AUTUMN RECIPES.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XII, Issue VI, 10 February 1894, Page 142

AUTUMN RECIPES.

Blackberry and Apple Pudding.—Aewr mix the blackberries and the apples ; put your blackberrries in first, with the necessary amount of sugar ; then cover them entirely with a layer of rather thick slices of apples, to which add some sugar and a few cloves. You will find then that after two or three hours’ boiling (do not think you can manage with less), the result will be a soft and delicious fruity compound. The usual paste for boiled puddings. Vegetable Marrow Jam. —Peel five or six good marrows, scoop out and throw away the soft woolly centres, cut up the vegetables in pieces about the size of an inch and a half by three quarters of an inch, and lay them in sufficient water to cover them, sufficiently salted. Let them soak for twenty-four hours. Meanwhile prepare a syrup composed of one pound of sugar to a pint of water, allowing half an ounce of lump ginger to each pint of syrup. Boil it well and clear off the scum. Then weigh a pound of cut up marrow to every pint of syrup, and boil until the vegetable becomes transparent and the ginger is quite cooked. The syrup should be thick and clear and rich in colour. As a rule the ginger is left in the jam, which takes several hours to make. Elderberry Wine.—Though not so plentiful in this colony as in England, yet there are many people who possess an elder-tree ; they will find the wine delicious. Although it can be made in simpler ways, still, where no pains are spared in its preparation, the results are highly satisfactory ; it will keep and improve, and makes a delicious hot drink in winter. For every 2 gallons of wine required, noil 1 quart of elderberries and of damsons, respectively, in 6 quarts of water for half an hour. Crush the fruit meanwhile with a club, strain off the liquor, and squeeze the pulp through a sieve. Boil the result again with 61bs of sugar, 2oz. of ginger and bruised allspice respectively, and loz. of hops (tie the spice in a muslin). After forty-five minutes strain again, and when cool stir in a reacupful of yeast Cover lightly for two days. Skim off the yeast which will have risen to the surface, transfer the liquor to a clean cask, and when the hissing sound ceases after about a fortnight, paste a stiff brown paper over the hole. In eight or ten weeks it will be fit to bottle, but. it will keep half a dozen years if required. It is usual to hang the spice muslin by a string through the bung hole to keep it from sinking to the bot;om. Another wine is made in the proportion of 31b of sugar and 3 pints of pressed berry juice to every gallon of water, with the addition of chopped raisins, and a flavouring of ginger, nutmeg, cloves, etc. Or again : Bruise half a bushel of berries, boil them with 5 gallons of water for a few minutes and strain ; measure whilst hot, and to every quart of juice add Jib of loaf sugar, also one gill of yeast. Put this into a cask and fill up with some reserve liquor. In ab »ut three months the wine will be clear, and can then be drawn off the lees and bottled. The flavouring may vary- according to taste, and should be tied up in muslin and hung inside the cask. All fruit wine should stand untouched till about May, when it can be racked off into another cask previously rinsed with brandy. A month later draw off a glassful, and, unless the contents are clear, fine them with the best isinglass (about ioz to 4i gallons). Bottle any time from June to September.