The easiest way in housekeeping and cooking

boiling water, and see that it is kept at the same height, about an inch from the top. Cover the outer kettle that the steam may be kept in. Small dumplings, with a single apple or peach in each, can be cooked in a steamer. Puddings are not only much more wholesome, but less expensive than pies. Apple Dumpling. Make a crust, as for biscuit, or a potato-crust as follows : Three large potatoes, boiled and mashed while hot. Add to them two cups of sifted flour and one teaspoonful of salt, and mix thoroughly. Now chop or cut into it one small cup of butter, and mix into a paste with about a teaeupful of cold water. Dredge the board thick with flour, and roll out, — thick in the middle, and thin at the edges. Fill, as directed, with apples pared and quartered, eight or ten good-sized ones being enough for this amount of crust. Boil for three hours. Turn out as directed, and eat with butter and sirup or with a made sauce. Peaches pared and halved, or canned ones drained from the sirup, can be used. In this case, prepare the sirup for sauce, as on p. 172. Blueberries are excellent in the same way. English Plum Pudding, or Christmas Pudding. One pound of raisins stoned and cut in two ; one pound of currants washed and dried ; one pound of beef-suet chopped very fine ; one pound of bread-crumbs ; one pound of flour ; half a pound of brown sugar ; eight eggs ; one pint of sweet milk ; one teaspoonful of salt ; a tablespoonful of cinnamon ; two grated nutmegs ; a glass each of wine and brandy. Prepare the fruit, and dredge thickly with flour. Soak the bread in the milk ; beat the eggs, and add. Stir in the rest of the flour, the suet, and last the fruit. Boil six hours either in a cloth or large mold. Half the amounts given makes a good-sized pudding ; but, as it will keep three months, it might be boiled in two molds. Serve with a rich sauce. Any-Day Plum Pudding. One cup of sweet milk ; one cup of molasses ; one cup each of raisins and currants ; one cup of suet chopped fine, or, instead, a small cup of butter ; one teaspoonful of salt, and one of soda, sifted with three cups of flour ; one teaspoonful each of cinnamon and allspice. Mix milk, molasses, suet, and spice ; add flour, and then the fruit. Put in a buttered mold, and boil three hours. Eat with hard or liquid sauce. A cupful each of prunes and dates or figs can be substituted for the fruit, and is very nice ; and the same amount of dried apple, measured after soaking and chopping, is also good. Or the fruit can be omitted altogether, in which case it becomes " Troy Pudding." Batter Pudding, Boiled or Baked. Two cups of flour in which is sifted a heaping teaspoonful of baking powder, two cups of sweet milk, four eggs, one teaspoonful of salt. Stir the flour gradually into the milk, and beat hard for five minutes. Beat yolks and whites separately, and then add to batter. Have the pudding- boiler buttered. Pour in the batter, and boil steadily for two hours. It may also be baked an hour in a buttered pudding-dish. Serve at once, when done, with a liquid sauce. Sunderland Puddings. Are merely puffs or pop-overs eaten with sauce. See p. 209. Bread Pudding.