If your dish has a broad rim, lay round the edge a border of puff-paste, cut into leaves resembling a wreath.
AN ALMOND RICE PUDDING.--Blanch, in boiling water, three ounces of shelled bitter almonds, afterwards throwing them into cold water. Pound them, one at a time, in a mortar, till they become a smooth paste; adding frequently, as you pound them, a few drops of rose-water, to make them white and light, and to prevent their oiling. Take a quart of rich, unskimmed milk, and stir into it, gradually, three large, heaping table-spoonfuls of ground rice flour, alternately with the pounded almonds, and four heaping table-spoonfuls of powdered loaf-sugar. Set the mixture over the fire, and boil and stir it till very thick. Then put it into a deep dish, and set it away to cool. When cold, have ready the whites of two eggs beaten to a stiff froth, and thickened with powdered sugar, that has been melted in rose-water. Cover with this the surface of the pudding. Set it in an oven just long enough to be slightly coloured of a light brown. Send it to table cold.
BOILED ALMOND PUDDING.--Blanch, in boiling water, a quarter of a pound of shelled sweet almonds, and two ounces of shelled bitter almonds. Throw them into a pan of cold water, as you blanch them. Afterwards pound them, one at a time, in a mortar; adding to them, as you proceed, the beaten whites of two or three eggs, a little at a time. They must be pounded till they become a smooth paste; mixing together the sweet and the bitter almonds, and removing them, as you go on, from the mortar to a plate. Then set them in a cool place. Boil slowly a quart of cream, or rich, unskimmed milk, with half a dozen blades of mace, whole; and half a nutmeg, powdered. It may simmer half an hour, and when it comes to a boil, take it off, remove the mace, and set the milk to cool. Beat eight eggs very light, (omitting the whites of three,) and then add to them a heaped table-spoonful of flour. Stir the beaten eggs and the pounded almonds, alternately, into the pan of milk, (after it has become quite cold,) add a table-spoonful of orange-flower or rose-water, and stir the whole very hard. Have ready, over the fire, a pot of boiling water. Dip into it a thick pudding-cloth, shake it out, spread it open in a large empty pan, dredge it well with flour, and pour the pudding-mixture into it. Tie it very closely, leaving sufficient space for the pudding to swell, and plug the tying-place with a small lump of flour-and-water dough. Lay an old plate in the bottom of the pot of boiling water. Put in the pudding, and turn it over in a quarter of an hour. Boil it very fast for an hour, or more, after it has commenced boiling; replenishing the pot from a kettle of _boiling_ water. When the pudding is done, dip it a moment into cold water; then turn it out on a dish. Send it to table immediately, with a sauce of sweetened cream, flavoured with rose or orange-flower water.