggs: 1/2 hour, or more.
Obs.—Many cooks press the apples through a sieve after they are boiled, but this is not needful when they are of a good kind, and stewed, and beaten smooth.
DUTCH CUSTARD, OR BAKED RASPBERRY PUDDING.
Lay into a tart-dish a border of puff-paste, and a pint and a half of freshly-gathered raspberries, well mixed with three ounces of sugar. Whisk thoroughly six large eggs with three ounces more of sugar, and pour it over the fruit: bake the pudding from twenty-five to thirty minutes in a moderate oven.
Break the eggs one at a time into a cup, and with the point of a small three-pronged fork take off the specks or germs, before they are beaten, as we have directed in page [424].
Raspberries, 1-1/2 pint; sugar, 6 oz.; eggs, 6: 25 to 30 minutes.
GABRIELLE’S PUDDING, OR SWEET CASSEROLE OF RICE.
Wash half a pound of the best Carolina rice, drain it on a hair-sieve, put it into a very clean stewpan or saucepan, and pour on it a quart of cold new milk. Stir them well together, and place them near the fire that the rice may swell very gradually; then let it simmer as gently as possible for about half an hour, or until it begins to be quite tender; mix with it then, two ounces of fresh butter and two and a half of pounded sugar, and let it continue to simmer softly until it is dry and sufficiently tender,[[151]] to be easily crushed to a smooth paste with a strong wooden spoon. Work it to this point, and then let it cool. Before it is taken from the fire, scrape into it the outside of some sugar which has been rubbed upon the rind of a fresh lemon. Have ready a tin mould of pretty form, well buttered in every part; press the rice into it while it is still warm, smooth the surface, and let it remain until cold. Should the mould be one which opens at the ends, like that shown in the plate at page [344], the pudding will come out easily; but if it should be in a plain common one, just dip it into hot water to loosen it; turn out the rice, and then again reverse it on to a tin or dish, and with the point of a knife mark round the top a rim of about an inch wide; then brush some clarified butter over the whole pudding, and set it into a brisk oven. When it is of an equal light golden brown draw it out, raise the cover carefully where it is marked, scoop out the rice from the inside, leaving only a crust of about an inch thick in every part, and pour into it some preserved fruit warmed in its own syrup, or fill it with a compôte of plums or peaches (see Chapter [XXIII].); or with some good apples boiled with fine sugar to a smooth rich marmalade. This is a very good as well as an elegant dish: it may be enriched with more butter, and by substituting cream for the milk in part or entirely but it is excellent without either.
[151]. Unless the rice be boiled slowly, and very dry, it will not answer for the casserole.