Part 43

“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.

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

Break the whites of seven eggs into a chilled bowl, add to them two cupfuls of powdered sugar and a pint of rich cream into which you have stirred a bit of baking-soda the size of a pea. Put over the fire in a double boiler and make it scalding hot, but remove before the boiling point is reached. Now set the inner saucepan in a pan of ice, and churn until cold and light. Turn into the freezer and grind. Peel and cut into small bits three peaches, an apple, an orange, a banana, two dozen cherries (crystallized, if you can not get the fresh), and cut into small pieces a half cupful of red raspberries. Mix all these fruits thoroughly together. When the cream is frozen, but not very stiff, carefully wipe off the top of the freezer, remove the cover, and take out the dasher. Turn the mixed fruits into the cream, and with a long-handled spoon stir them in. Press all down hard, replace the cover, and pack the freezer down in ice and salt for three hours longer.

Cherry ice

Stem and stone a quart of cherries, crush and cover them with two cupfuls of sugar. At the end of an hour squeeze the cherries through a vegetable press and extract all the juice. To this add the juice of a lemon, a pint of water and the unbeaten whites of three eggs. Turn all into a freezer and grind until you have a firm, light ice. Pack the freezer in ice and salt for an hour after the dasher is removed.

Whole banana ice cream

Wash and wipe twelve large ripe _red_ bananas, cut the skins down carefully all the length on one side, and as carefully extract the pulp without breaking the skins. Remove the pulp, scrape out the fibrous portion from the skins and put the latter in the ice-chest until the cream is ready. Mash the pulp of the bananas, mix with it two cupfuls of sugar and one quart of cream, and add two teaspoonfuls of lemon juice. Rub through your colander to get rid of fibrous parts, and freeze in the usual way. When almost hard, fill the banana skins with the cream, packing it in well, tie with soft thread and return to the cleaned and chilled freezer. Freeze for another hour (without turning). Have ready a dozen narrow green ribbons. Remove the threads, tie the bananas up with the ribbons; lay back in a freezer when you have wiped it dry, and leave in ice and rock salt until served.

Plum Bavarian cream

Soak half a box of gelatin in half a pint of cold water. Press through a sieve one pint of canned, or freshly stewed and sweetened plums. Stir the gelatin over boiling water until dissolved; stir the plums into this and mix well; pour into a bowl set in ice, and stir constantly until it begins to thicken; then add one pint of whipped cream; stir lightly until well-mixed. Turn into a mold and stand in a cool place. Serve with whipped cream.

Cider ice

Dissolve one and a half cupfuls of granulated sugar in one quart of cider. Add one cupful of orange juice and one-fourth cupful of lemon juice. Mix the ingredients well together and freeze in the usual manner.

Raspberry and currant cream

Mash one quart of black raspberries and one pint of red currants with two and a half cupfuls of sugar. Let them stand several hours, strain off the juice and turn into the freezer. When partly frozen, add one cupful of sweet cream, sweetened, flavored and whipped.

Candied citron ice cream

Cut peeled and cored citron into strips. To each pound of these strips allow a pound of granulated sugar. Make a syrup of the sugar and water, allowing a cup of water to each pound of sugar. Cook the citron strips in this until clear and tender, adding enough ginger-root to flavor. Take out the citron and lay on platters to cool, and boil the syrup until very thick. Add a little lemon juice, return the citron to the syrup and stir until candied. Lay on a platter to cool and dry. When you wish to use it cut into tiny shreds and beat into plain vanilla ice cream when half-frozen. Close the freezer and turn until the contents are firm.

HOME-MADE CANDIES

There has of late years been so much criminal adulteration of candy that the cautious parent is tempted to condemn all bonbons as unfit for human stomachs. In our wholesale condemnation we are prone to forget that the longing for sweets is a natural craving of the system, and that pure sugar, taken in moderation and at the proper time, is not injurious, but rather aids in the process of digestion.

A moderate amount of good candy eaten directly after a hearty meal should not prove injurious to any healthy person.

Appreciation of this hygienic law has led to the introduction of the bonbonnière upon the luncheon and the dinner table. The sweet morsels are nibbled because it is fashionable to partake of them, but the good results are the same as if intelligent comprehension of need and supply were the motive power.

Maple candy

Break a pound of maple sugar into bits and then crush it fine with a rolling-pin. Stir it into two cupfuls of hot milk; put over the fire, and stir until the sugar is melted. Now boil hard, stirring all the time, until the syrup is brittle when dropped into cold water; beat in a lump of butter the size of a small hen’s egg, and as soon as this melts, pour the candy into greased pans. Cut into large squares before it hardens.

Maple caramels

Break two pounds of maple sugar into a quart of milk—half cream, if you have it—and boil steadily, until a little dropped into cold water, hardens. Pour into greased pans, and as it cools, mark into squares.

Maple fudge

Break a pound of maple sugar into small pieces and put it over the fire with a cupful of milk. Bring to a boil, add a tablespoonful of butter and cook until a little dropped into cold water becomes brittle. Take from the fire, stir until it begins to granulate a little about the sides of the pot, and then pour into a greased pan. Mark into squares with a knife.

Sugar candy

Wet two heaping cupfuls of granulated sugar with a half pint of cold water and put over the fire in a porcelain-lined saucepan. When the sugar is dissolved, stir in a bit of cream of tartar (as large as a Lima bean) dissolved in a spoonful of cold water. Boil the candy until a bit hardens when dropped into cold water; remove from the fire, stir in a teaspoonful of vanilla, turn into greased pans, mark into squares and set aside to harden. Or, as the candy cools, pull it with buttered finger-tips into long white ropes. Let it get very cold and brittle before eating.

Chocolate fudge (No. 1)