TAPIOCA PUDDING.—Put four large table-spoonfuls of tapioca into a quart of milk, and let it stand all night. In the morning put half a pint of milk into a small sauce-pan, and boil in it a large stick of cinnamon broken up, and a handful of bitter almonds or peach-kernels broken small. Keep it covered and boil it slowly, till highly flavoured with the cinnamon and almond, which must then be strained out, and the milk mixed with that which has the tapioca in it. Put it into a tin vessel or one lined with porcelain, and boil it till it becomes very thick with the dissolved tapioca; stirring it frequently down to the bottom. Add a piece of fresh butter as large as an egg; a quarter of a pound of sugar, and four well-beaten eggs stirred in gradually; a table-spoonful of brandy; and a grated nutmeg. Stir the whole well together, put it into a deep dish, and bake it an hour.
Instead of boiling bitter almonds with the cinnamon in the extra half pint of milk, you may boil the cinnamon only. And when you are afterwards finishing the whole mixture, stir in a table-spoonful of peach-water at the last.
Tapioca is to be bought at the grocer’s, and also at the druggist’s.
EXCELLENT GROUND RICE PUDDING.—Take half a pint from a quart of rich milk, and boil in it a large handful of bitter almonds or peach kernels, blanched and broken up; also half a dozen blades of mace, keeping the sauce-pan closely covered. When the milk is highly flavoured and reduced to one half the quantity, take it off and strain it. Stir, gradually, into the remaining pint and a half of milk, five heaping table-spoonfuls of ground rice; set it over the fire in a sauce-pan, and let it come to a boil. Then take it off, and while it is warm, mix in gradually a quarter of a pound of fresh butter and a quarter of a pound of white sugar. Afterwards, beat eight eggs as light as possible, and stir them, gradually, into the mixture. Add some grated nutmeg. Stir the whole very hard; put it into a deep dish; and set it immediately into the oven. Keep it baking steadily for an hour. It should then be done. It may be eaten either warm or cold.
To ornament it, have ready some sweet almonds blanched whole, and then split in half. Place six of them on the centre of the pudding, so as to form a star. Lay others in lines like rays diverging from the star, and place the remainder in a circle near the edge of the pudding.
Any pudding may be ornamented as above.
A SOUFFLÉ PUDDING.—Take eight rusks, or soft sugar-biscuits, or plain buns. Lay them in a large deep dish, and pour on a pint of milk, sufficient to soak them thoroughly. Cover the dish, and let them stand, undisturbed, for about an hour and a half before dinner. In the mean time, boil half a pint of milk in a small sauce-pan with a handful of bitter-almonds or peach-kernels, broken small; or a small bunch of fresh peach-leaves, with two large sticks of cinnamon broken up. Boil this milk slowly, (keeping it covered,) and when it tastes strongly of the flavouring articles, strain it, and set it away to cool. When cold, mix it into another pint of milk, and stir in a quarter of a pound of powdered loaf-sugar. Beat eight eggs very light, and add them gradually to the milk, so as to make a rich custard. After dinner has commenced, beat and stir the soaked rusk very hard till it becomes a smooth mass, and then, by degrees, add to it the custard. Stir the whole till thoroughly amalgamated. Set the dish into a brisk oven, and bake the pudding rather more than ten minutes. The yeast, &c., in the rusk will cause it to puff up very light. When done, send it to table warm, with white sugar sifted over it. You may serve up with it as sauce, sweetened thick cream flavoured with rose-water, and grated nutmeg. Or powdered loaf-sugar and fresh butter stirred together in equal portions, and seasoned with lemon and nutmeg.
Another way in making a soufflé pudding, instead of boiling the flavouring in a separate half pint of milk, is, after making the custard of cold milk, sugar, and eggs, to stir into it a wine-glass of peach-water, rose-water, or orange-flower water; or else two table-spoonfuls of Oliver’s extract of vanilla. Or you may flavour it with the yellow rind of a large lemon rubbed off upon some lumps of the sugar before it is powdered.