Miss Beecher's Housekeeper and Healthkeeper. Catharine Esther Beecher
A rich Flour Pudding.—Six eggs.
Three spoonfuls of flour.
One pint of milk.
A tea-spoonful of salt.
Beat the yelks well and mix them smoothly with the flour, then add the milk. Lastly, whip the whites to a stiff froth; work them in, and bake immediately.
To be eaten with a liquid sauce.
Apple-Pie.—Take fair apples; pare, core, and quarter them.
Take four table-spoonfuls of powdered sugar to a pie.
Put into a preserving-pan, with the sugar; water enough to make a thin sirup; throw in a few blades of mace; boil the apple in the sirup until tender, a little at a time, so as not to break the pieces. Take them out with care, and lay them in soup-dishes.
When you have preserved apple enough for your number of pies, add to the remainder of the sirup cinnamon and rose-water, or any other spice, enough to flavor it well, and divide it among the pies. Make a good paste, and line the rim of the dishes, and then cover them, leaving the pies without an under crust. Bake them a light brown.
Spiced Apple Tarts.—Rub stewed or baked apples through a sieve; sweeten them, and add powdered mace and cinnamon enough to flavor them. If the apples are not very tart, squeeze in the juice of a lemon. Some persons like the peel of the lemon grated into it. Line soup-dishes with a light crust, double on the rim, and fill them and bake them until the crust is done. Little bars of crust, a quarter of an inch in width, crossed on the top of the tart before it is baked, are ornamental.
Baked Indian Pudding.—Three pints of milk.
Ten heaping table-spoonfuls of Indian meal.
Three gills of molasses.
A piece of butter as large as a hen’s egg.
Scald the meal with the milk, and stir in the butter and molasses, and bake four or five hours. Some add a little chopped suet in place of the butter. This can be boiled.
Apple Custard.—Take half a dozen very tart apples, and take off the skin and cores. Cook them till they begin to be soft, in half a tea-cup of water. Then put them in a pudding-dish, and sugar them. Then beat six eggs with four spoonfuls of sugar; mix it with three pints of milk, and two tea-spoonfuls of salt; pour it over the apples, and bake for about half an hour.
Plain Macaroni or Vermicelli Puddings.—Put two ounces of macaroni or vermicelli into a pint of milk, and simmer until tender. Flavor it by putting in two or three sticks of cinnamon while boiling, or some other spice when done. Then beat up three eggs, mix in an ounce of sugar, half a pint of milk, a tea-spoonful of salt, and a glass of wine. Add these to the broken macaroni or vermicelli, and bake in a slow oven.
Green Corn Pudding.—Twelve ears of corn, grated. Sweet-corn is best. One pint and a half of milk. Four well-beaten eggs. One tea-cup and a half of sugar.
Mix the above, and bake it three hours in a buttered dish. More sugar is needed if common corn is used.
Bread Pudding for Invalids or young Children.—Grate half a pound of stale bread; add a pinch of salt, and pour on a pint of hot milk, and let it soak half an hour. Add two well-beaten eggs, put it in a covered basin just large enough to hold it, tie it in a pudding-cloth, and boil it half an hour; or put it in a buttered pan in an oven, and bake it that time. Make a sauce of thin sweet cream, sweetened with sugar, and flavored with rose-water or nutmeg.
A good Pudding.—Line a buttered dish with slices of wheat bread, first dipped in milk. Fill the dish with sliced apple, and add sugar and spice. Cover with slices of bread soaked in milk; cover close with a plate, and bake three hours.
Loaf Pudding.—When bread is too stale, put a loaf in a pudding-bag and boil it in salted water an hour and a half, and eat it with hard pudding-sauce.
A Lemon Pudding.—Nine spoonfuls of grated apple, one grated lemon, (peel and pulp,) one spoonful of butter, and three eggs. Mix and bake, with or without a crust, about an hour. Cream improves it.
Green Corn Patties, (like oysters.)—Twelve ears of sweet-corn grated. (Yellow corn will do, but not so well.)
One tea-spoonful of salt, and one of pepper.
One egg beaten into two table-spoonfuls of flour.
Mix, make into small cakes, and cook on a griddle.
Cracker Plum Pudding, (excellent.)—Make a very sweet custard, and put into it a tea-spoonful of salt.
Take soda crackers, split them, and butter them very thick.
Put a layer of raisins on the bottom of a large pudding-dish, and then a layer of crackers, and pour on a little of the custard when warm, and after soaking a little, put on a thick layer of raisins, pressing them into the crackers with a knife. Then put on another layer of crackers, custard and fruit, and proceed thus till you have four layers. Then pour over the whole enough custard to rise even with the crackers. It is best made over night, so that the crackers may soak. Bake from an hour and a half to two hours. During the first half-hour, pour on, at three different times, a little of the custard, thinned with milk, to prevent the top from being hard and dry. If it browns fast, cover with paper.
Bread and butter pudding is made in a similar manner.
SAUCES FOR PUDDINGS.
Liquid Sauce.—Six table-spoonfuls of sugar. Ten table-spoonfuls of water. Four table-spoonfuls of butter. Two table-spoonfuls of wine. Nutmeg, or lemon, or orange-peel, or rose-water, to flavor.
Heat the water and sugar very hot. Stir in the butter till it is melted, but be careful not to let it boil. Add the wine and nutmeg, just before it is used.
Hard Sauce.—Two table-spoonfuls of butter.
Ten table-spoonfuls of sugar.
Work this till white, then add wine or grated lemon-peel, and spice to your taste.
Another Hard Sauce.—Mix half as much butter as sugar, and heat it fifteen minutes in a bowl set in hot water. Stir till it foams. Flavor with wine or grated lemon-peel.
A Healthful Pudding Sauce.—Boil, in half a pint of water, some orange or lemon-peel, or peach-leaves. Take them out and pour in a thin paste, made with two spoonfuls of flour, and boil five minutes. Then put in a pint of sugar, and let it boil. Then put in two spoonfuls of butter, add a glass of wine, and take it up before it boils.
An excellent Sauce for any Kind of Pudding.—Beat the yelks of three eggs into sugar enough to make it quite sweet. Add a tea-cup of cream, or milk, and a little butter, and the grated peel and juice of two lemons. When lemons can not be had, use dried lemon-peel, and a little tartaric acid. This is a good sauce for puddings, especially for the Starch Minute Pudding. Good cider in place of wine is sometimes used.
PASTE FOR PUDDINGS AND PIES.
This is an article which, if the laws of health were obeyed, would be banished from every table; for it unites the three evils—animal fat, cooked animal fat, and heavy bread. Nothing in the whole range of cooking is more indigestible than rich pie-crust, especially when, as bottom crust, it is made still worse by being soaked, or slack-baked. Still, as this work does not profess to leave out unwholesome dishes, but only to set forth an abundance of healthful ones, and the reasons for preferring them, the best directions will be given for making the best kinds of paste.
Pie-Crusts