mall dumplings, with a single apple
or peach in each, can be cooked in a steamer. Puddings are not only much
more wholesome, but less expensive than pies.

APPLE DUMPLING.

Make a crust, as for biscuit, or a potato-crust as follows: Three large
potatoes, boiled and mashed while hot. Add to them two cups of sifted
flour and one teaspoonful of salt, and mix thoroughly. Now chop or cut
into it one small cup of butter, and mix into a paste with about a
teacupful of cold water. Dredge the board thick with flour, and roll
out,--thick in the middle, and thin at the edges. Fill, as directed, with
apples pared and quartered, eight or ten good-sized ones being enough for
this amount of crust. Boil for three hours. Turn out as directed, and eat
with butter and sirup or with a made sauce. Peaches pared and halved, or
canned ones drained from the sirup, can be used. In this case, prepare the
sirup for sauce, as on p. 172. Blueberries are excellent in the same way.

ENGLISH PLUM PUDDING, OR CHRISTMAS PUDDING.

One pound of raisins stoned and cut in two; one pound of currants washed
and dried; one pound of beef-suet chopped very fine; one pound of
bread-crumbs; one pound of flour; half a pound of brown sugar; eight eggs;
one pint of sweet milk; one teaspoonful of salt; a tablespoonful of
cinnamon; two grated nutmegs; a glass each of wine and brandy.

Prepare the fruit, and dredge thickly with flour. Soak the bread in the
milk; beat the eggs, and add. Stir in the rest of the flour, the suet, and
last the fruit. Boil six hours either in a cloth or large mold. Half the
amounts given makes a good-sized pudding; but, as it will keep three
months, it might be boiled in two molds. Serve with a rich sauce.

ANY-DAY PLUM PUDDING.

One cup of sweet milk; one cup of molasses; one cup each of raisins and
currants; one cup of suet chopped fine, or, instead, a small cup of
butter; one teaspoonful of salt, and one of soda, sifted with three cups
of flour; one teaspoonful each of cinnamon and allspice.

Mix milk, molasses, suet, and spice; add flour, and then the fruit. Put in
a buttered mold, and boil three hours. Eat with hard or liquid sauce. A
cupful each of prunes and dates or figs can be substituted for the fruit,
and is very nice; and the same amount of dried apple, measured after
soaking and chopping, is also good. Or the fruit can be omitted
altogether, in which case it becomes "Troy Pudding."

BATTER PUDDING, BOILED OR BAKE