A guide to modern cookery

Mix to the consistence of a pomade four oz. of butter and five oz. of powdered sugar; add eight oz. of finely-chopped almonds, a pinch of table salt, a half table-spoonful of orangeflower water, two eggs, two egg-yolks, and one-sixth pint of cream. Pour this preparation into a buttered pie-dish, and cook in a bain-marie in the oven. N.B.—English puddings of what kind soever are served in the dishes or basins in which they have cooked. 2482—BISCUIT PUDDING Crush eight oz. of lady’s-finger biscuits in a saucepan, and moisten them with one pint of boiling milk containing five oz. of sugar. Stir the whole over the fire, and add five oz. of candied fruit, cut into dice and mixed with currants (both products having been macerated in kirsch), three egg-yolks, four oz. of melted butter, and the white of five eggs beaten to a stiff froth. | Set to poach in a bain-marie, in a low, even Charlotte mould, or in a pie-dish, and serve an apricot sauce at the same time. 2483—CABINET PUDDING Garnish a buttered cylinder-mould with lady’s-finger biscuits or slices of buttered biscuit, saturated with some kind of liqueur; arranging them in alternate layers with a salpicon of candied fruit and currants, macerated in liqueur. Here and there spread a little apricot jam. Fill up the mould, little by little, with preparation No. 2639, flavoured according to fancy. Poach in a bain-marie. Turn out the pudding at the last moment, and coat it with English custard flavoured with vanilla. 2484—FRUIT PUDDING This pudding requires very careful treatment. The custard which serves as its base is the same as that of Cabinet Pudding, except that it is thickened by seven eggs and seven egg-yolks per quart of milk. This preparation is, moreover, combined with a purée of fruit suited to the pudding. Procedure: Butter a mould; set it in a bain-marie, and pour a few table-spoonfuls of the above preparation into it. Let it set, and upon this set custard sprinkle a layer of suitable fruit, sliced. This fruit may be apricots, peaches, pears, etc. Cover the fruit with a fresh coat of custard, but more copiously than in the first case ; let this custard set as before ; cover it with fruit, and proceed in the same order until the mould is full. It is, in short, another form of aspic-jelly preparation, but hot instead of cold. If the solidification of the layers of custard were not ensured, the fruit would fall to the bottom of the mould instead of remaining distributed between the layers of custard, and the result would be the collapse of the pudding as soon as it was turned out. Continue the cooking in the bain-marie; let the preparation stand a few minutes before turning it out, and serve at the same time a sauce made from the same fruit as that used for the pudding. ENGLISH FRUIT PUDDINGS. 2485—APPLE PUDDING Prepare a suet paste from one Ib. of flour, ten oz. of finelychopped suet, quarter of a pint of water and a pinch of salt. Let the paste rest for an hour, and roll it out to a thickness of one-third of an inch. With this layer of paste, line a well-buttered dome-mould or large pudding-basin. Garnish with sliced apples mixed with powdered sugar and flavoured with a chopped piece of lemon peel. Close the mould with a well-sealed-down layer of paste; wrap the mould in a piece of linen, which should be firmly fastened with string ; plunge it into a saucepan containing boiling water, and in the case of a quart pudding-basin or mould, let it cook for about three hours. N.B.—This pudding may be made with other fleshy fruit, as also with certain vegetables such as the pumpkin, ete. 2486—PLUM PUDDING