PLAIN CUSTARDS.

Tie together six or eight peach leaves, and boil them in a quart of
milk with a large stick of cinnamon broken up. If you cannot procure
peach leaves, substitute a handful of peach-kernels or bitter almonds,
or a vanilla bean split in pieces. When it has boiled hard, strain the
milk and set it away to cool. Beat very light eight eggs, and stir them
by degrees into the milk when it is quite cold, (if warm, the eggs will
curdle it, and cause whey at the bottom,) and add gradually a quarter
of a pound of sugar. Fill your cups with it; set them in a Dutch-oven,
and pour round them boiling water sufficient to reach nearly to the
tops of the cups. Put hot coals under the oven and on the lid, (which
must be previously heated by standing it up before a hot fire,) and
bake the custards about twenty minutes. Send them to table cold, with
nutmeg grated over each. Or you may bake the whole in one large dish.