and add a pinch of baking-soda. Beat the yolks of three eggs light with
five heaping tablespoonfuls of granulated sugar. Add to the beaten
eggs and sugar a teaspoonful of corn-starch dissolved in a little cold
milk. When the milk reaches the scalding point add the egg mixture and
stir to a smooth custard, or one that will coat the spoon. Slice four
bananas thin into the bottom of a deep pudding-dish, add to the hot
custard a teaspoonful of vanilla and pour it over the bananas. Have the
whites of the eggs whipped to a stiff meringue, with two tablespoonfuls
of powdered sugar; heap it on top of the custard and bake in a quick
oven to a delicate brown. Serve very cold with whipped cream.
Cream puffs
Melt a half-pound of butter in a pint of scalding water, and when this
boils stir in three-quarters of a pound of flour. Stir steadily for a
minute, or until the flour does not stick to the sides of the saucepan.
Remove from the fire. When the mixture is cool whip in, one at a time,
eight eggs beaten very light. Set on the ice for an hour. Line pans
with buttered paper and drop the mixture by even spoonfuls at regular
intervals—far apart—upon this paper. Bake in a _hot_ oven until the
puffs are golden brown. When cold, cut a slit in the side of each and
fill with a cream made by the following recipe:
Cream puff filling
Thicken a cupful of hot milk with three tablespoonfuls of flour wet to
a paste with cold water. When it has boiled for a minute, and is free
from lumps, remove from the fire and pour upon three eggs, well beaten
with a half cupful of powdered sugar. Stir over the fire to a thick,
smooth cream; remove, flavor with vanilla, and when cold fill the puffs.
Macaroons
Beat the whites of three eggs stiff with three-quarters of a pound of
powdered sugar. Stir in half a pound of finely-crumbled almond paste;
beat until smooth, and drop by the spoonful upon greased paper. Bake
for ten minutes in a steady oven.
Tutti-frutti jelly of canned fruit
Make a good jelly, using the liquor from the canned fruit as seasoning.
Strain while hot, and pour a little into a wet mold or bowl. When the
jelly begins to form put a layer of chopped fruit upon the jelly, cover
with more jelly (which you should have kept slightly warm). When this
is firm, more fruit, and so on until materials are used up. When firm
and cold, you can slice at pleasure.
Prune and nut jelly
Soak a cupful of prunes all night; drain and stew them until tender
in three cupfuls of water. Before taking them from the fire add a
cupful of sugar. Drain the prunes, keeping the syrup, chop them and
stir into them two dozen blanched and chopped almonds. Soak two-thirds
of a box of gelatine in a cupful of cold water for two hours, add a
cupful of boiling water and the prune liquor. Stir over the fire until
the gelatine is dissolved; then remove, add the juice of a lemon and
two tablespoonfuls of sherry. Turn into a glass dish, and when partly
congealed stir in the prunes and nuts. Every few minutes stir the jelly
until it becomes firm enough to prevent the fruit from sinking to the
bottom. Eat very cold with sweetened, whipped cream.
Wine jelly
Soak one-half box of gelatine in one-half cupful of cold water for an
hour; put into a saucepan two cupfuls of boiling water, one cupful
of sugar and some thin slices of lemon peel. When the sugar has
dissolved add the gelatin and stir until that has dissolved; remove
from the fire, and when partly cool add the juice of one lemon and
three-quarters of a cupful of sherry wine. Pour into molds and set to
cool.
Creamed figs
Wash the figs and put them in a saucepan with just enough water to
cover them and with half a cup of granulated sugar. Simmer until the
figs are tender when pierced with a fork. Take from the fire and spread
on a plate to cool. Add a cup of sugar to the liquid and boil to a
rather thick syrup. Take from the fire and pour over the figs. When
very cold put into a glass dish and just before sending to the table,
heap whipped cream on top. Eat with light cake.
Fig jelly
Prepare the figs by stewing. Chop very fine. Have ready half a box
of soaked gelatin, put this over the fire in a cup of boiling water,
add the sweetened fig syrup, stir until the gelatin is thoroughly
dissolved, take from the fire, add a wineglassful of sherry and stir in
the minced figs. Turn into a mold wet with cold water to form.
FRUIT DESSERTS
When people call in, or upon, a doctor, in the expectation of hearing
that their internal mechanism is “all agley,” and to pay well for the
knowledge, they want something to show for what they have done and
mean to do. The physician’s catechism and advice that do not entail an
application to a druggist for further help to the deranged machinery,
the transfer of vial, box or packet to the patient’s hands, and the
passage of coin of the realm or paper of the republic from one pocket
to another, are a violation of civilized usages.
“It is naught! It is naught!” saith the patient, and when he is gone
his way he complaineth. Henceforward neither he nor his listeners to
his tale of fraud, “doctor with” the candid practitioner forevermore.
It will be seen that a certain physician ran one positive and several
possible risks when he said to an anemic, wild-eyed patient, teetering
upon the inner edge of nervous prostration, with a tilt in the wrong
direction:
“A sanitarium! By no means! And drugs, nervines, sedatives and the like
would do you no permanent good. The best of them are mere placebos
that amuse the invalid while nature cures him. What you need—what most
broken-down women need—is fresh air and fresh fruit. Plenty of both!
Live out of doors and live upon fruit!”
Then he charged as liberal a
fee as if he had recommended an ocean voyage, Baden-Baden, Carlsbad,
and “ites” and “ines” by the dozen.
If he had ordered a tank of oxygen to be sent to the invalid’s room and
fallen to work pumping the gas into her lungs at a cost of one hundred
dollars per day, the sufferer and the sufferer’s friends and gossips
would have been satisfied, because impressed with the novelty and the
scientific flavor of the proceeding. The means would be commensurate
with the end to be gained.
Eat abundantly as much as you can without surfeit, of whatever fruit
agrees with you best, and while this regimen is going on, sparingly
of meat and rich gravies, not at all of pastry. Let the assuasive,
and dissuasive, and persuasive juices of ripe, fresh fruit have their
perfect work. Take your case in hand seriously, and with a definite,
intelligent intention. Drugs interfere with nature; fresh air and fruit
are her obedient handmaidens.
Apples
Many persons fancy that raw apples are indigestible, and only endurable
in the early morning. Doubtless the old adage that fruit is gold in the
morning, silver in the middle of the day, and lead at night, is to some
extent answerable for this (to my way of thinking) erroneous impression.
Dietitians tell us that ripe, raw apples contain more phosphates in
proportion to their bulk than any other article of food, fish not
excepted. A recent writer on this point boldly declares that in this
lies the secret of healthful longevity. They correct biliousness and
act as a sedative upon the racked nerves and allay insomnia.
“Eat uncooked apples constantly, although, of course, in moderation,
and drink distilled water only, and years will be added to your life,
while the evidences of age will be long in coming.
“This argument is based on the supposition that as age advances, the
deposits of mineral matter in the system increase, and that aging is
little more than a gradual process of ossification.
“Phosphoric acid contains the least amount of earth-salts, and for that
reason is probably the nearest approach to the elixir of life known to
the scientific world.
“If you want to live long, to retain your youth at the same time,
and to increase your brain-tissue, eat plenty of apples, drink only
distilled water, and eat as little bread as possible. A diluted
solution of phosphoric acid is also recommended to those who care to
take pains to follow the diet here outlined.”
Tart apples are far more wholesome than sweet, and all, like potatoes,
should be fully ripe when eaten.
Wash and polish them for the table, arrange in a silver basket or glass
dish, and pass silver knives with them. The touch of steel injures the
flavor.
Peaches
Neither wash nor wipe. The soft down upon the cheek of a ripe peach is
one of its charms. Keep on the ice until you are ready to serve, then
pile in a fruit dish and garnish with peach leaves. Pass silver knives
with them.
To prepare grapefruit for table
Cut the grapefruit in half, and dig out the hard core and seeds,
leaving a hollow in the center. Loosen the pulp from the skin all
around the sides of the fruit, so that it can be eaten easily with
a spoon. The method from this point is determined by the individual
taste. Some persons like the fruit without sugar. Others fill the
hollow in the middle with sugar, and pour upon this a little rum, or
sherry, or Maraschino. The addition of a few Maraschino cherries is
often made, and in hot weather the fruit is sometimes laid in the ice.
Picked pineapple
Peel the pineapple and remove the little dark protuberances upon the
surface of the fruit. With a fork pick or tear the fruit into strips,
strew these with granulated sugar and set in the ice until wanted.
Pineapple and raspberries
Trim the bottom of a large pineapple so that it will stand upright. Cut
off the top, but do not throw it away. With a sharp knife dig out the
inside of the fruit, taking care that the knife does not penetrate the
sides or walls of the pineapple. Put this hollowed case and the top
into the refrigerator until needed. Pick the inside of the pineapple
into tiny bits, and mix with it a cupful of red raspberries. Sweeten
abundantly with granulated sugar, and turn the fruit into a glass, or
a china jar, with a closely fitting cover. Put on the lid and bury the
jar in the ice for several hours. Just before time to serve it, remove
from the ice, fill the hollowed shell with the fruit mixture, replace
the top on the pineapple and send to table.
Pineapple and strawberries
Cut off the top of a pineapple, and pare away the bottom so that
it will stand upright and firm on the plate; scoop out the pulp,
discarding the core; mix the pulp with strawberries cut in halves, the
juice of an orange and sugar to taste. Return the mixture to the shell
and chill thoroughly. Garnish the dish with leaves from the crown.
Strawberries
If large and ripe, do not cap them, but pass whole, with powdered sugar
that each eater may help himself. Holding the stem as a handle, he dips
the fruit in the sugar and nibbles it daintily.
Orange baskets
In halving large sweet oranges leave a strip of rind on one side that
may serve as a handle to the other. Dig out the pulp from under and
around the “handle,” leaving that in the lower “basket” intact. Set the
baskets in ice until you are ready to serve. Tie a bow of narrow ribbon
to each handle before sending to table. Eat with orange spoons.
ICE CREAM AND ICES
Freezers that speedily congeal the contents of their grinding depths
may be bought so cheaply, our housekeeper will find that in the long
run it is economy to buy a patent freezer and make her ices at home.
In freezing creams of all sorts, and water, or fruit ices, the process
is greatly simplified by having the ice crushed fine. Many cooks who
are new to the business, do not recognize this fact. In consequence,
they learn that to freeze cream takes very much longer than they were
led to imagine from the circular advertising “the most rapid freezer
ever put upon the market.” While this circular may to a certain
extent exaggerate the facts, do not condemn the new machine until you
have pounded or shaved your ice very fine. A machine for shaving ice
facilitates this process. Lacking this, put the ice into a strong bag
and pound it fine with a wooden mallet.
I wish it were in my power to name and recommend “a perfect freezer”
of any kind. Grinding is slow work; it is hard work; it is hot
work at a season when action begets discomfort. My heart leaped
high within me when a correspondent wrote gushingly of a freezer
that “did the business of, and in itself without calling upon
housewife or cook for so much as a turn or touch.” Upon trial of the
“perfect” machine, I found the product—after I had faithfully obeyed
instructions—coarse-grained, and shot with icy needles. I can, however,
refer to a self-freezing process practised in my household for twenty
odd years, and with never a failure.
Pour your cream, of whatever kind, into the freezer, surround with
alternate layers of ice, shaved or cracked almost as fine as snow,
and rock salt. Fill to the top and pour over all two quarts of the
strongest brine. Bury the freezer out of sight in cracked ice and throw
a piece of carpet, or a doubled sack over all, and don’t touch it again
for an hour. Open then and beat and churn, when you have scraped the
frozen cream from the sides down into the middle. Have a stout “dasher”
in miniature made, and work diligently for at least five or six
minutes. The granulation and ice-needles of the “perfect machine” were
the consequence of neglect of this beating and churning. Now close the
freezer, pack down again in rock salt and finely pounded ice, burying
it out of sight as before, put a weight on the top, unless the freezer
be fast to the bottom of the outer vessel, and let all alone for two
hours more—longer if you like.
You will have then a pillar of lusciousness, smooth as cream can be and
should be. Dip the freezer in hot water and turn out, or wrap a towel
wet in hot water about it to loosen the cream.
All ices are the better for being packed down in ice for some time
after they are frozen. It is a ripening and mellowing process. If you
wish to add fruit or nuts to the plain custard or cream beat them in
when you open the freezer to “churn” the contents.
Vanilla ice cream
Make a custard of a quart of milk, seven eggs and four cupfuls of
granulated sugar. Remove from the fire and flavor with vanilla extract.
When cold beat into the custard a quart of rich cream, and freeze.
It is made more elegant and delicious by pouring over each plateful,
when served, a hot or a cold chocolate, or cold strawberry sauce.
Chocolate sauce for vanilla ice cream
Rub four heaping tablespoonfuls of sweet chocolate (grated fine) to
a smooth paste, with six tablespoonfuls of cream. Add two cupfuls of
boiling water, and cook in a double boiler, stirring constantly, for
ten minutes after the boil begins. Flavor with vanilla or other extract
when cold. Before using, beat for three minutes hard.
This “dressing” is especially nice if a few spoonfuls of whipped cream
be beaten into it just before serving. It should be very cold, or very
hot. If the latter, omit the whipped cream but froth by heating over
the fire.
Strawberry sauce for vanilla cream
Crush a pint of berries, mix with them a cupful of sugar; stir until
dissolved; strain through a fine colander or a vegetable press, and set
on ice until needed.
Hot maple sauce for vanilla ice cream
Boil a pound of maple sugar with a very little water until it begins to
“thread.” Then stir into it a half a cupful of shelled English walnuts,
broken, not chopped, into bits. There should be enough to make the
sauce quite thick. Pour hot over vanilla ice cream.
Chocolate ice cream
Make a custard according to the directions given in the recipe
for vanilla ice cream, stirring into it, while in cooking, four
tablespoonfuls of grated chocolate. When this chocolate custard is cold
beat in a pint of rich cream and freeze.
Burnt almond ice cream
Beat the yolks of four eggs light, add to them a cupful of sugar and a
pint of hot milk. Put over the fire in a double boiler, cook until the
mixture thickens like a custard, take from the fire, whip in the whites
of the eggs, beaten stiff, and when the mixture is cold stir in lightly
half a pint of sweet cream, whipped stiff, a cupful of almonds, which
have been shelled, blanched, chopped fine, browned in two teaspoonfuls
of caramel sugar, and pounded to a coarse powder. Flavor with a
teaspoonful of vanilla and half a teaspoonful of almond extract. Freeze
as you would other ice cream.
[Illustration: ORANGE MARMALADE
ICE CREAM WITH HOT MAPLE SAUCE
AFTERNOON TEA SANDWICHES]
Pistachio ice cream
Blanch a quarter of a pound of pistachio nuts by pouring boiling water
over them, letting them stand in this for ten minutes and slipping off
the skins. Grind to a powder or pound to a paste, adding a few drops
of cream in the latter case. Have ready a custard as for vanilla ice
cream, made of six eggs, a quart of milk and a pound of sugar, and
after this is cooked to a custard, and cold, add a quart of rich cream,
the pistachio nuts and enough green vegetable paste to make it of the
desired shade of green. Turn into the freezer and freeze.
Maple frappé
Into two cupfuls of maple syrup stir a cupful of water and a cupful of
rich cream, and freeze. Serve in punch-glasses with teaspoons.
Nesselrode pudding
Make a rich custard of eight eggs and a quart of milk; stir into it a
quart of rich cream, turn into a freezer and grind until half-frozen.
Now open the freezer, remove the dasher and with a long-handled spoon
beat into the cream a pound of chopped marrons glacés. Replace the top
of the freezer, pack down in ice and rock salt, and leave for three
hours. Turn the pudding upon a chilled platter, and heap whipped cream
about the base.
Crushed strawberry ice cream
Make a custard like the one for which directions are given in the last
recipe, only doubling the quantity. Add a quart of cream and pour into
the freezer. Grind or leave packed down until half-frozen. Have ready
a quart of strawberries mashed and abundantly sweetened. When the ice
cream is half congealed carefully remove the top from the freezer and
with a long spoon beat in the crushed berries, stirring up the contents
from the bottom. Replace the top and continue to grind until frozen.
Red raspberries may be used in the same way.
Macaroon ice cream
Spread a half-pound of macaroons on a pastry-board and with a
rolling-pin crush them to a powder.
Make a custard after the following manner: Heat a pint of milk to the
scalding point and pour it gradually upon three eggs beaten light with
one and a half cupfuls of granulated sugar. Put into a double boiler
over the fire and stir until like thick cream; remove, and set aside
to cool. When cold stir into this custard a pint of rich cream, the
powdered macaroons and a teaspoonful of vanilla extract. Turn into the
freezer and grind until frozen.
Macaroon mousse
Make custard as in last recipe, but whip the cream, then beat the
powdered macaroons well into it, pack an ice and freeze without
grinding.
The “mousse” or mossy effect is produced by freezing whipped cream
without turning the crank. (See directions given at beginning of this
chapter.)
Strawberry mousse
Whip a pint of thick cream very stiff and stir into it a cupful of
crushed berries which have been sweetened abundantly and from which all
of the juice has been drained. Mold and pack in ice and salt for four
hours. When ready to serve, garnish with whole strawberries.
Raspberry mousse
Mash a quart of red raspberries and cover them with a pint of
granulated sugar. Whip a quart of cream to a stiff froth, and beat it
gradually into the mashed berries. Turn into the freezer. Do not grind,
but pack in ice and cracked salt for three hours. This is delicious
served with or without whipped cream.
Peach ice cream (No. 1)
Scald a pint of cream and pour it very gradually upon three eggs that
have been beaten light with three cupfuls of sugar. Put over the
fire in a double boiler and cook, stirring constantly until you have
a custard that coats the spoon. This will take about fifteen minutes.
Set the custard aside until cold, then stir into it a pint of rich
cream and three cupfuls of cut-up peaches. These peaches should not be
peeled and cut until just before the time for freezing them, and must
be cut into very small bits, and sprinkled abundantly with sugar. Stir
custard, cream and peaches well together, turn all into the freezer and
freeze until firm. If you freeze without grinding, beat the fruit in
after the cream has been packed down for an hour.
Peach ice cream (No. 2)
Make a quart of rich ice cream and flavor with almond. When frozen hard
take up and cut into cakes. Line the bottom and sides of the freezer
with these. Reserve one-fourth for a cover. Fill the center with layers
of sliced peaches and thick whipped cream. Cover with the reserved
cream and let the freezer remain in ice and salt an hour. Dip quickly
into warm water and turn out carefully.
Café parfait
Put together one quart of thick cream, one gill of clear, strong coffee
and a cupful of fine white sugar. Whip all light in a cream churn, or
with any other appliance you have for whipping cream. When stiff and
light put into a mold that will fit in a freezer, and bind a strip of
cloth or several folds of tissue paper about the top of the mold so as
to keep the salt water from getting in. Put the mold into a freezer
tub and surround it with fine ice and rock salt, well packed down. It
should stand in this for at least three hours. As a rule it is served
heaped in glasses or cups.
Raspberry parfait
With a silver spoon mash a quart of red raspberries and stir into
them a pound of granulated sugar. Set in a cold place for several
hours while you soak half a box of gelatine in a half a pint of
cool water. When the gelatine has soaked for two hours turn it into
a saucepan, pour over it a cupful of boiling water, and stir until
dissolved. Rub the berries and sugar through a fine colander into the
dissolved gelatine, and again set it in a cold place for an hour or
two. Meanwhile, beat a pint of sweet cream stiff. (This will make about
a quart of whipped cream.) When the gelatine mixture is cold beat the
whipped cream into it, put into a freezer and freeze.
Fruit meringue glacé
This is one of the simplest and most delicious of desserts and may be
made of any kind of fruit that is at hand. It is especially good when
made of strawberries, red raspberries, or ripe peaches.
Crush a quart of fruit to a pulp and cover it with a pint of granulated
sugar. Pour on this a half pint of cold water and the unbeaten whites
of five eggs. Mix and turn into the freezer. The grinding process will
whip the contents into frozen foam, light yet firm.
Orange and banana meringue glacé
Peel, seed and chop five oranges fine, and cover them with two cupfuls
of granulated sugar. At the end of half an hour peel and chop five or
six bananas, and stir immediately into the sugared oranges. Now add a
pint of cold water and the unbeaten whites of five eggs. Turn into the
freezer and grind until you have a frozen fruit froth.
Strawberry surprise
Mash two quarts of strawberries to a pulp, add to them a pint of sugar,
a pint of water, the juice of two lemons and the unbeaten whites of six
eggs. Turn into the freezer and freeze. The turning of the dasher will
beat all to a foamy and delicious “surprise.”
Alaska bake (No. 1)
Whites of six eggs. Six tablespoonfuls of powdered sugar. Two-quart
brick of ice cream. A thin sheet of sponge cake.
Make a meringue of the egg whites and the sugar, cover a board with
white paper, lay on the sponge cake, turn the ice cream out upon the
cake (which should extend one-half inch beyond the cream), cover with
the meringue, and spread smoothly. Place on the oven grate and brown
quickly. The board, paper, cake and meringue are poor conductors of
heat and prevent the cream from melting. Slip from paper on ice cream
platter.
Alaska bake (No. 2)
Cover thickly a two-quart brick mold of ice cream with a meringue made
of the whites of six eggs and six tablespoonfuls of powdered sugar.
Place the dish upon a board and set in a very quick oven to brown. The
meringue acts as a non-conductor, and prevents the heat from melting
the ice cream.
It may also be browned with a salamander or a heated fire-shovel.
Sherbet
Squeeze all the juice from six lemons and one large orange. Put into
this the grated rind of the orange, and of three of the lemons, and let
it steep for an hour. Strain in a bag, squeezing this hard; add two
cupfuls of granulated sugar and one pint of water. Mix well and put
into a freezer. The length of time it will take to freeze depends upon
the make of the freezer. Some require more time than others.
Berry sherbet
Mash one quart of berries, or enough to make one pint of juice; add one
pint of sugar, and after the sugar is dissolved, add one pint of water
and the juice of one lemon. Press through coarse lace, or cheese cloth,
and freeze.
Tutti-frutti ice cream