6 apples—well flavored and slightly tart.
Pare and core the apples and put them in a buttered pudding-dish. Pour the batter over them and bake three-quarters of an hour. Eat hot with hard sauce.
Pudding-dishes.
The baking-dish of “ye olden time” was never comely; often positively unsightly. Dainty housewives pinned napkins around them and wreathed them with flowers to make them less of an eyesore. In this day, the pudding-maker can combine the æsthetic and useful by using the enameled wares of Messrs. Lalange and Grosjean, 89 Beekman Street, New York. The pudding-dishes made by them are pretty in themselves, easily kept clean; do not crack or blacken under heat, and are set on the table in handsome stands of plated silver that completely conceal the baking-dish. A silver rim runs around the top and hides even the edge of the bowl. They can be had, with or without covers, and are invaluable for macaroni, scallops, and many other “baked meats.” Saucepans and kettles of every kind are made in the same ware by this firm.
Fritters.
Not even so-called pastry is more ruthlessly murdered in the mixing and baking than that class of desserts the generic name of which stands at the head of this bake. Heavy, sour, sticky and oleaginous beyond civilized comparison, it is no marvel that the compound popularly known and eaten as “fritter” has become a doubtful dainty in the esteem of many, the object of positive loathing to some.
I do not recommend my fritters to dyspeptics and babies, nor as a standing dish to anybody. But that they can be made toothsome, spongy and harmless, as well as pleasant to those blessed with healthy appetites and unimpaired digestions, I hold firmly and intelligently.
Two or three conditions are requisite to this end. The fritters must be quickly made, thoroughly beaten, of right consistency,—and they must not lie in the fat the fraction of a minute after they are done. Take them up with a perforated spoon, or egg-beater, and lay on a hot sieve or cullender to drain before serving on the dish that is to take them to the table. Moreover, the fat must be hissing hot when the batter goes in if you would not have them grease-soaked to the very heart. Line the dish in which they are served with tissue-paper fringed at the ends, or a clean napkin to absorb any lingering drops of lard.