Miss Parloa's kitchen companion

While the cake is baking, pick over and crush the strawberries. Add the second cupful of sugar to them, and set away in a cool place. When the cake is baked and has become cool, place it in a large pudding-dish and pour the strawberries over it. At serving-time heap the whipped cream upon the fruit. In making this pudding it is desirable to have a great deal of juice when the fruit is emptied upon the cake. Stale sponge cake will answer for the pudding. When raspberries are in season they may be substituted for the strawberries ; but as they are sweeter, half a cupful of sugar will be enough to sprinkle over them. They should not be crushed. Velvet Pudding. There will be required one pint of water, half a gill of milk, one lemon, three table-spoonfuls of corn-starch, half a cupful of granulated sugar, two table-spoonfuls of powdered sugar, two eggs, half a teaspoonf ul of salt, and two table-spoonfuls of butter. Take one gill of the water to mix with the corn-starch, and heat the rest to the boiling-point ; then stir in the corn-starch, and cook for ten minutes, stirring occasionally. Stir the lemon juice and grated rind into the cooked mixture. Beat the butter, granulated sugar, and egg yolks together. Add the milk, and stir the mixture into the cooked corn-starch. Turn into a pudding-dish, and bake in a slow oven for half an hour. Beat the whites of the eggs to a stiff froth, and then with a spoon beat in the powdered sugar. Spread this over the pudding, and cook for twenty minutes with the oven door open. Set away to cool before serving. The quantities given make a pudding large enough for five or six persons. They may be increased one-half if a larger pudding be desired. Queen of Puddings. The materials are : six eggs, one quart of milk, one pint of bread crumbs, half a teaspoonful of salt, half a cupful of granulated sugar, six table-spoonfuls of pow- dered sugar, the grated rind of a lemon, and one cupful of strawberry or raspberry preserve. Soak the bread and milk together for two hours. Mash the bread fine. Beat the sugar, salt, and yolks of the eggs together, and add to the bread and milk. Pour this mixture into a pudding-dish that will hold two quarts. Bake slowly for three-quarters of an hour. Take from the oven, and spread the preserve over it. Grate the lemon rind on the powdered sugar. - Beat the whites of the eggs to a stiff, dry froth. Remove the beater, and add the powdered sugar and lemon rind, a spoonful at a time. Beat this in with a silver spoon. Spread this meringue on the pudding, and return the dish to the oven, to bake for twenty minutes with the door open. Serve hot or cold. * Cream M6ringue Pudding. Use for this pudding one quart of milk, four eggs, four table-spoonfuls of flour, three-fourths of a cupful of powdered sugar, half a teaspoonful of salt, and one teaspoonful of vanilla extract.