1. When ordering fruit for Christmas puddings, mincemeat, and cake, select that of best quality, for if cheap it will probably be stale and dry, and consequently the pudding or cake will be less rich.

2. Purchase the fruits, suet, etc., as soon as possible, as they will become dearer nearer Christmas.

3. Use only beef suet; "prepared beef suet" is easiest to chop, and may be used for puddings, but ordinary beef suet is best for mincemeat.

4. Raisins can now be bought ready stoned, and currants cleaned but not stalked.

5. When washing currants for puddings or cakes remember that if left at all damp they cause heaviness; if they are dried quickly their flavour is spoilt.

6. Muscatel raisins will give the puddings a richer colour and flavour, and can be bought loose for sixpence or cightpence a pound, but they will be much dearer if purchased in bunches.

7. Before chopping candied peel, remove the sugar from the centre, but save it, for it will do excellently to put in milk pudddings or gingerbread.

8. Well butter all moulds or basins, and scald and flour all pudding cloths.

(). Pack the moulds or basins full of the mixture or the water will get in and spoil the puddings.

10. Put the puddings in a pan of fast-boiling water, and let it boil steadily all the time. If the water boils away, replenish with water that is boiling, so as not to check the cooking.

11. Plum - puddings, if made properly, and hung up in a cool, dry place, will keep for a year or longer. But after twelve months their flavour deteriorates.

12. After taking puddings from the water in which they were boiled, do not put on a clean cloth before hanging them up, for the one in which they were cooked provides an air-tight covering which would not be the case with a clean one.