Suet dumplings
Rub a cupful of white suet free from strings, and powder it fine. Rub and chop it into two cupfuls of fine crumbs. Sift a teaspoonful of baking-powder three times with four tablespoonfuls of flour, and work into the crumbs and suet. Add a teaspoonful of salt. Beat three eggs very light and stir into a cupful and a half of milk. With this wet crumbs and flour into a rather stiff dough. Make into dumplings with floured hands; tie up in cheese-cloth dipped in hot water and floured on the inside, leaving plenty of room to swell, and boil one hour.
Eat with liquid sauce.
Cornmeal dumplings
Scald a quart of milk, stir in three cupfuls of Indian meal, or enough to make a stiff dough; cook for five minutes, stirring often from the bottom. Take from the fire; beat in one-half cupful of powdered suet with a teaspoonful of salt, and let it get perfectly cold. Then add three eggs beaten light with two tablespoonfuls of sugar, and, lastly, a tablespoonful of flour sifted three times with half a teaspoonful of baking-powder. Make out into balls the size of an egg with floured hands, envelop in cheese-cloth squares, prepared as directed in preceding recipes. The dumplings will double their size in boiling, so make allowances in tying them up.
Boil one hour hard. Dip into cold water for a second, turn out and eat with hard sauce.
Orange dumplings
Chop a tablespoonful of butter into two cupfuls of flour which has been twice sifted with one teaspoonful of baking-powder and a quarter-teaspoonful of salt. Mix with a cupful of milk to a soft dough, and roll this into a sheet a half-inch thick; cut into squares; lay in each a peeled, sliced and seeded orange, and sprinkle thickly with sugar. Envelop in cheese-cloth squares as already directed, and proceed as with other fruit dumplings.