For the sauce to the prunes heat a pint of milk in a doubleboiler, add a little sugar to your taste, the yolks of the five eggs and a dash of vanilla. Cook a moment after the yolks are in. Instead of this sauce cream may be used.

Pumpkin Custard

The oldfashioned red pumpkins are apt to be the best. Cut newmoon shaped pieces from a ripe pumpkin and free the pieces from seed and rind. Cut in small squares or dice, put them in a steamer over a kettle of boiling water and steam till tender. Next press through a sieve or colander. To a quart of milk add five beaten eggs, two cups of sugar, half a teaspoon of salt and half a nutmeg. If you beat into the sugar before it is added a piece of butter the size of an egg the dish is improved, but the butter is not necessary. Next stir in enough of the cooked and sifted pumpkin to make the custard creamy. Pour into small custard cups and bake slowly till well cooked through, and serve cold, capped with whipped cream.

Small Custard Cups.

Raspberry Cream

Soak half an ounce of gelatine in quarter of a pint of water. Set in a saucepan over the fire and dissolve, stirring all the time. When it boils add one heaping tablespoon of sugar and the juice of half a lemon. Put a teacup of raspberry jam through a sieve, softening with half a teacup of milk or water. To this add the gelatine, and then beat in half a pint of thick cream you have previously whipped stiff. Put in the whipped cream little by little. Stir or beat till it begins to set, then pour in a bowl or other mold, and chill near ice.

Red Raspberry Sago

Wash half a pint of sago, cover with a pint and a half of cold water, soak an hour, and then cook in a doubleboiler till the sago is clear and transparent. Have carefully looked over red raspberries half filling a glass dish. When the sago is cool, almost cold, pour it over the raspberries, and set away to cool. Serve with sugar and cream.

Other fruits, such as pineapple and ripe peaches cut in small pieces, and strawberries, may be prepared with sago by these rules.

Rice Cream

Boil four ounces of rice ten minutes. Pour off the water, add a quart and a half of fresh milk and cook slowly till the rice is tender. Reduce the rice to a pulp by putting through a sieve or press. Dissolve an ounce of gelatine in a little water and add it to the rice. Stir all together, the milk, rice, and gelatine over the fire and sweeten to taste carefully, not making too sweet. When mixed set to cool, and when cool stir in the stiff whites of two eggs. Flavor with vanilla or sherry or brandy, or what your taste directs; pour in a bowl or mold and chill for eating.

Scalloped Rhubarb Or Pie plant

For this breadcrumbs may be used or slices of bread buttered. If you use breadcrumbs allow two tablespoons of melted butter to a cup of fine crumbs. Cut rhubarb into small cubes or dice and in a pudding dish spread a layer of the buttered bread or breadcrumbs. Over this put a layer of the rhubarb dice, a plentiful sprinkling of sugar, and, if you like their addition, a few stoned raisins. Repeat the layer of bread and the layer of rhubarb and sugar until you complete your dish, and have a bread layer on top. Pour in enough boiling water to cook the plant with steam, cover tight and bake in a moderate oven threequarters of an hour. Serve with a hard sauce of sugar and butter mixed and flavored with nutmeg or lemon.

Rhubarb Jelly And Whipped Cream

There are many ways to prepare rhubarb, each one delicious and not extravagant. When tender the plant should not be stripped, as the red skin imparts a delicate flavor and temptingly rich appearance to the food. Should the plant be tough, strip off the skin, and clip the tough ends at the bottom. Wipe each stalk with a damp cloth before peeling.

Allow one pound of sugar and one box of gelatine to one quart of prepared rhubarb. Stew the sugar and plant together, only add one tablespoon of water. Soak the gelatine in one cup of cold water. Then add it to the hot sauce, stirring until dissolved. Press through a sieve; pour into a mold or a deep bowl and set on ice to stiffen. When ready to serve dip the bowl in hot water a moment, invert on to a cold dish and garnish with whipped cream. [See illustration, Plate XXIV.]

Snow Pudding

Soak two teaspoons of gelatine in a little cold water. Dissolve a cup of sugar in a pint of boiling water and pour over the gelatine, stirring all the time. Next add the juice of two lemons, and set to cool. Beat the whites of two eggs and add when it is cool, and then beat half an hour.

Strawberry Shortcake

Mix thoroughly with one quart of flour three teaspoons of baking powder, an ounce or a tablespoon of butter, and a pinch of salt. Wet this mixture with a pint of milk. Stir it with a spoon, not with the hand, and spread on pie or layercake tin, making the dough even and about half an inch thick. Set in a moderate oven and increase the heat after the shortcake has begun to bake. It will be done in about twentyfive minutes. When the cake is thoroughly baked slip a sharp, thin knife quite through it, leaving upper and under halves. Spread each half with butter on its soft inner side. On a deep dish lay one half with butter side up, and over it spread thick strawberries which have been sugared, crushed a little with a potato masher or punch stick and mixed with cream. Next lay on the upper half of the crust with the butter side up, and this in turn cover with the sugared, crushed and creamed strawberries. You must work fast, for the shortcake must be eaten in its first state. Do not dally, but send it to the table at once.

Sweeten the strawberries before you make your dough, an hour before use in the cake is none too early, and have them ready for instant work.

Tapioca Pudding

Soak till soft in cold water overnight is best a cup of tapioca. Add a quart of milk and half a teaspoon of salt. Boil all together till the tapioca is transparent. Put in molds to cool, and serve with maple sugar and cream, or with canned peaches and cream, or with any tasty fresh or preserved fruit as a sauce.

Custard Tapioca Pudding

Soak overnight in cold water a cup of tapioca. Drain off the water, add to it a cup of sugar, a quart of milk and half a teaspoon of salt. Put in a doubleboiler and cook till the tapicoa is transparent. Add two beaten eggs and a teaspoon of vanilla. Take from the fire and pour into the glass or other dish in which it is to be served. Serve cold.

Fruit Tapioca

Soak overnight two tablespoons of small tapioca. Next morning drain and put in a doubleboiler with four cups of boiling water. Cover close and boil until the tapioca is transparent. Then add half a teaspoon of salt, one pound of dates stoned, one cup of raisins seeded, half a pound of figs, and one cup of sugar. Cook one hour, and fifteen minutes before the cooking ends add half a teaspoon of vanilla. Pour in a mold, and serve cold with cream or with whipped cream.

Wine Jelly

Put half a box of granulated gelatine into enough cold water to cover it. Grate the yellow off the rind of a lemon, add to it a cup and a half of water, put in half a cup of sugar, and boil up. Pour hot over the dissolving gelatine, set in a pan of hot water over the fire, and stir till all is dissolved. Strain through a sieve or cheesecloth, add a cup of sherry and set away in molds for a couple of hours to get cold and to jelly. Serve cold with cream.

Jelly (Gelatine) Molds.