The first thing to be learnt, with regard to making puddings, is the composition of the batter. Without good batter, you cannot have good pudding; and without good eggs, flour, and milk, you cannot have either. For all kinds of puddings and pastry, it is of great importance that your flour should be of the very best quality. Your milk too should be good. The goodness or badness of milk depends much on the kind of food upon which the cow is fed; but cows fed upon the same food do not yield milk of the same quality. A cow that gives a large quantity of milk does not always produce a proportionate quantity of cream, and of course poor milk will not make so good a pudding as rich. Flour is not the better for being fresh ground, as Dr. Kitchiner intimates, but on the contrary. It should, however, be perfectly sweet. The goodness of well-manufactured flour depends upon the quality of the wheat from which it is made. Without good wheat you can have no good flour. In one word, to ensure a good pudding, your eggs must be new laid, your butter rich and fresh, your flour of the first quality, and all your ingredients of the same character. In the making of a pudding - a good pudding - the cook must observe the utmost cleanliness, both as respects herself and the utensils which she uses. The eggs directed to be used in the following receipts are full-sized hen eggs; if pullet eggs are used, two will be required for one hen egg. There is no substitute, that we know of, for eggs in pudding making. We have heard male. and female old women talk about using, as substitutes for eggs, snow and small beer. Dr. Kitchiner says, truly, "that they will no more answer this purpose than as substitutes for sugar or brandy." Batter puddings in all their varieties are composed of milk, eggs, and flour. As has been properly observed, "the proportions may vary, and other articles may be added, by which the name is changed, but the great matter is to know how to mix eggs, flour, and milk, and then you may easily adopt any variety that is directed." In using eggs, you should always break them, one by one, into separate cups, or at any rate take care not to spoil all your eggs by the admission of one that is bad into the mass. Let the eggs be well beaten, and then add the flour, with a pinch of salt, and a little nutmeg, and mix the eggs and flour thoroughly before any milk is added; then by degrees put in as much milk as will bring the batter to the consistency you wish. It ought, indeed it must be, well stirred immediately before being put into the basin or dish.

The vessel in which a batter pudding: is to be dressed must be well buttered. Dripping, or lard, will answer as well for a baked pudding. The cloth tied over the basin must be buttered, or dipped in boiling water, wrung out, and dredged with flour, but buttering is best.

The pudding will break in boiling, if the batter do not exactly fill the vessel. In baking, the pudding is sure to swell considerably, and therefore the batter should not fill the vessel by about an inch. Before putting the pudding into the pot, take care that the water boils rapidly, and afterwards make the water boil as soon as possible, which must be kept up till the pudding is done. Just after putting the pudding into the pot, it should be shook two or three times to prevent it settling.

The length of time that a pudding requires to be boiled depends upon its size, and, in some degree, upon the material of which it is made. The less flour, the shorter time is required for boiling. A one-egg pudding, not exceeding three parts of half a pint in quantity, in a tea-cup, will require about twenty or twenty-five minutes boiling; or with three eggs about half an hour; and so on in proportion. But the best way of ascertaining when a pudding is done, is to run your fork into the middle of it, and if the fork comes out clear, the pudding is done.