it is impossible to detect their presence in the pudding. Boil six hours and serve with good brandy sauce.

Plum Pudding for the Poor.

One pound flour, half pound sugar, half pound raisins or sultanas, quarter pound mutton suet or dripping, quarter pound treacle, a small teaspoonful Yeatman's yeast powder, ground ginger, pudding spice and cloves, to give a good flavour. Mix quickly with skim milk or

water.

Sauce for Rich Pudding.

Two teaspoonfuls of corn-flour, two tablespoonfuls of 'water, half a pint of sherry, two ounces of lump-sugar, the yolks of two fresh eggs, a small pinch of nutmeg, a tablespoonful of curaçoa, a wineglassful of brandy. Mix the corn-flour smooth with the water, and beat up the eggs thoroughly in it. Dissolve the sugar in the sherry and make it boiling hot, pour it gently into the eggs and cornflour, and then stir the whole over the fire until it is the thickness of cream. Take it off, and mix in gently the

Make as the above, only use water instead of wine and omit the eggs. When the sauce has thickened, stir in an ounce of butter and a wineglassful of brandy.

Sauce for plain Plum Pudding.

Make half a pint of butter sauce, sweeten with loafsugar, and stir in a glass of sherry and two tablespoonfuls of brandy or curaçoa; if the former is used, add a grate of nutmeg and a few drops of lemon flavour.

Fig Pudding.

Chop half a pound of figs very finely, mix them with a quarter of a pound of coarse sugar, a tablespoonful of treacle, one of milk, half a pound of flour, half a pound of suet, three eggs, and a little nutmeg. Butter a mould, put in the pudding, and having tied down with a floured cloth, boil for four hours, and serve with brandy or wine

sauce.

Fruit Pudding.

Take fine ripe plums (or any other fruit you prefer), take out the stones, crack them, put the kernels to the fruit. Sugar, when put to apples before boiling, is apt to harden them. Make a crust in the proportion of four ounces suet to six of flour, a pinch of salt, and water to make a thick paste. If you wish the crust to be very thin and delicate, roll it out once before putting it in the basin, otherwise it is not necessary. Put in the sweetened fruit, then a lid of paste on the pudding, and boil nearly two hours. It makes a nice addition to this

pudding to stew some of the same kind of fruit separately in a pie-dish; in the oven is best. Sweeten and serve in a glass dish, and help a little with the pudding, which seldom contains fruit in proportion to crust. Serve with thick milk made as follows:

:

Beat up the yolk of an egg, pour on it boiling hot a quarter of a pint of new milk; sweeten to taste, and let it be perfectly thick and cold before serving. If necessary, set it in cold water; or if the weather is hot, afford a morsel of ice.

Second Day Pudding.

Chop the remains of a fruit pudding quite fine, add to it a quarter of its weight in flour, suet, sugar, and black currant or other preserve, or stewed fruit; mix all with an egg; butter a pie-dish, cover over with a tin plate, set it to bake slowly for nearly two hours, so that it sets, but does not brown; then turn it out, sift sugar thickly over, and serve. Any kind of fruit pudding may be thus used up, and is very delicious.

Damson Layer Pudding.

Make a crust of two ounces of butter, two of finely shred beef-suet, four of flour, and a quarter of a pint of water. Roll it out and line a buttered basin with it, lay at the bottom a layer of jam, then on it a layer of crust, and so on until the basin is full. Boil an hour and a half,

Trifle.

The art of whipping cream is little understood. Many cooks think they must whip the mass until it becomes like butter, and as sometimes this is not possible, of course they blame the cream. Even from rather poor cream a good whip may be produced, if the following simple directions are attended to :-put the cream into a good sized basin, whisk for half a minute, when a little froth will rise; remove this on to a piece of muslin laid on a sieve, placed over a basin, whip again, and continue lightly skimming the froth from the cream as it rises. When you have enough, set the whip aside for some hours, or until the next day, if convenient. It will then have become solid, and the cream which has drained into the basin can be used to assist in making the custard for the trifle. A little sifted sugar and any flavouring can, if desired, be added to the cream before whipping; but it is not essential to the operation. Put at the bottom of a deep trifle-dish a layer of strawberry and raspberry jam, then one of macaroons, and another of sponge finger biscuits; pour over these sufficient brandy and sherry mixed to soak them, then a custard, made as for strawberry soufflé, and lastly, pile the whipped cream on the top as high 'Hundreds and thousands' may be scattered as you can. over; but are not necessary to the perfection of this excellent old-fashioned dish. A small and less expensive trifle may be made as in the following recipe.

Tipsy Dish.

Put a layer of raspberry jam at the bottom of a glass dish, lay on sponge cakes and ratifias to cover it. Pour over sufficient sherry wine and brandy to soak them, and then custard to fill up the dish. Whip the whites of the eggs, lift from the custard with a little finely sifted sugar and lemon or vanilla flavouring, and pile them on the top of the custard. The small sugar-plums called 'hundreds and thousands' strewn over make the dish look pretty.

Lemon Jelly.

Use Nelson's patent gelatine. Soak an ounce in half a pint of cold water for an hour, stir it into a pint and a half of boiling water, raisin or cowslip wine. Cut the peel of a lemon thinly and put it into the jelly with the strained juice of three, and a quarter of a pound of loaf-sugar, or according to taste. Let this boil for five minutes; take it off the fire, allow it to stand a minute, stir in briskly the whites and shells of two eggs well beaten, and again allow the jelly to boil without stirring; then take it off the fire, and when it has stood two minutes strain through a close flannel bag. Now stir into the jelly half a pint of sherry mixed, if approved, with a little brandy. It is best not to boil the wine, as it loses thereby both spirit and flavour. Care must be taken to keep the jelly near the fire whilst passing through the bag.