Fill a deep tart-dish with alternate layers of well-sugared fruit, and very thin slices of the crumb of a light stale loaf; let the upper layer be of fruit, and should it be of a dry kind, sprinkle over it about a dessertspoonful of water, or a little lemon-juice: raspberries, currants, and cherries, will not require this. Send the pudding to a somewhat brisk oven to be baked for about half an hour. The proportion of sugar used must be regulated, of course, by the acidity of the fruit. For a quart of ripe greengages, split and stoned, five ounces will be sufficient.
THE CURATE’S PUDDING.
This is but a variation of the pudding à la Paysanne which precedes it, but as it is both good and inexpensive it may be acceptable to some of our readers. Wash, wipe, and pare some quickly grown rhubarb-stalks, cut them into short lengths, and put a layer of them into a deep dish with a spoonful or two of Lisbon sugar; cover these evenly with part of a penny roll sliced thin; add another thick layer of fruit and sugar, then one of bread, then another of the rhubarb, cover this last with a deep layer of fine bread-crumbs well mingled with about a tablespoonful of sugar, pour a little clarified butter over them, and send the pudding to a brisk oven. From thirty to forty minutes will bake it. Good boiling apples sliced, sweetened, and flavoured with nutmeg or grated lemon-rind, and covered with well buttered slices of bread, make an excellent pudding of this kind, and so do black currants likewise, without the butter.
A LIGHT BAKED BATTER PUDDING.
With three heaped tablespoonsful or about six ounces of flour mix a small saltspoonful of salt, and add very gradually to it three fresh eggs which have been cleared in the usual way or strained, and whisked to a light froth. Beat up the batter well, then stir to it by degrees a pint of new milk, pour it into a buttered dish, set it immediately into a rather brisk oven, and bake it three-quarters of an hour. If properly managed, it will be extremely light and delicate, and the surface will be crisp. When good milk cannot be had for it, another egg, or the yolk of one at least, should be added. Send preserved or stewed fruit to table with it. The same mixture may be baked in buttered cups from twenty to thirty minutes, turned out, and served with sugar sifted thickly over.
In some counties an ounce or two of very finely minced suet is usually mixed with baked batter puddings, which are enriched, but not improved, we think, by the addition; but that is entirely a matter of taste.
CHAPTER XXII.
Eggs and Milk.
