Make a good pudding crust of a large breakfast-cupful of flour and a quarter of a pound of beef suet rubbed into it. Mix to a stiff paste and roll out on a board in thin pieces. Put into each a small peeled apple, moisten the edges with a little milk, taking care that the apple is completely encased in the paste. Drop into a saucepan of boiling water and boil gently for two to three minutes. Serve very hot with a bowl of beaten cream and another of finely sifted sugar.
164. Baked Apple Dumplings
Make a nice piecrust as for tarts. Have ready the apples required and put one into each piece of crust. Bake in a steady oven from three to four minutes. Serve with cream and sugar.
165. Pancakes
Beat together two eggs, add a teacupful of milk. Mix into it one and a half ounces of flour and work it with a spoon to a smooth paste with a pinch of salt. Have your fire nice and hot and perfectly clear. Keep the top of the stove on all the time. Take a piece of best tub lard and melt it in a frying pan (kept for pancakes only), run it well over the surface of the pan when it is quite hot. Turn the fat out and pour about a third of a teacupful of the batter into the pan taking care that it runs all over the pan, which should be only about the size of a pudding plate. Loosen the edges with the blade of a knife and shake it from time to time to prevent it from sticking to the pan. Turn with a slice if unable to toss. Tossing is perfectly easy but requires some practice. It is done by a turn of the wrist, and if these directions are carefully followed the pancake should leave the pan perfectly clean. Turn on to a flat dish and serve either with jam or sugar, or if savoury pancakes are desired the following hint is a good one: Melt in a cup on the stove about an ounce of fresh butter with a little finely shredded onion in it; put it into a hot sauce boat and serve with the pancakes.
Each pancake takes from five to seven minutes to cook.
166. Apple Pudding
Take about a quarter of a pound of finely chopped beef suet, two and a half breakfast-cupfuls of self-raising flour, a little pinch of salt. Mix with chilled water to a stiff paste. Roll three parts of this into a large piece on the pastry board. Have ready a pudding basin buttered by putting a piece of butter the size of a walnut into it and standing it on the stove to melt. Then let it run over every part of the inside of the basin. This will prevent the paste sticking. Line the basin with the paste. Peel, say eight apples, and cut them all round the core. Fill the basin with them. Add three cloves or, if preferred, a little rind of lemon, sweeten with brown sugar (about four or five good tablespoonfuls), cover with another layer of the paste, working the ends together well so as to prevent the apples coming through. Tie a wet cloth over and stand the basin in a saucepan of boiling water to boil for three hours.
167. Treacle or Jam Pudding in a Basin
Have the paste ready as for apple pudding and the basin buttered as above. Roll the pastry in thin layers and line the basin with one layer, then add a layer of golden syrup or jam and repeat until the basin is full. Cover with paste, tie up in cloth and boil in a saucepan of boiling water for three and a half hours.