Mrs. Roundell's Practical cookery book

Victoria Pudding. — Put a quarter of a pound of bread or cake crumbs or crumbled biscuit, two ounces of sugar, four ounces of suet minced to a powder, and eight ounces of stoned and stewed prunes, into a bowl. Stir into them, one by one, four well-beaten eggs, and a tablespoonful of brandy or rum. Add the “zest” and juice of one lemon, put the mixture into a buttered basin, tie a pudding-cloth over, and boil for three hours. For the sauce: Crack the prune-stones, put them into two gills of weak sugar and water syrup, boil up, and simmer, adding a dessertspoonful of the spirit used for the Pudding. In half an hour strain off the syrup, add another dessertspoonful of spirit, and pour it over the Pudding as you serve it. Caramel Pudding-. — ( Family Recipe.)— Melt at the bottom of a pint mould enough loaf sugar, about six lumps, to make six teaspoonfuls of Caramel. Boil, strain, and cool nearly a pint of milk, and make a good custard with three eggs. Add a very little sugar. Simmer gently for twenty minutes. There will be a little sauce from the caramel and custard, just enough to surround the Pudding. Serve quite cold. In this, as in all Custard Puddings, success entirely depends on the slow steaming. Wyvem gives several recipes for Custard Puddings, and lays particular stress on this slow process, fully explaining it in the first. (1.) Tapioca Custard. — (These three recipes are intended for quite a small party, say of four persons. Of course, it is easy to increase the quantities, great attention being paid to the proportion of each ingredient.) Take two tablespoonfuls of the best tapioca ; if there are large lumps pound the tapioca in a mortar and make it all alike, the size of a small pea. Soak it in water for half an hour, strain, and put it into a stewpan with a pint of cold milk. Set the pan over a low fire, warm up gradually, and simmer very gently, stirring occasionally to keep the tapioca smooth. Sweeten with a tablespoonful of sifted sugar, and when the tapioca is soft draw the pan from the fire and cool it. Whilst it is cooking beat up four fresh eggs, and stir them by degrees and off the fire into the cooled tapioca and milk. Set the pan over another containing boiling water, and steam till the mixture turns to a custard. Flavour with almond or ratafia, and empty it into a basin to cool. When cold, stir the custard well, blend with it a gill of separately whipped cream (which to whip well must be ice-cold), empty all into a glass dish, and strew over it crushed ratafias or powdered praline. Or lay the whipped cream lightly over the top of the custard. To make the praline : Melt three ounces of powdered sugar over a low fire in a small saucepan, let it turn a nice brown colour, then add two ounces of blanched and TAPIOCA CUSTARD chopped almonds, and stir well for a minute or two. Stop before the sugar turns too dark, and at once pour the whole upon a cold marble slab. It will harden immediately. When cold, pound the praline to powder in a mortar. A compote of fruit may be handed with this dish, but it is quite good enough without.