Over the cold rice pudding pour a custard, and add a few lumps of jelly or preserved fruit. Remember to remove the baked coating of the pudding before the custard is poured over it.

1298. Apple Tart.

Cut into triangular pieces the remains of a cold apple tart: arrange the pieces around the sides of a gla.s.s or china bowl, and leave s.p.a.ce in the centre for a custard to be poured in.

1299. Plum Pudding.

Cut into thin round slices cold plum pudding, and fry them in b.u.t.ter.

Fry also Spanish fritters, and place them high in the centre of the dish, and the fried pudding all round the heaped-up frittera. Powder all with lump sugar, and serve them with wine sauce in a tureen.

1300. Fritters.

Make them of any of the batters directed for pancakes, by dropping a small quant.i.ty into the pan; or make the plainer sort, and dip pared apples, sliced and cored, into the batter, and fry them in plenty of hot lard. Currants, or sliced lemon as thin as paper, make an agreeable change. Fritters for company should be served on a folded napkin in the dish. Any sort of sweetmeat, or ripe fruit, may be made into fritters.

1301. Oyster Fritters.

Make a batter of flour, milk, and eggs; season with a very little nutmeg. Beard the oysters, and put as many as you think proper in each fritter.

1302. Potato Fritters.

Boil two large potatoes, bruise them fine, beat four yolks and three whites of eggs, and add to the above one large spoonful of cream, another of sweet wine, a squeeze of lemon, and a little nutmeg. Beat this batter well half an hour. It will be extremely light. Put a good quant.i.ty of fine lard into a stewpan, and drop a spoonful at a time of the batter into it. Fry the fritters; and serve as a sauce, a gla.s.s of white wine, the juice of a lemon, one dessert-spoonful of peach-leaf or almond water, and some white sugar, warmed together; not to be served in a dish.

1303. Apple Fritters.

Peel and core some fine pippins, and cut into slices. Soak them in wine, sugar, and nutmeg, for a few hours. Make a batter of four eggs to a tablespoonful of rose water, a tablespoonful of wine, and a tablespoonful of milk, thickened with enough flour, stirred in by degrees; mix two or three hours before wanted. Heat some b.u.t.ter in a frying-pan; dip each slice of apple separately in the batter, and fry brown; sift pounded sugar, and grate a nutmeg over them.

[THE HOPE IS SURE WHICH HAS ITS FOUNDATION IN VIRTUE.]

1304. Pancakes.

Make a light batter of eggs, flour, and milk; a little salt, nutmeg, and ginger may be added; fry in a small pan, in hot dripping or lard.

Sugar and lemon should be served to eat with them. Or, when eggs are scarce, make the batter with small beer, ginger, and so forth; or water, with flour, and a very little milk, will serve, but not so well as eggs and all milk.

1305. Cream Pancakes.

Mix two eggs, well beaten, with a pint of cream, two ounces of sifted sugar, six of flour, a little nutmeg, cinnamon, and mace. Fry the pancakes thin, with a bit of b.u.t.ter.

1306. Rice Pancakes.

Boil half a pound of ground rice to a jelly in a pint of water or milk, and keep it well stirred from the bottom to prevent its being burnt; if too thick add a little more milk; take it off the fire; stir in six or eight ounces of b.u.t.ter, a pint of cream, six or eight eggs well beaten, a pinch of salt, sugar, and nutmeg, with as much flour as will make the batter thick enough. Fry with lard or dripping.

1307. Scones.

Flour, two pounds; bicarbonate of soda, quarter of an ounce; salt, quarter of an ounce; sour b.u.t.termilk, one pint, more or less. Mix to the consistence of light dough, roll out about half an inch thick, and cut them out to any shape you please, and bake on a _griddle_ over a clear fire about ten or fifteen minutes; turning them to brown on both sides--or they may be done on a hot plate, or ironing stove. A griddle is a thin plate of cast iron about twelve or fourteen inches in diameter, with a handle attached, to hang it up by.--These scones are excellent for tea, and may be eaten either cold or hot, b.u.t.tered, or with cheese.

1308. Friar's Omelette.

Boil a dozen apples, as for sauce; stir in a quarter of a pound of b.u.t.ter, and the same of white sugar; when cold, add four eggs, well beaten; put it into a baking dish thickly strewed over with crumbs of bread, so as to stick to the bottom and sides; then put in the apple mixture; strew crumbs of bread over the top; when baked, turn it out and grate loaf sugar over it.

1309. Ordinary Omelette.

Take four eggs, beat the yolks and whites together with a tablespoonful of milk, and a little salt and pepper; put two ounces of b.u.t.ter into a frying-pan to boil, and let it remain until it begins to brown; pour the batter into it, and let it remain quiet for a minute; turn up the edges of the omelette gently from the bottom of the pan with a fork; shake it, to keep it from burning at the bottom, and fry it till of a bright brown. It will not take more than five minutes frying.

1310. Miss Acton's Observations on Omelettes, Pancakes, Fritters, &c.

"There is no difficulty in making good omelettes, pancakes, or fritters; and, as they may be expeditiously prepared and served, they are often a very convenient resource when, on short notice, an addition is required to a dinner. The eggs for all of them should be well and lightly whisked; the lard for frying batter should be extremely pure in flavour, and quite hot when the fritters are dropped in; the batter itself should be smooth as cream, and it should be briskly beaten the instant before it is used. All fried pastes should be perfectly drained from the fat before they are served, and sent to table promptly when they are ready.

"Eggs may be dressed in a multiplicity of ways, but are seldom more relished in any form than in a well-made and expeditiously served omelette. This may be plain, or seasoned with minced herbs and a very little shalot, when the last is liked, and is then called _Omelettes aux fines herbes_; or it may be mixed with minced ham or grated cheese: in any case it should be light, thick, full-tasted, and _fried only on one side_; if turned in the pan, as it frequently is in England, it will at once be flattened and rendered tough.

Should the slight rawness, which is sometimes found in the middle of the inside when the omelette is made in the French way, be objected to, a heated shovel, or a salamander, may be held over it for an instant, before it is folded on the dish.

"The pan for frying it should be quite small; for if it be composed of four or five eggs only, and then put into a large one, it will necessarily spread over it and be thin, which would render it more like a pancake than an omelette; the only partial remedy for this, when a pan of proper size cannot be had, is to raise the handle of it high, and to keep the opposite side close down to the fire, which will confine the eggs into a smaller s.p.a.ce. No gravy should be poured into the dish with it, and, indeed, if properly made, it will require none. Lard is preferable to b.u.t.ter for frying batter, as it renders it lighter; but it must not be used for omelettes. Filled with preserves of any kind, it is called a sweet omelette."

1311. Baked Pears.

Take twelve large baking pears; pare and cut them into halves, leaving on about half an inch of the stem. Take out the core with the point of a knife, and place the pears thus prepared close together in a block tin saucepan, the inside of which is quite bright, and whose cover fits quite close. Put to them the rind of a lemon cut thin, with half its juice, a small stick of cinnamon, and twenty grains of allspice; cover them with spring water, and allow one pound of loaf sugar to a pint and a half of water: cover up close, and bake for six hours in a very slow oven;--they will be quite tender, and of a good colour.

Prepared cochineal is generally used for colouring the pears; but if the above is strictly attended to, it will be found to answer best.

1312. Apples served with Custard.

Pare and core apples; cut them in pieces; bake or stew them with as little water as possible; when they have become pulpy, sweeten and put them in a pie-dish, and, when cold, pour over them an unboiled custard, and put back into the oven till the custard is fixed. A Dutch oven will do. Equally good hot or cold.

1313. Apples in Syrup.

Pare and core some hard apples, and throw them into a basin of water.

When all are done, clarify as much loaf sugar as will cover them; put the apples in along with the juice and rind of a lemon, and let them simmer till they are quite clear; care must be taken not to break them; place them on the dish they are to appear upon at table, and pour the syrup over. These are for immediate use.

1314. Apricots Stewed in Syrup.

Wipe the down from young apricots, and stew them as gently as possible in a syrup made of four ounces of sugar to half a pint of water, boiled the usual time.