PUDDINGS MADE FROM STALE BREAD AND CAKE variety of puddings into which stale bread enters is endless. lt be gins with the old-fashioned, economi cal pandowdy and ends with the queen of puddings, rich in jam and lovely in meringue. For puddings, use only stale bread or crumbs, re jecting crusts. Do not add the oven dried crumbs, or you will have a pud ding as tough as a door mat. Left overs of fruit, fresh berries, peaches, plums, gooseberries, apples, prunes, apricots, almost anything can enrich a bread puduing. A cupful canned or stewed fruit or a few spoonfuls jam or marmalade give a morsel of delicious flavoring. The good cook uses common sense and the material she has at hand. If the recipe calls for red raspberries and she has noth ing but dried apples, she can season them with spices, and the dessert will be a success. The base of any bread pudding light as a souffle and large enough for a family of 4 consists of 1 cupful stale-bread crumbs, 9 cup fuls milk, and 1 egg. This may be enriched by almonds, chocolate, nut meats, raisins, currants, and peel or fruit of any description.
Stale cake, especially sponge cake or lady's fingers, may be converted into delicious puddings.
Where the pudding is to be steamed or baked, cut the cake in fingers or break it into crumbs. If the pudding is to be soaked with wine, have a cus tard, fruit juice, or cream poured over it, after cutting it in slices. Re ject icing; it generally makes a pud ding sweeter than is desirable. A good plain pudding is made by put ting slices of stale cake in a steamer and, when moist, serving with a spoonful strawberry or marmalade sauce. It may be covered when cold with hot stewed berries and served with cream. Stale sponge cake serves as a foundation for charlotte russe and cabinet pudding, or, if steamed, may be covered with straw berries and whipped cream, when it makes an excellent imitation of straw berry shortcake.
Bread-Plum Pudding.
1 cupful suet, 1 cupful raisins, 1 cupful currants, cupful citron and candied orange peel, 1 cupful sugar, 3 cupfuls stale-bread crumbs, 4 eggs, cupful milk, 1 teaspoonful cinnamon, teaspoonful each allspice, cloves, and nutmeg, Grated rind 1 lemon.
Chop the suet fine. Seed the rai sins. Slice the citron and orange peel, mix with the currants, sugar, and bread crumbs, moisten with eggs well beaten, and milk, then add the seasonings. Pour into a buttered mold. Steam four hours, and serve with hard sauce.
Orange Pudding.
11 cupfuls stale-bread crumbs, 1 cupful cold water, 1 cupful sugar, 1 cupful orange juice, Juice lemon, 2 eggs, 1 tablespoonful melted butter, 1 teaspoonful salt, 2 tablespoonfuls powdered sugar, teaspoonful orange extract.
Soak the crumbs in water twenty minutes, then add the sugar, orange, and lemon juice, the yolks of eggs slightly beaten, the butter and salt. Beat till thoroughly mixed, pour in a buttered dish, and bake in a moder ate oven till the pudding is firm. Al low it to cool slightly and cover with a meringue made from the whites of the eggs, sugar, and orange flavor ing. Brown delicately, and serve hot or cold.
Walnut Pudding.
Meats from 19 English walnuts, 1 cupful stale brown-b read crumbs, 9 cupfuls milk, 2 tablespoonfuls sugar, 3 eggs, 1 teaspoonful McIlhenny's Mexi can Vanilla.
Scald the milk in a double boiler, and add to it the crumbs and chopped walnut meats. Allow the mixture to simmer gently five minutes, then take from the fire. When cool, stir in the yolks of eggs beaten with the sugar. Add vanilla and the whites of eggs beaten to a stiff froth. Pour in a buttered mold, and bake thirty minutes. Serve hot with vanilla sauce or hard sauce.—MAnoAarr