Miss Corson's practical American cookery and household management

Pick over a cupful of rice, wash it in cold water, and put it over the fire to boil in two quarts of boiling water containing a tablespoonful of salt ; boil the rice fast for twenty minutes, then drain it on a sieve ; while Jthe rice is being boiled, peel and core half a dozen medium-sized apples of good flavor, fill the centres with sugar and spice or with any good jelly or marmalade ; when the rice is drained, put some of it around each apple in a layer about half an inch thick, taking care to entirely cover the apples ; tie each apple in a small pudding-cloth, after it has been covered with rice; when all the little dumplings are thus prepared, drop them into boiling water, and boil them steadily for an hour ; then carefully remove the cloths, and serve the dumplings without breaking them apart. Use any good pudding-sauce with them. A raw egg may be mixed with the rice before putting it over the apples, by way of varying the dish. MAPLE-SUGAR SAUCE. Break half a pound of maple-sugar in small bits, put it into a thick saucepan with half a gill of cold water ; set the saucepan over the fire, and melt the sugar until it forms a clear sirup ; then remove it from the fire, and stir in two heaping tablespoonfuls of butter cut in small bits. Serve the sauce hot with any fruit-pudding. BAKED PUDDINGS. Baked puddings are generally considered safer for inexperienced cooks to make, because there is no difficulty to be apprehended except burning, while they are being cooked, and that simply requires watchfulness to guard against it. Many of them are very delicate, and they are more likely to be digestible than boiled puddings. When baked puddings need sauces, any of those given with the recipes for boiled puddings will answer. BAKED PLUM-PUDDING. Mix the following ingredients as directed in the recipe for Christmas plum-pudding : Half a pound each of suet, raisins, and currants ; quarter of a pound of sugar, sifted with one pound of flour, two teaspoonfuls of baking-powder, and one of salt ; one ounce each of candied citron, lemon, and orange-peel; one small nutmeg, grated. Mix with them quickly one gill of brandy, one egg, and sufficient milk to make a thick batter; put the pudding at once into a buttered pudding-mould, and bake it for two hours in a moderate oven. Dust it with pulverized sugar before serving it, and send it to the table with rum or brandy sauce. BAKED nWIAN-FUDDING. Mix together one cupful each of yellow Indian meal and molasses, pour over them a quart of boiling milk, mixing it in gradually ; then add a level teaspoonful of salt, a tablespoonful of ground cinnamon or ginger, and a heaping tablespoonful of butter, and let these ingredients cool ; when they are quite cold, put them into an earthen pudding-dish, set it in a moderate oven, and pour upon the top a pint of cold milk, but do not stir the milk into the pudding ; bake the pudding for three hours, taking care that it does not burn. Serve the pudding either hot or cold. LEMON-PUDDING.