Handbook of practical cookery

Plain Plum Pudding.— One pound bread crumbs, one quarter pound flour, one quarter pound sugar, one half pound suet, one quarter pound raisins, one quarter pound currants, one tea-spoonful ground ginger, one tea-spoonful ground cinnamon, one half of a nutmeg, one tea-spoonful baking-powder, one half pint milk. Place on a board the suet, remove the skin, and chop it APPLE FRITTERS— PANCAKES. 265 very finely ; place it in a basin, and add the bread crumbs and flour ; stir all well together, then add the sugar, ginger, cinnamon, and baking-powder. Wash well and dry the currants, add them; seed the raisins, add them also; then grate over the nutmeg. Moisten all with the milk, and stir thoroughly together. Dip a pudding-cloth in boiling water, sprinkle over a little flour, and place the cloth over a basin, pour in the mixture, tie up the cloth rather loosely round with a piece of twine. Plunge this now into a large pan of boiling water, and boil it for four hours. Apple Fritters.— Four large apples, three table-spoonfuls of flour, one gill water, one half ounce butter, one tablespoonful sugar. Pare the apples, remove the cores ; but do not cut them up. Cut the apples in round slices about half an inch thick. Place in a basin the flour, melt over the fire in a small saucepan the butter, and pour it into the centre of the dry flour. Heat the water also in the pan, and when tepid pour it over the butter, then with the back of a wooden spoon beat and stir all well together. Place on the fire to heat a stew-pan half filled with clarified fat, and when the smoke rises lift, one by one, the pieces of apples with a skewer or fork, dip each piece in the batter in the basin, and then drop each one into the clarified fat. Cook each for three minutes, then lift them out one by one on to a sheet of paper. Drain them one minute on the paper, then place them on a hot dish, and sprinkle over the sugar. Pancakes. — Four table-spoonfuls of flour, one half pint milk, one egg, two table-spoonfuls of sugar, two table-spoonfuls of dripping. Place in a basin the flour, make a little hole in the centre, drop in the yolk of egg, and place the white on a plate. Add to the flour and yolk of egg by degrees half of the milk. "With the back of a wooden spoon beat this mixture till it begins to rise in bells ; add then the remainder of the milk. Whip with a dry knife the white of egg to a stiff froth. 266 SIMPLE PUDDINGS, ETC. Mix the white very lightly to the other ingredients. Melt now in a small frying-pan a very little of the dripping, pour in half a tea-cupful of the batter, cook it over a moderate fire until a pale brown on the under side, turn it quickly on the other side. When the second side is browned turn the pancake out on a plate, sprinkle over a little of the sugar, roll it up quickly, then place it on a hot flat dish, and prepare the other in the same way. Fried Rice Balls.— One quarter pound rice, three gills milk, one table-spoonful sugar, two table-spoonfuls bread crumbs, one egg.