SUPERIOR FRUIT-SAUCES FOR SWEET PUDDINGS

Clear rich fruit syrups, such as the _Sirop de Groseilles_ of Chapter XXIX. or those from which cherries, apricots, damsons, and other plums, are taken when they have been prepared in them for drying, make the finest possible sauces for sweet puddings. A pound of ripe Morella cherries, for example, pricked separately with a large needle, then slowly heated and simmered from seven to ten minutes with three quarters of a pound of castor-sugar, and allowed to become cold in their juice, will be excellent if laid on dishes and slowly dried; and the syrup from them will be a delicious accompaniment to a pudding (or to plain boiled rice); and it will also afford a most agreeable summer beverage mixed with water, slightly iced, or not. Other varieties of these sauces are made by stewing the fruit tender without sugar, then rubbing it through a sieve, and diluting it with wine; or simply mixing and boiling it with sufficient sugar to render it sweet and clear.