CHRISTMAS “WAR” PUDDING.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXIX, Issue 1768, 22 December 1917, Page 1

CHRISTMAS “WAR” PUDDING.

Christmas without a plum pudding would not seem a bit like Christmas, but a pudding this year —a’“pound of everything” one for a family—is going to be very expensive unless you vary your old recipe. Here are some little, but valuable, hints for housewives to study betimes ; 1. A rich pudding is unnecessary. It’s bad for the children, and. easily upsets adults. If turkey precedes jt and mince pies and nuts follow, surely it could be made much plainer- ' ,/'■ 2. Don’t be afraid to use carrots. They don’t taste, but they do give colour, and they bring out the full flavour of the other ingredients. 3. Brandy is quite unnecessary. It is supposed to make a pudding “keep.” For a fact, it doesn’t, unless the pudding is under-boiled. 4. The function of an egg is to “bind.” Richness is a secondary quality, and can be obtained at a less cost than eggs at 2d or 21d each. One egg is quite sufficient for a padding if you use linked milk with it. By standing a dish of now milk in the oven for 12 hours you get baked milk of extraordinary richness. The oven, by the way, should bo “moderate.” 5. Pin .a puddings can be made without eggs at all. The ingredients are the usual ones —breadcrumbs, Hour, suet, raisins, nutmeg, candied pot I, pinch of salt, and — baked milk. But it has to be boileu for seven hours —fast —and in flavour and appearance could not be distinguished from a “six-egg’ pjd ding. The two factors are the m-lk and the long boiling, fi. Fresh beef fat can be used instead of suet. Puddings taste much better, and the labour of suet chopping is avoided. Put the beef fat into the oven to melt, strain it into a basin, and when quite cold rub it into the flour, fruit, eto. 7. The crowding of fruit into a pudding is to get colour. A little dark treacle would do that, or, as described above, carrots. Simpler still, and economical, is to use brown breadcrumbs. 8. Warm your candied-peel after chopping. It brings out the taste, and you need but half the quantity. 9. After- stoning your raisins, halve them. You can do with aquarter of a pound less. 10. Do not only “tie” your pudding up. Put a greased paper on the top. A plain pudding, papered and tied, will taste as good as a rich pudding tied but not papered.