Stir to a cream1 cup of butter.3 cups of powdered sugar.When light, beat in¾ teacup wine.Juice of a lemon.2 teaspoonfuls nutmeg.
Beat long and hard until several shades lighter in color than at first, and creamy in consistency. Smooth into shape with a broad knife dipped in cold water, and stamp with a wooden mould, first scalded and then dipped in cold water. Set upon the ice until the pudding is served.
Mix a hard sauce according to the previous receipt, and when light, set aside three or four tablespoonfuls in a plate. To the larger quantity left add gradually, cherry, currant, or cranberry juice enough to color it a good pink. Red jelly will do if berries are out of season. Beat the coloring matter in thoroughly, and shape into a conical mound. Roll half a sheet of note-paper into a long, narrow funnel, tie a string about it to keep it in shape, and fill with the uncolored sauce. Squeeze it out gently through the small end in a ridge, beginning at thebase of the cone and winding about it to the top, filling your funnel as it is emptied, and guiding it carefully. The effect of the alternate white-and pink lines is very pretty.
If the pudding is one to which chocolate would be a pleasant addition, color with grated chocolate, rubbed smooth in a little of the wine, and ridge with white. Set upon the ice or upon the cellar-floor until firm. Stick a colored almond or other ornamental candy upon the top.
This bee-hive is easily made, and will set off even a plain pudding handsomely.
Warm the butter very slightly, work in the sugar, and, when this is light, the brandy and spice. Beat hard—shape into a mould and set in a cold place until wanted.
Work the butter into the sugar, moistening, as you go on, with boiling water. Beat long and hard until your bowl is nearly full of a creamy mixture. Then add gradually the wine and nutmeg, still beating hard. Turn into a tin pail, set within a saucepan of boiling water, and stir frequently until the sauce is hot, butnotuntil itboils. Take the saucepan from the fire and leave the pail standing in the water, stirring the contents now and then, until you are ready to serve the pudding.
If rightly made, this sauce will be nearly as white as milk.
Cream the butter and sugar and beat in the egg whipped light; the lemon and nutmeg. Beat hard ten minutes, and add, a spoonful at a time, the boiling water. Put in a tin pail and set within the uncovered top of the tea-kettle, which you must keep boiling until the steam heats the sauce very hot, but not to boiling. Stir constantly.
Rub the butter into the sugar, add the beaten eggs, and work all to a creamy froth. Wet the corn-starch and put in next with the spice—finally, pour in by the spoonful the boiling milk, beating well all the time. Set withina saucepan of boiling water five minutes, stirring all the while, but do not let the sauce boil.
This is a good sauce for bread and other simple puddings.
Rub the butter into the sugar, add the yolks, lemon, and spice. Beat ten minutes and put in the wine, still stirring hard. Set within a saucepan of boiling water, and beat while it heats, but do not let it boil.
Pour over the pudding.
Cream the butter and sugar well; pour the corn-starch into the boiling water and stir over a clear fire until it is well thickened; put all together in a bowl and beat five minutes before returning to the saucepan. Heat once, almost to the boiling point, add the wine, and serve.
Heat the milk to boiling, and add by degrees to the beaten eggs and sugar; put in the nutmeg, and set within a saucepan of boiling water. Stir until it begins to thicken. Take it off and add the brandy gradually. Set, until it is wanted, within a pan of boiling water.
Pour over the pudding when it comes from the mould.
Stir the arrowroot into the boiling water and heat, stirring all the time, until it thickens; add the butter, and set aside until almost cool, when beat in, spoonful by spoonful, the jelly to a smooth pink paste. Pour in the wine, stir hard, and heat in a tin vessel, set within another of boiling water, until very hot.
Pour over and around Neapolitan, bread-and-marmalade puddings, cake fritters, and Queen’s toast.
Mix all well together, stirring until the sugar is dissolved. Eat with jam puddings, queen of all puddings, Alice’s pudding, and peach roley-poley.
Heat the cream slowly in a vessel set in a saucepan of boiling water, stirring often. When scalding, but not boiling hot, remove it from the fire, put in the sugar and nutmeg; stir three or four minutes and add the whites. Mix thoroughly and flavor, setting the bowl containing it in a pan of hot water until the pudding is served, stirring now and then.
Heat the butter a little more than blood-warm; beat the jelly to a smooth batter and add gradually the butter, the lemon, and nutmeg. Warm almost to a boil, stirringall the while; beat hard, put in the sugar, lastly the wine. Set in a vessel of hot water stirring now and then, until it is wanted. Keep it covered to hinder the escape of the wine flavor. Stir well before pouring out.
This is a very fine sauce, particularly for cabinet and Neopolitan puddings.
A good rule for custard is five eggs to a quart of milk, and a tablespoonful of sugar to each egg, although a good plain custard can be made with an egg for each cup of milk and four tablespoonfuls of sugar to the quart. Creams and custards that are to be frozen must have at least one-third more sugar than those which are not to undergo this process.
In heating the milk for custard, do not let it quite boil before adding the yolks. My plan, which has proved a safe one thus far, is to take the scalding milk from the fire, and instead of pouring the beaten eggs into it, to put a spoonful or two of the milk tothem, beating well all the while, adding more and more milk as I mix, until there is no longer danger of sudden curdling. Then, return all to the fire and boil gently until the mixture is of the right consistency. From ten to fifteen minutes should thicken a quart. Stir constantly. A pinch of soda added in hot weather will prevent the milk from curdling.
Always boil milk and custard in a vessel set within another of boiling water.If you have not a custard or farina kettle, improvise one by setting a tin pail inside of a pot of hot water, taking care it does not float, also that the water is not so deep as to bubble over the top. Custards are better and lighter if the yolks and whites are beaten separately, the latter stirred in at the last.
Heat the milk almost to boiling; beat the yolks light and stir in the sugar. Add the milk in the manner described in “general directions” at head of this section; stir in five whites whipped stiff; return to the fire and stir until thick, but not until it breaks. Season it with vanilla, pour into glass cups; whip the whites of two eggs to a méringue with a heaping tablespoonful of powdered sugar, and when the custard is cold, pile a little of this upon the top of each cup. You may lay a preserved strawberry or cherry, or a bit of melon sweetmeat, or a little bright jelly upon each.
Scald the milk, add the beaten yolks, the sugar, the almond paste, and the whites of two eggs. Boil, stirringconstantly until it thickens. Stir up well when almost cold and pour into cups. Make a méringue of the whites of two eggs and two tablespoonfuls powdered sugar, flavored with bitter almond, and heap upon each cup.
Soak the gelatine in a cup of the cold milk two hours. Then heat the rest of the milk to boiling, add that in which the gelatine is, and stir over the fire until the latter is quite dissolved. Take from the fire, and let it stand five minutes before putting in the beaten yolks and sugar. Heat slowly until it begins to thicken perceptibly, not boil—say seven or eight minutes, stirring constantly. When nearly cold, having stirred it every few minutes during the time, flavor it, wash out your mould in cold water, and without wiping it, pour in the custard and set on the ice or in a cold place to harden. When quite firm, turn into a cold dish, loosening it by wrapping about the mould a cloth wrung out in hot water, or dipping the mould for an instant in warm, not boiling water. Have ready the whites whipped to a froth with three tablespoonfuls powdered sugar and juice of a lemon. Heap neatly about the base of the moulded custard, like snow-drifts. If you like, you may dot this with minute bits of currant jelly.
This is a pleasing dish to the eye and taste,
Beat the yolks well, stir in the sugar, and add the hot, not boiling milk, a little at a time. Boil until it begins to thicken. When cool, flavor and pour into a glass dish, first stirring it up well. Heap upon it a méringue of the whites into which you have beaten, gradually, half a cup of currant, cranberry, or other bright tart jelly. Dot with bits of jelly cut into rings or stars, or straight slips laid on in a pattern.
Soak the gelatine an hour in the milk; put on the fire and stir well as it warms. Beat the yolks very light with the sugar, add to the scalding milk, and heat to boiling point, stirring all the while. Strain through thin muslin or tarlatan, and when almost cold, put into a mould wet with cold water. Flavor with vanilla or lemon.
Soak the gelatine in just enough cold water to cover it, for an hour. Drain, and stir into a pint of the cream made boiling hot. Beat the yolks smooth with the sugar, and add the boiling mixture, beaten in a little at a time. Heat until it begins to thicken, but do not actually boil; remove it from the fire, flavor, and while it is still hot stir in the other pint of cream, whipped or churned in a syllabub churn to a stiff froth. Beat in this “whip,” a spoonful at a time, into the custard until it is the consistency of sponge-cake batter. Dip a mould in cold water, pour in the mixture, and set on the ice to form.
Soak the gelatine one hour in a teacupful of cold water. To this, at the end of this time, add one pint boiling water. Stir until the gelatine is thoroughly dissolved; add two-thirds of the sugar and the lemon-juice. Beat the whites of the eggs to a stiff froth, and when the gelatine is quite cold, whip it into the whites, a spoonful at a time, for an hour. Whip steadily and evenly, and when all is stiff, pour into a mould, previously wet with cold water, and set in a cold place. In four or five hours turn into a glass dish.
Make a custard of the milk, eggs, and remainder of the sugar, flavor with vanilla or bitter almond, and when the méringue is turned out of the mould, pour this around the base.
Scald but not boil the milk; add by degrees to the beaten yolks, and when well mixed, stir in the whites. Flavor, and pour into a deep dish, or custard-cups of white stone-china. Set these in a pan of hot water, grate nutmeg upon each, and bake until firm. Eat cold from the cups.
Soak the tapioca in the water five hours. Let the milk come to a boil; add the tapioca, the water in which it was boiled, and a good pinch of salt. Stir until boiling hot, and add gradually to the beaten yolks and sugar. Boil again (alwaysin a vessel set within another of hot water), stirring constantly. Let it cook until thick, but not too long, as the custard will break. Five minutes after it reaches the boil will suffice. Pour into a bowl, and stir gently into the mixture the whites of the eggs, beaten to a stiff froth. Flavor, and set aside in a glass dish until very cold.
Eat with an accompaniment of light cake and brandied,or canned peaches or pears. This will be found a very delightful dessert.
Heat the milk, and stir in the soaked tapioca. When it has dissolved, add the sugar. Boil slowly fifteen minutes, stirring all the time; take from the fire, and beat until nearly cold. Flavor and pour into a mould dipped in cold water. Turn out, and pour cold sweetened cream around it.
May be made in the same way as tapioca.
Heat the milk to boiling; stir in the corn-starch and salt, and boil together five minutes (in a farina-kettle), then add the yolks, beaten light, with the sugar; boil two minutes longer, stirring all the while; remove the mixture from the fire, and beat in the whipped whites while it is boiling hot. Pour into a mould wet with cold water, and set in a cold place. Eat with sugar and cream.
Is made according to the above receipt, but boiled fifteen minutes before the eggs are added. You may omit the eggs if you like, and only want a plain dessert.
Mix the arrowroot to a smooth batter with one cup of the milk. Heat the remainder to boiling; add the arrowroot, stirring constantly. When it begins to thicken put in the sugar, and cook ten minutes longer, still stirring it well from the sides and bottom. Take it off; beat well five minutes; flavor with the essence and a small wineglass of white wine. Give a hard final stir before putting it into a mould wet with cold water.
This is very nourishing for invalids and young children. For the latter you may omit the wine.
Heat the milk to boiling, having previously soaked the gelatine in a cup of it for an hour. Turn in this when the milk is scalding hot; add the pounded almond-paste, and stir all together ten minutes before putting in the sugar. When the gelatine has dissolved, remove the blanc-mangefrom the vessel of boiling water in which you have cooked it, and strain through a thin muslin bag, pressing it well to get out the flavor of the almonds. There should be three or four bitter ones among them. Wet a mould with cold water, put in the blanc-mange, and set in a cold place until firm.
You may make blanc-mange without the almonds, although it will not be so nice—and substitute vanilla for the rose-water.
Make according to the foregoing receipt, and, after straining, separate into four different portions, allowing about a cupful of the mixture for each. Have ready
Beat the chocolate into one portion, mixing it well; the jelly into another, the egg into a third, returning this and that flavored with chocolate, to the fire, and stirring until very hot, but not boiling. Leave the fourth uncolored. When quite cold and a little stiff, pour carefully into a wet mould—the white first; then the pink; next the yellow; and the chocolate last. Of course, when the blanc-mange is turned out, this order of colors will be reversed. Set in a cold place. Loosen, when firm, by dipping the mould for a moment in warm water, and working the top free from the edge with a few light touches of your fingers. This is a handsome dish and easily managed. Currant juice or cranberry color a finer pink than jelly, but are apt to thin the blanc-mange, unless used cautiously. A little vanilla improves the chocolate.
Stir the soaked gelatine in the boiling water until dissolved; take from the fire and beat, a little at a time, into the yolks; return to the inner saucepan with the sugar, orange, lemon and cinnamon. Stir over a clear fire until it is boiling hot; put in the wine and strain through a hair-sieve or a piece of tarlatan. Set away in a mould wet with cold water.
The success of this dish depends much upon the stirring and the watchfulness of the cook. The mixture should not be allowed to boil at any moment.
Heat the cream to boiling, stir in the gelatine and sugar, and, so soon as they are dissolved, take from the fire. Beat ten minutes, or, what is better, churn in a syllabub-churn until very light; flavor, and add by degrees the wine, mixing it in well. Put into moulds wet with cold water.
Heat the milk to boiling; pour in the gelatine and milk, and stir until it is dissolved; add the sugar to the beaten yolks and stir until smooth; beat the chocolate into this, and pour in, spoonful by spoonful, the scalding milk upon the mixture, stirring all the while until all is in. Return to the inner saucepan and heat gently, stirring faithfully until it almost boils. Remove from fire, turn into a bowl, and whip in lightly and briskly the beaten whites with the vanilla. Set to form in moulds wet with cold water.
Split and trim the cakes, and fit neatly in the bottom and sides of two quart moulds. Whip the cream to a stiff froth in a syllabub-churn when you have sweetened and flavored it; fill the moulds, lay cakes closely together on the top, and set upon the ice until needed.
You may use for this purpose a loaf of sponge-cake, cutting strips from it for the sides and leaving the crust for the bottom and top, each in one piece.
Heat the cream almost to boiling; put in the soaked gelatine and half a cup of sugar, and stir until dissolved. Remove from the fire, flavor, and when cool, beat or churn to a standing froth. Cut off the top of the cake in one piece, and scoop out the middle, leaving the sides and bottom three-quarters of an inch thick. Over the inside of these pour the wine in spoonfuls, that all may be evenly moistened. Fill with the whipped cream, replace the top, which should also be moistened with wine and set in a cold place until needed.
Serve with it, or pour around it, a custard made of the eggs, milk, and the other half cup of sugar.
Heat the cream to boiling, slowly, stirring frequently;add the sugar, chocolate, and gelatine, and, when these are dissolved, add, a spoonful at a time, to the beaten yolks. Set back in the saucepan of boiling water, and stir five minutes, until very hot, but do not let it boil. Take it off, flavor, and whip or churn to a standing froth, adding the beaten whites toward the last. Line a mould with cake, fill with the mixture, and set upon the ice.
Blanch the almonds, and, when cold, pound them to a paste in a Wedgewood mortar, adding orange-flower or rose-water to prevent oiling. Heat themilkto boiling, put in the gelatine, the sugar and almonds, and stir five minutes, or until they are thoroughly dissolved. Strain through thin muslin, pressing the cloth well. When cool, beat in the cream, a little at a time, with an egg-whip, or churn in a syllabub-churn until thick and stiff. Wet your mould, put in the mixture, and let it stand seven or eight hours in a cold place.
Mix the cream, eggs, and sugar; flavor, and beat in thegelatine and milk last. It should be quite cold before it is added.
Line a mould with slices of sponge-cake, or with lady’s fingers, and fill with the mixture.
Set upon the ice to cool.
Sweeten the cream, and, when the sugar is thoroughly dissolved, churn to a strong froth. Lastly, stir in wine and seasoning, carefully. Serve at once.
Heap in glasses, and eat with cake.
Stew the gooseberries in just water enough to cover them. When soft and broken, rub them through a sieve to remove the skins. While still hot beat in the butter, sugar, and the whipped yolks of the eggs. Pile in a glass dish, or in small glasses, and heap upon the top a méringue of the whipped whites and sugar.
Whenverystiff, heap in the shape of half an egg upon stiff letter-paper lining the bottom of your baking-pan. Have them half an inch apart. Do not shut the oven-door closely, but leave a space through which you can watch them. When they are a light yellow-brown, take them out and cool quickly. Slip a thin-bladed knife under each; scoop out the soft inside, and fill with cream whipped as for Charlotte Russe.
They are very fine. The oven should be very hot.
Boil the calf’s feet in the water until it is reduced one half; strain the liquor, and let it stand ten or twelve hours. Skim off every particle of the fat, and remove the dregs; melt slowly in a porcelain or bell-metal kettle, add the seasoning, sugar, and the whipped whites of the eggs, and boil fast about twelve minutes, skimming well. Strain through a double flannel bag suspended between the four legs of an upturned high stool or backless chair, the bowl set beneath. Do not squeeze or shake it, until the jelly ceases to run freely; then slip out the bowl, and put under another, into which you may gently press what remains. The first will be the clearer jelly, although the second dripping will taste quite as well. Wet your moulds, put in the jelly, and set in a cool place.
There are still some housekeepers who insist that thejellies made from the modern gelatine are not comparable in beauty and flavor to those prepared from the genuine feet. Seeing means taste as well as belief with them, and when they handle and behold the beloved feet, they know what they are about. Gelatine, they will darkly and disgustfully assert, is made of horn-shavings and hoofs and the like, and no more fit to be used for cooking purposes than so much glue.
Nevertheless, while gelatine is so clean, bright, and convenient, housewives who find the days now but half as long as did their mothers, despite labor-saving machines, will turn a deaf ear to these alarmists, and escape the tedious process above-described by using the valuable substitute.
Soak the gelatine in the cold water one hour. Add to this the sugar, lemons, and cinnamon; pour over all a quart of boiling water, and stir until the gelatine is thoroughly dissolved. Put in the wine, strain through a double flannel bag, without squeezing, wet your moulds with cold water, and set the jelly away in them to cool.
May be made by the receipt just given, substituting a pint of clear, sweet cider for the wine.
Fever patients may use cider jelly when wine is forbidden, and they will find this both refreshing and nutritious.
Cut the rind from the oranges in long narrow strips, and stew these gently in enough water to cover them until they are tender. Add to them a cup of sugar, and simmer fifteen minutes longer in the syrup. Lay them out upon a dish to cool, taking care not to break them. If you have preserved orange-peel in the house, it will save you the trouble of preparing this.
The blanc-mange should be made the day before you want it, and the eggshells filled. The original contents, yolk and white, should be poured out through a hole, not larger than a half-dime, in the small end, and the interior washed with pure water, shaken around well in them. Then fill with blanc-mange and set in a pan of flour or sugar—the open end up—that they may not be jostled or overturned.
Next morning fill a glass dish two-thirds full of the jelly, which should be very clear, reserving a large cupful. Break the shells from about the blanc-mange, and lay the artificial eggs upon the jelly so soon as the latter is firm enough to bear them. Pile them neatly, but not too high in the middle, bearing in mind that what is the top now will be the bottom when the jelly is turned out. Lay theorange peel which representsstraw, over these and around them. Warm the reserved jelly, so that it will flow readily, but do not get it hot; pour over the straw and eggs, and set away in a cold place to form. When firm, turn out upon a glass dish or salver.
This pretty and fanciful dish is yet easily made. The materials are so simple and inexpensive, and the effect of the work, if deftly done, so pleasing, that I have no hesitation in calling the attention even of novices to it.
Put all over the fire, boil up once well, and strain through a double flannel bag into moulds.
Squeeze the juice of the fruit into a bowl, and put with them the grated peel and the cinnamon. Pour over them the boiling water, cover closely, and let them standhalf an hour. Strain, add the sugar, let it come to a boil, stir in the gelatine, and, when this is well dissolved, take the saucepan from the fire. Strain through a double flannel bag into moulds.
Divide the jelly into two equal portions, and color one with averylittle prepared cochineal, leaving the other as it is, of a pale amber. Wet a mould with cold water and pour in a little of the latter. Set the mould in the ice, that the jelly may harden quickly, and so soon as it is firm pour in carefully some of the red. Set back upon the ice to get ready for the amber, adding the two colors in this order until you are ready for the base, which should be wider than the other stripes, and consist of the white blanc-mange. Keep both jelly and blanc-mange near the fire until you have filled the mould—I mean, of course, that intended for the latest layers. Let all get very firm before you turn it out.
You may vary two moulds of this jelly by having the blanc-mange base of one colored with chocolate, a narrow white stripe above relieving the grave effect of the brown.
If you wish to prepare ice-cream at an hour’s notice, you cannot do better than to purchase the best patent freezer you can procure. I had one once which would freeze cream admirably in half an hour. I have forgotten the patentee’s name, and perhaps this is well for him, since truth would oblige me to record an unlucky habithis machine had of getting out of order just when I wanted it to do its best. My earliest recollections of ice-cream are of the discordant grinding of the well-worn freezer among the blocks of ice packed about it—a monotone of misery, that, had it been unrelieved by agreeable associations of the good to which it was “leading up,” would not have been tolerated out of Bedlam. For one, two, three, sometimes four hours, it went on without other variety than the harsher sounds of the fresh ice and the rattling “swash” as the freezer plunged amid the icy brine when these were nearly melted; without cessation save when the unhappy operator nodded over his work, or was relieved by another predestined victim of luxury and ennui—a battalion of the laziest juveniles upon the place being detailed for this purpose. I verily believed in those days that the freezing could not be facilitated by energetic action, and used to think how fortunate it was that small darkies had a predilection for this drowsy employment. I shall never forget my amazement at seeing a brisk Yankee housewife lay hold of the handle of the ponderous tin cylinder, and whirl it with such will and celerity, back and forth, back and forth, that the desired end came to pass in three-quarters of an hour.
That day has gone by. Time has grown too precious now even to juvenile contrabands for them to sit half the day shaking a freezer under the locust-tree on the old plantation lawn. Machines that will do the work in one-tenth of the time, with one-fiftieth of the labor, are sold at every corner. But, so far as I know, it was reserved for a nice old lady up in the “Jersey” mountains—the tidiest, thriftiest, most cheerful bee I ever knew—to show her neighbors and acquaintances that ice-cream could be made to freeze itself. For twelve years I have practised her method, with such thankfulness to her, and suchsatisfaction to my guests and family, that I eagerly embrace the opportunity of circulating the good news.
Heat themilkalmost to boiling, beat the eggs light, add the sugar, and stir up well. Pour the hot milk to this, little by little, beating all the while, and return to the fire—boiling in a pail or saucepan set within one of hot water. Stir the mixture steadily about fifteen minutes, or until it is thick as boiled custard. Pour into a bowl and set aside to cool. When quite cold, beat in the cream, and the flavoring, unless you have used the bean.
Have ready a quantity of ice, cracked in pieces not larger than a pigeon egg—the smaller the better. You can manage this easily by laying a great lump of ice between two folds of coarse sacking or an old carpet, tucking it in snugly, and battering it, through the cloth, with a sledge-hammer or mallet until fine enough. There is no waste of ice, nor need you take it in your hands at all—only gather up the corners of the carpet or cloth, and slide as much as you want into the outer vessel. Use an ordinary old-fashioned upright freezer, set in a deep pail; pack around it closely, first, a layer of pounded ice, then one of rock salt—common salt will not do so well. In this order fill the pail; but before covering the freezer-lid, remove itcarefully that none of the salt may get in, and, with a long wooden ladle or flat stick (I had one made on purpose), beat the custard as you would batter, for five minutes, without stay or stint. Replace the lid, pack the ice and salt upon it, patting it down hard on top; cover all with several folds of blanket or carpet, and leave it for one hour. Then remove the cover of the freezer when you have wiped it carefully outside. You will find within a thick coating of frozen custard upon the bottom and sides. Dislodge this with your ladle, which should be thin at the lower end, or with a long carving-knife, working every particle of it clear. Beat again hard and long until the custard is a smooth, half-congealed paste. The smoothness of the ice-cream depends upon your action at this juncture. Put on the cover, pack in more ice and salt, and turn off the brine. Spread the double carpet over all once more, having buried the freezer out of sight in ice, and leave it for three or four hours. Then, if the water has accumulated in such quantity as to buoy up the freezer, pour it off, fill up with ice and salt, but do not open the freezer. In two hours more you may take it from the ice, open it, wrap a towel, wrung out in boiling water, about the lower part, and turn out a solid column of cream, firm, close-grained, and smooth as velvet to the tongue.
Should the ice melt very fast, you may have to turn off the water more than twice; but this will seldom happen except in very hot weather. You need not devote fifteen minutes in all to the business after the custard is made. You may go into the cellar before breakfast, having made the custard overnight, stir in the cold cream and flavoring, get it into the freezer and comfortably packed down before John has finished shaving, and by choosing the times for your stolen visits to the lower regions, surprise him and the children at a one-o’clock dinner by the most deliciousdessert in the world. I have often laughed in my sleeve at seeingmyJohn walk through the cellar in search of some mislaid basket or box, whistling carelessly, without a suspicion that his favorite delicacy was coolly working out its own solidification under the inverted barrel on which I chanced to be leaning at his entrance.
Any of the following receipts forcustardice-cream may be frozen in like manner. Do not spare salt, and be sure your ice is finely cracked, and after the second beating do not let the air again into the freezer. If you cannot get dry rock salt, that which settles at the bottom of fish-barrels will do just as well. Keep the freezer hidden, from first to last, by the ice heaped over it, except when you have to lift the lid on the occasions I have specified.
Heat the milk almost to boiling, and pour, by degrees, in with the beaten egg and sugar. Stir in the chocolate, beat well three minutes, and return to the inner kettle. Heat until it thickens well, stirring constantly; take from the fire and set aside to cool. Many think a little vanilla an improvement. When the custard is cold, beat in the cream. Freeze.
Heat one pint cream almost to boiling, add the sugar, and when this is melted, the almonds. Simmer ten minutes, stirring often, remove from the fire, and let it stand together ten minutes longer in a covered vessel. Strain the cream, pressing the bag hard to get the full flavor of the almonds, return to the inner saucepan and stir in the arrowroot until the cream thickens—say five minutes. When cold, beat very light with an egg-whip, adding gradually the rest of the cream. It should be light in half an hour. Then freeze.
If you wish to mould your cream in fancy shapes, open your freezer two hours after the second stirring and transfer the cream to a tight mould, having given it a third vigorous beating. Pack this down in ice and salt, and let it stand two hours longer than you would have done had it remained in the freezer.
Heat half the cream nearly to boiling, stir in the sugar, and, when this is melted, the coffee; then the arrowroot. Boil all together five minutes, stirring constantly. When cold, beat up very light, whipping in the rest of the cream by degrees. Then freeze.
I cannot say certainly that this can be frozen withoutturning, although I see no reason why it should not, since the arrowroot gives it the consistency of custard.
Sweeten the cream and beat in the lemons gradually, not to curdle it; add the brandy and freeze in a patent freezer, or by turning quickly. In turning the freezer, open twice during the operation, to stir and beat the contents smooth.
Sweeten the cream, beat the lemon gradually into it, and put at once into the freezer. Freeze rapidly in a patent freezer, or the acid is apt to turn the milk.
You may make orange ice-cream in the same way.
Slice the pine-apple thin, and scatter the sugar between the slices. Cover it, and let the fruit steep three hours. Then cut, or chop it up in the syrup, and strain it through a hair sieve or bag of double coarse lace. Beat gradually into the cream, and freeze as rapidly as possible.
You may, if you like, reserve a few pieces of pine-apple, unsugared, cut into square bits, and stir them through the cream when half frozen.
Is very nice made after the preceding receipt, with two or three handfuls of freshly cut bits of the fruit stirred in when the cream is half frozen.
Scatter half the sugar over the berries and let them stand three hours. Press and mash them, and strain them through a thin muslin bag. Add the rest of the sugar, and when dissolved beat in the cream little by little. Freeze rapidly, opening the freezer (if it is not a patent one) several times to beat and stir.
You may have a pint of whole berries, unsugared, ready to stir in when the cream is frozen to the consistency of stiff mush. In this case add a cup more sugar to the quart of crushed berries.
Heat the quart of milk almost to boiling, and addgradually to the beaten yolks and sugar. Whip in the frothed whites, return to the custard-kettle, and stir until it is a thick, soft custard. Let it get perfectly cold, beat in the cream and freeze. If you let it freeze itself, stir in the fruit after the second beating; if you turn the freezer, when the custard is like congealed mush.
Heat the milk almost to boiling; pour by degrees over the eggs and sugar, beating all together well. Return to the fire, andboilten minutes, or until set into a good custard. When cold, beat in the cream, and half freeze before you stir in half a pound of crystallized fruit—peaches, apricots, cherries, limes, etc., chopped very fine. Beat in with these the lemon and wine; cover again, and freeze hard.
In all fruit ice-creams the beating of the custard should be very hard and thorough, if you would have them smooth.
Squeeze out every drop of juice, and steep in it the rindof orange and lemons one hour. Strain, squeezing the bag dry; mix in the sugar, and then the water. Stir until dissolved, and freeze by turning in a freezer—opening three times to beat all up together.
Prepare and freeze as you would lemon ice.
Strew the sugar over the pineapple and let it stand an hour. Mash all up together, and strain out the syrup through a hair-sieve. Add the water and freeze.
Squeeze out the bruised cherries and stones, in a bag over the sugar; add the water, then the brandy, and freeze.
It will require a longer time to freeze than other ices, on account of the brandy.
Squeeze out the juice; mix in the sugar and water, and freeze.
May be put on whole in fruit-baskets, or the skin be cut in eighths half way down, separated from the fruit and curled inward, showing half the orange white, the other yellow. Or, pass a sharp knife lightly around the fruit, midway between the stem and blossom end, cutting through the rind only. Slip the smooth curved handle of a teaspoon carefully between the peel and body of the orange, and gently work it all around until both upper and lower halves are free, except at stem and blossom. Turn the rind, without tearing it, inside out, making a white cup at each end—the round white fruit between them.
Pare and slice large sweet oranges; sprinkle powdered sugar thickly over each slice, and pour a couple of glassesof wine on the top. Sprinkle powdered sugar over all, and serve at once, or the fruit will lose its freshness.
You may omit the wine if you like.
Do not let any fruit intended to be eaten fresh for dessert lie in the sugar longer than is absolutely necessary. It extracts the flavor and withers the pulp.
Arrange the orange in a glass dish, scatter the grated cocoanut thickly over it, sprinkle this lightly with sugar, and cover with another layer of orange. Fill up the dish in this order, having cocoanut and sugar for the top layer. Serve at once.
Wash and polish with a clean towel, and pile in a china fruit-basket, with an eye to agreeable variety of color.
Pick out the finest, handling as little as may be, and pile upon a salver or flat dish, with bits of ice between them, and ornament with peach leaves or fennel sprigs.
One of the prettiest dishes of fruit I ever saw upon a dessert-table was an open silver basket, wide at the top, heaped with rich red peaches and yellow Bartlett pears, interspersed with feathery bunches of green, which few of those who admired it knew forcarrot-tops. Wild white clematis wreathed the handle and showed here and there among the fruit, while scarlet and white verbenas nestled amid the green.
Send around powdered sugar with the fruit, as many like to dip peaches and pears in it after paring and quartering them.
Never wash strawberries or raspberries that are intended to be eaten asfreshfruit. If they are so gritty as to require this process, keep them off the table. You will certainly ruin the flavor beyond repair if you wash them, and as certainly induce instant fermentation and endanger the coats of the eaters’ stomachs, if, after profaning the exquisite delicacy of the fruit to this extent, you complete the evil work by covering them with sugar, and leaving them to leak their lives sourly away for one or two hours.
Put them on the table in glass dishes, piling them high and lightly, send around powdered sugar with them and cream, that the guests may help themselves. It is not economical perhaps, but it is a healthful and pleasant style of serving them—I had almost said the only decent one.
“But I don’t know who picked them!” cries Mrs. Fussy.
No, my dear madam! nor do you know who makes the baker’s bread, or confectioner’s cakes, creams, jellies, salads, etc. Nor, for that matter, how the flour is manufactured out of which you conjure your dainty biscuit and pies. I was so foolish as to go into a flour-mill once, and having seen a burly negro, naked to the waist, with his trousers rolled up to his knees, stand in a bank of “fine family flour,” a foot deep in the lowest part, on a July day, shovelling it into barrels for the market, I rushed into the outer air a sicker and a wiser woman.
IknowGodmade strawberries. “Doubtless,” saysBishop Butler, “Hecould have made a better berry, butHenever did!” The picker’s light touch cannot mar flavor or beauty, nor, were her fingers filthy as a chimney-sweep’s, could the delicate fruit suffer from them as from your barbarous baptism. You would like to know who picked them. I should inquire instead, “Who washed them, and in what?” I recollect seeing a housekeeper, who was afflicted with your inquiring turn of mind, wash strawberries in a wash-hand basin!
Pick the currants from the stems, and mix with an equal quantity of raspberries. Put into a glass bowl, and eat with powdered sugar.
Pick fine even bunches, and dip them, one at a time, into a mixture of frothed white of egg, and a very little cold water. Drain them until nearly dry, and roll in pulverized sugar. Repeat the dip in the sugar once or twice, and lay them upon white paper to dry. They make a beautiful garnish for jellies or charlottes, and look well heaped in a dish by themselves or with other fruit.
Plums and grapes are very nice frosted in the same way.