In using butter for puff paste, you should take the greatest care to previously work it well on the paste-board or slab, to get out all the water and buttermilk, which very often remains in; when you have worked it well with a clean knife, dab it over with a soft cloth, and it is then ready to lay on your paste; do not make your paste over stiff before you put in your butter.
For those who do not understand making puff paste, it is by far the best way to work the butter in at two separate times, divide it in half, and break the half in little bits, and cover your paste all over: dredge it lightly with flour, then fold it over each side and ends, roll it out quite thin, and then put in the rest of the butter, fold it, and roll it again. Remember always to roll puff paste from you. The best made paste, if not properly baked, will not do the cook any credit.
Those who use iron ovens do not always succeed in baking puff paste, fruit pies, &c. Puff paste is often spoiled by baking it after fruit pies, in an iron oven. This may be easily avoided, by putting two or three bricks that are quite even into the oven before it is first set to get hot. This will not only prevent the syrup from boiling put of the pies, but also prevent a very disagreeable smell in the kitchen and house, and almost answers the same purpose as a brick oven.
College Puddings.—(No. 105.)
Beat four eggs, yelks and whites together, in a quart basin, with two ounces of flour, half a nutmeg, a little ginger, and three ounces of sugar; pounded loaf sugar is best. Beat it into a smooth batter; then add six ounces of suet, chopped fine, six of currants, well washed and picked; mix it all well together; a glass of brandy or white wine will improve it. These puddings are generally fried in butter or lard; but they are much nicer baked in an oven in patty-pans; twenty minutes will bake them: if fried, fry them till they are of a nice light brown, and when fried, roll them in a little flour. You may add one ounce of orange or citron, minced very fine; when you bake them, add one more egg, or two spoonfuls of milk. Serve them up with white wine sauce.
Rice Puddings baked, or boiled.—(No. 106.)
Wash in cold water and pick very clean six ounces of rice, put it in a quart stew-pan three parts filled with cold water, set it on the fire, and let it boil five minutes; pour away the water, and put in one quart of milk, a roll of lemon peel, and a bit of cinnamon; let it boil gently till the rice is quite tender; it will take at least one hour and a quarter; be careful to stir it every five minutes; take it off the fire, and stir in an ounce and a half of fresh butter, and beat up three eggs on a plate, a salt-spoonful of nutmeg, two ounces of sugar; put it into the pudding, and stir it till it is quite smooth; line a pie-dish big enough to hold it with puff paste, notch it round the edge, put in your pudding, and bake it three quarters of an hour: this will be a nice firm pudding.
If you like it to eat more like custard, add one more egg, and half a pint more milk; it will be better a little thinner when boiled; one hour will boil it. If you like it in little puddings, butter small tea-cups, and either bake or boil them, half an hour will do either: you may vary the pudding by putting in candied lemon or orange-peel, minced very fine, or dried cherries, or three ounces of currants, or raisins, or apples minced fine.
If the puddings are baked or boiled, serve them with white-wine sauce, or butter and sugar.