Strain it into a bowl, add a pint of cream, and a little wine or brandy, to taste. Stir it occasionally, to prevent the cream from settling on the surface. Turn it, avoiding the settlings, into molds, to harden; or, in place of almonds, a stick of cinnamon may be substituted; or infuse a few more almonds, and omit the wine or brandy; or, the blanc-mange may be flavored with maraschino, or any other liqueur. I prefer blanc-mange made with corn starch, as the same ingredients necessary for a blanc-mange proper are better made into Bavarian creams.
Corn-starch Pudding.
Ingredients: One and one-half pints of rich milk, one large heaping table-spoonful of corn starch, one scant cupful of sugar, four eggs, omitting two whites, a little salt, and flavoring.
Bring the milk and the sugar almost to a boil, then add the corn starch (stirred smooth with a little milk), and a pinch of salt. Stir it at the back of the range for five minutes, not allowing it to boil. Then take it off the fire; when a little cooled, stir in the eggs, and when well and smoothly mixed, place the kettle again on the fire for only a few moments, to be sure that the eggs are slightly cooked. Now stir in the flavoring, if it is an extract. Zest (sugar rubbed on fresh lemon-peel) is an exceedingly delicate flavoring. The vanilla powder boiled in the milk is better than the extract.
It makes a pretty dish to pour this into cups or little molds, and, when cold and solid, to arrange them in a circle or, according to taste, on a platter, with strawberry, grape, or any kind of fruit sauce, or whipped cream poured into the bottom of the dish; or, mold it in a circular form, and pile up any kind of berries in the centre, with or without whipped cream. For an invalid I prefer the other receipt for “a corn-starch pudding.”
The common rule for corn-starch pudding is one quart of milk, three eggs, three table-spoonfuls of corn starch, one even cupful of sugar; add flavoring and a little salt.
Bread-pudding.
Soak some crumbled bread in milk. Put a layer of this (rather moist) in the bottom of a pudding-dish; sprinkle over some raisins and a little cinnamon powder, then another layer of soaked bread-crumbs, raisins, and cinnamon powder. Now beat up three eggs (to about a quart of soaked bread-crumbs) with two heaping table-spoonfuls of sugar; mix into it a quarter of a cupful of rum, brandy, or wine, and pour it all over the pudding in the dish. Bake about twenty minutes.