fruit if you please, and you may for change add half an ounce of citron, and half an ounce of candied orange-peel shred fine.
Suet dumplings.
TAKE a pint of milk, four eggs, a pound of suet, and a pound of currants, two tea-spoonfuls of salt, three of ginger; first take half the milk, and mix it like a thick batter, then put the eggs, and the salt and ginger, then the rest of the milk by degrees, with the suet and currants, and flour to make it like a light paste. When the water boils, make them in rolls as big as a large turkey's egg, with a little flour; then flat them, and throw them into boiling water. Move them softly, that they don't stick together, keep the water boiling all the time, and half an hour will boil them.
An Oxford pudding.
A quarter of a pound of biscuit grated, a quarter of a pound of currants clean washed and picked, a quarter of a pound of suet shred small, half a large spoonful of powder-sugar, a very little salt, and some grated nutmeg; mix all well together, then take two yolks of eggs, and make it up in balls as big as a turkey's egg. Fry them in fresh butter of a fine light brown; for sauce have melted butter and sugar, with a little sack or white wine. You must mind to keep the pan shaking about, that they may be all of a fine light brown. All other puddings you have in the Lent chapter.
Rules to be observed in making puddings, &c.
IN boiled puddings, take care the bag or cloth be very clean, not soapy, but dipped in hot water, and well floured. If a bread pudding, tie it loose; if a batter pudding, tie it close, and be sure the water boils when you put the pudding in, and you should move the puddings in the pot now and then, for fear they stick. When you make a batter pudding, first mix the flour well with a little milk, then put in the ingredients by degrees, and it will be smooth and not have lumps; but for a plain batter pudding, the best way is to strain it through a coarse hair-sieve, that it may neither have lumps, nor the treadles of the eggs: and all other puddings, strain the eggs when they are beat. If you boil them in wooden bowls, or china dishes, butter the inside before you put in your batter; and for all baked puddings, butter the pan or dish before the pudding is put in.
CHAP.
