Miss Parloa's kitchen companion

Put one pint of the milk in the double-boiler. Mix the flour with the half-pint of cold milk. Beat the eggs light, and add them and the salt to the flour and milk. Now add one pint of boiling water to the hot milk. Take the inner boiler from the water, and place it on the stove. When the milk and water boil up, stir in the mixture of flour, milk, and eggs. Beat well for one minute. Now return the boiler to the water-boiler, and cook for ten minutes, stirring frequently. Serve with lemon or vanilla sauce. * Bread Pudding. Soak one pint of stale bread in one quart of cold milk for two hours. At the end of that time mash the bread fine. Beat together three table-spoonfuls of sugar, one teaspoonful of salt, and two eggs. Stir this into the bread and milk. Pour the mixture into an earthen pudding-dish, and bake in a slow oven for three-quarters of an hour. Serve with a vanilla or cream sauce. * Chocolate Pudding. For six persons use one quart of milk, one pint of stale bread, four eggs, one ounce of grated chocolate (that made by Walter Baker & Co., Boston, is excellent for such purposes), half a cupful of granulated sugar, three table-spoonfuls of powdered sugar, half a teaspoonful of vanilla extract, and one teaspoonful of salt. Soak the bread and milk together for two hours ; then mash the bread fine by pressing it with a spoon against the side of the bowl. Put the chocolate, three tablespoonfuls of the granulated sugar, and one table-spoonful of boiling water in a small stew-pan, and stir over a hot fire until the liquid becomes smooth and glossy. Now take from the fire, and add a few spoonfuls of bread and milk. Stir until the mixture is thin and smooth ; then add it to the bread and milk. Beat the yolks and one white of the egg with the remainder of the granulated sugar. Add this mixture and the salt to the bread and milk. Pour into a pudding-dish, and bake in a slow oven for forty minutes. Now beat the three remaining whites to a stiff, dry froth, and with a spoon beat into them three tablespoonfuls of powdered sugar and the vanilla. Spread this meringue over the pudding, and cook for a quarter of an hour longer with the oven door open. Serve with whipped cream. When it is inconvenient to use cream, the meringue will suffice as a sauce. If a strong flavor of chocolate be liked, use two ounces instead of one. This may be served cold, if so preferred. * Bride's Pudding. Put a quart of milk on to heat in a double-boiler. Mix six table-spoonfuls of corn-starch with half a cupful of cold milk, and add the yolks of four eggs and a teaspoonful of salt. Stir this mixture into the quart of boiling milk, and cook for eight minutes, stirring occasionally. Butter a pudding-dish, and pour the mixture into it ; but be careful to have a space of two inches from the surface of the mixture to the edge of the dish, for a me'ringue. Cook in a moderate oven for twenty minutes; then let it stand in a cool place for twenty minutes more. Beat the whites of the four eggs to a stiff, dry froth, and with a spoon gradually beat into them six tablespoonfuls of powdered sugar. Spread this meringue over the pudding, and cook in the oven, with the door open, for twenty minutes. Serve immediately with cold sauce. * Prune Pudding.