Baked Pears

Take good-sized pears. Small ones are not worth the trouble of cooking. Peel them, split them in half, and remove the core, the stem, and the blossom end. Strew them well with brown sugar, and lay them on their backs in a large baking dish. A narrow slip of the yellow rind of lemon or orange, (cut so thin as to look transparent,) will be a great improvement, laid in the hollow of each pear. Also the juice squeezed. Put into the dish sufficient molasses or steam-syrup to well cover the pears. Place them in an oven, and bake them till they are soft, but not till they break. If you have no lemon or orange, season them with ground ginger or cinnamon.

The great pound pears are baked as above, with the addition of port wine and a few cloves, and colored red with a little cochineal.

Country Charlotte

Slice or quarter some fine juicy apples, having pared and cored them. Put them on a large dish, sweeten them well with brown sugar, set them in the oven, and bake them till soft enough to mash smoothly. Then cut some slices of bread, butter them slightly, and dip every one in sweet cider fresh from the press. Let them soak in the cider a short time, but not till they break. Take them out of the cider, spread every one thickly with the mashed apple, (sprinkling on more sugar) and send them to the dinner table in a deep dish or pan.

A Plain Charlotte

Stew very nicely any sort of ripe fruit, (currants, gooseberries, blackberries, stoned cherries, or stoned plums,) and as soon as you take them from the fire make them very sweet with brown sugar. Prepare some large slices of buttered bread, with the crust pared off". Cover each slice thickly with the stewed fruit. Lay some in the bottom of a deep dish, and stand up others all round its sides. Fill up the dish with the same, and sift white sugar over the surface.

It may be made of sliced sponge-cake, spread thickly with stewed dried peaches.

Gooseberry Fool

This foolish name signifies an excellent preparation of gooseberries; stewed, mashed, and made very sweet with brown sugar. Have ready in another dish a good boiled custard. When all has become cool, mix well together in a large bowl the stewed gooseberries and the custard, and season the mixture well with nutmeg. It will be found very good.

Any other "fool" may be made in the same manner, of stewed fruit and boiled custard. It saves the trouble and expense of making paste, or can be prepared at a shorter notice. It is good either at dinner or tea.

We hope somebody will think of a better name for it.

Potato Paste

Boil three moderate-sized potatos till very soft. Then peel and mash them fine and smooth. Put them into a deep pan, and mix them well with a quart of flour and a half pint of lard; or what is better, with that quantity of beef dripping, or the dripping of fresh roast pork. Never for any sort of crust use mutton dripping. Having mixed the mashed potato, dripping, and flour into a lump, roll it out into a thick sheet. Sprinkle it with flour, and spread over it evenly a thin layer of dripping or lard. Fold it again, and set it in a cool place till wanted. It is good for meat pies, and for boiled meat pudding, or any sort of dumplings.