Various Cold Sweets (Entremets).

2720—BISCUIT A LA REINE

Cook, in a manqué mould, a Savoy-biscuit preparation, and let it cool.

With a little apricot jam, cooked to the _small-thread_ stage, stick this biscuit on a dry-paste base; saturate it with cold syrup, flavoured with Kümmel, and by means of a piping-bag decorate it all round and on its edges with royale icing.

Turn out upon it a Bavarois with Maraschino, moulded in a Richelieu mould of proportionate size.

2721—CROÛTE A LA MEXICAINE

Cut some slices three inches long by one-third inch thick from a stale _Génoise_. Coat them with a Condé _pralin_, and dry them in a moderate oven.

Set these croûtes in a crown on a round dish, and garnish their midst with a rocky pyramid of plombière ice, projecting above them.

2722—DIPLOMATE AUX FRUITS

Prepare (1) a base of _Génoise_ with fruit, glazed with apricot jam, cooked to the _small-thread_ stage; (2) a Bavarois with fruits.

Turn out the latter upon the former, and surround the whole with stewed fruit of the same kind as those used for the Bavarois.

2723—ILE FLOTTANTE

Take a stale Savoy biscuit, and cut it into thin slices.

Saturate the latter with Kirsch and Maraschino, coat them with apricot jam, and sprinkle the latter with currants and chopped almonds. Put the slices one upon the other, in suchwise as to reconstruct the biscuit, and coat the latter with a layer of sweetened and vanilla-flavoured Chantilly cream.

Sprinkle the cream with splintered pistachios and currants; set the whole on a tazza, and surround it with vanilla-flavoured English custard, or raspberry syrup.

2724—MILK JUNKET

Gently heat one quart of milk. When it has reached 95° F. take it off the fire; add two and one-half oz. of sugar to it; flavour it as fancy may suggest; put into it six drops of russet-apple essence (or two pastils of russet-apple essence, dissolved in six drops of water); pour it into a timbale, and serve it very cold.

N.B.—This very delicate and simple entremet is little else, indeed, than flavoured and sweetened milk, caused to set by the combined agencies of heat and russet-apple essence.

2725—MACÉDOINE OF COOLED FRUIT

Take some fresh fruit of the season, such as ripe William pears and peaches, peeled and sliced apricots and bananas, and add to it some small or large strawberries, raspberries, white- and red-currants; skinned, fresh almonds, etc.

Set these fruits in a timbale surrounded by ice, mixing them well together; sprinkle them with a syrup at 30° (saccharom.), flavoured with Kirsch or Maraschino, and let them _macerate_ for an hour or two; taking care to toss them from time to time.

2726—EUGENIA: ITALIAN CREAM

Select some very ripe Eugenia; peel, slice, and set to macerate in a bowl, with Maraschino-flavoured syrup.

Set the fruit in a timbale, upon a layer of vanilla ice-cream; decorate them on top with Chantilly cream, and sprinkle the latter with crystallised violets.

2727—MARQUISE ALICE

Prepare a _pralin_-flavoured Bavarois in a manqué mould: garnish the inside with lady’s-finger biscuits, saturated with Anisette.

Turn it out on a dish, and completely cover it with an even coat of very stiff, sweetened and vanilla-flavoured Chantilly cream.

On top, lay some parallel lines of red-currant jelly, by means of the piping-bag; and then cut these lines at right angles, with the point of a small knife. Surround the base with small puff-paste triangles, coated with “_Pralin a Condé_,” dried in the oven.

2728—MELON A L’ORIENTALE

Take a melon that is just ripe; make a circular incision round its stalk, and remove the resulting bung. Get rid of the seeds and withdraw the pulp by means of a silver spoon. Cut the pulp into dice.

Copiously sprinkle the inside of the melon with icing-sugar and fill it up with wild strawberries and the pulp dice, spread in alternate layers, sprinkled with sugar. Complete with one-sixth pint of Kirsch; close the melon with the excised bung, seal the joint with a thread of butter, and keep the melon in the cool for two hours.

Dish it on a napkin, and serve _gaufrettes_ at the same time.

2729—MELON FRAPPE

Select two very ripe, medium-sized melons, and, with the entire pulp of one of them, cleared of all the rind and seeds and rubbed through tammy, prepare a Granité after No. 2930.

Cut the other melon round the stalk and open it. Completely remove the seeds; and, by means of a silver spoon, withdraw the pulp piecemeal, and set it to _macerate_ on ice with a little sugar and one of the following wines or liqueurs: Port, Curaçao, Rum, Kirsch or Maraschino.

Keep the emptied rind for thirty minutes in a refrigerator.

When about to serve, set the emptied melon on a small block of fancifully carved ice, and fill it up with the Granité and the _macerated_ pulp spread in alternate layers. When the melon is full, return the excised bung to its place.

N.B.—This melon is served, by means of a spoon, upon iced plates, and it often takes the place of ices at the end of a dinner.

2730—MELON EN SURPRISE

Empty the melon as above, and fill it with a _macédoine_ of fresh fruits, combined with the withdrawn pulp of the melon, cut into dice and cohered with a sugared and Kirsch-flavoured purée of wild strawberries.

Close the melon and keep it in the refrigerator for two hours.

2731—GARNISHED MERINGUES

Join the _meringue_ shells together in couples, by means of some stiff sugared and flavoured Chantilly cream or with some sort of ice, and dish them on a napkin.

2732—MONT-BLANC AUX FRAISES

Add some small wild strawberries _macerated_ in cold, vanilla-flavoured syrup and drained, to some very stiff Chantilly cream; the proportions being four oz. of the former per quart of the latter.

Dish in the shape of a dome; surround the base with large strawberries, rolled in beaten egg-whites and then in semolina sugar, and decorate the surface with large and very red half-strawberries.

2733—MONT-BLANC AUX MARRONS

Cook some chestnuts in sweetened and vanilla-flavoured milk and rub them through a sieve, over an overturned, even border-mould; in order that the chestnut purée, falling in the form of vermicelli, may garnish the mould naturally.

Fill up the mould with the purée that has fallen over the sides of the mould; turn out the border on a dish, and in the midst set an irregular and jagged mound of sugared and vanilla-flavoured Chantilly cream.

2734—MONT-ROSE

Prepare a Charlotte, Plombière in a shallow _Madeleine_ ice-mould.

Having turned out the Charlotte on a dish, cover it on top with tablespoonfuls of Chantilly cream, combined with a purée of fresh raspberries, and so shaped as to imitate a pyramidic rock.

2735—ŒUFS A LA NEIGE

Mould some ordinary _meringue_, by means of a spoon, to represent eggs; and drop the mouldings into a sautépan containing some boiling sugared and vanilla-flavoured milk. Turn the _meringues_ over in the milk, that they may poach evenly, and, as soon as they are firm, drain them in a sieve.

Strain the milk through muslin; add six egg yolks, and with it prepare an English custard.

Set the egg-shaped _meringues_ on a tazza and cover them with the prepared custard, kept very cold.

2736—MOULDED ŒUFS A LA NEIGE

Prepare the _meringues_ and the English custard as above; but to the latter add five or six gelatine leaves soaked in cold water. Set the egg-shaped _meringues_ in an oiled border-mould; cover them with the very cold custard, which, however, should not have set; and let the preparation set in the cool, or surrounded by ice.

2737—MOUSSELINES D’ŒUFS REJANE

By means of a piping-bag, fitted with an even pipe, lay some ordinary _meringues_ upon sheets of white paper, in shapes resembling large macaroons.

Slip the sheets of paper into boiling, sugared and vanilla-flavoured milk, and withdraw the sheets of paper as soon as the _meringues_ sever from them. Complete the poaching of the _meringues_, and drain them.

Set these _meringues_, two by two, in silver or porcelain egg-dishes; place a fine, poached half apricot in the middle of each, and cover the whole with a few teaspoonfuls of English custard.

2738—MOUSSELINE OF EGGS, MIMI

This is a preparation of ordinary Italian _meringue_, poached in a _bain-marie_, in a caramel-_clothed_ mould. Let the contents get quite cold before turning out, and serve some stewed, fresh fruit and an English custard separately.

2739—RICE A L’IMPÉRATRICE

Make a vanilla-flavoured preparation of rice for entremets, using the quantities of milk and sugar already prescribed. When the rice is cooked, and somewhat cold, add to it four oz. of a _salpicon_ of candied fruit and four tablespoonfuls of apricot jam, per one-half lb. of raw rice. Then combine with it an equal quantity of Kirsch-flavoured Bavarois preparation, or one pint of thick English custard and one pint of whipped cream.

Let a layer of red-currant jelly set upon the bottom of a Bavarois mould; then pour the above preparation into the latter and let the whole set, either in the cool or surrounded by ice.

When about to serve, turn out on a napkin.

2740—RICE A LA MALTAISE

Prepare the rice with milk as above, but flavour it with orange rind, and omit the apricot jam and the candied fruit _salpicon_. Combine with it an equal quantity of orange Bavarois preparation; pour the whole into a dome-mould, and let it set on ice. When about to serve, turn out upon a round dish, and cover it with alternate rows of orange-sections, skinned raw and macerated in a syrup flavoured with orange-rind.

2741—SUÉDOISE OF FRUIT

As I mentioned in my remarks upon the preparation of jellies, a Suédoise of fruit is a jelly moulded in an aspic mould and garnished with layers of stewed fruit, the colours and kinds of which should be contrasted as much as possible.

2742—FRAISALIA TIMBALE

Prepare a timbale of Savarin paste in a Charlotte mould.

When it is baked and cooled, remove the crumb from its inside leaving a thickness of half an inch on its bottom and sides; smear it thinly with Kirsch-flavoured syrup, and return the timbale to the mould.

Now garnish it with alternate layers of vanilla-flavoured, Bavarois preparation and wild strawberries, macerated in Kirsch. Let it set in the cool, or surround the mould with ice. Turn out the timbale first upon a plate; overturn it on a dish, and upon it set a pyramid of vanilla-flavoured Chantilly cream. Stud the latter all over with small, very red strawberries, or garnish it with large half-strawberries.

Surround the timbale with fine dice of strawberry jelly.

2743—TIVOLI AUX FRAISES

_Clothe_ an ornamented mould, fitted with a central tube, with a thick coat of very clear, Kirsch-flavoured jelly. Fill the mould with a Bavarois preparation, combined with plenty of wild strawberry purée, and let its contents set. Turn it out, when about to serve, and surround it with very clear, chopped, Kirsch-flavoured jelly.

CHAPTER XXI

Ices, with their accompanying “petits fours,” bring the dinner to a close—at least as far as Cookery is concerned; and, when they are well prepared and daintily dished, they are the consummation of all that is delicate and good. In no other department of the work has the culinary artist so freely indulged his fancy, or created such delectable kickshaws; and, though Italy be the cradle of the ice-worker’s art, though the Neapolitans have deservedly maintained their reputation as authorities in this matter, to French workmen, certainly, is due the credit of those innovations which have perfected this important branch of dietetic science.

2744—THE MAKING OF ICES

Whatever be the kind of ices required, they should always be prepared in advance; for none of these preparations can be made ready at a moment’s notice.

There are two distinct operations in the confection of ices:—

(1) The making of the preparation.

(2) The freezing and the moulding of the preparation. I shall begin by dealing with the second operation, which remains the same for all ices, and is the essential part of the procedure.

To freeze an ice preparation is to surround it with broken ice, mixed with sodium chloride (sea-salt or freezing salt) and saltpetre. The action of these two salts upon the ice causes a considerable drop in the temperature, which speedily congeals any contiguous liquid. Subject to their nature, ices are either moulded and frozen directly in their moulds, like the light ices: iced Biscuits, iced _Soufflés_, Puddings, _Mousses_, Parfaits, Bombes, etc.; or first frozen in a special utensil called a freezer, and then moulded and frozen afresh. Cream and syrup ices are prepared by the second method; and this I shall now describe.

The freezers, in which the freezing takes place, are generally wielded by hand, either directly or by means of some mechanism. They should be of pure tin, and fitted, at their base on to a central pivot which turns in a socket, fixed in the wooden case which holds the freezer.

Having hermetically closed the latter, surround it with broken ice containing three lbs. of salt and eight oz. of saltpetre per twenty-five lbs.

The freezer should be one-third of its height out of the ice, in order that no particle of salted ice may accidentally fall into the preparation while it is being frozen. The ice should be snugly massed, by means of a special pestle, round the freezer. This operation constitutes the packing, and should be effected at least ten minutes in advance if possible.

Having thus prepared the freezer, pour into it the preparation to be frozen and then either keep it in motion by rocking the utensil to and fro, by grasping the handle on the cover (if the apparatus is worked by hand), or by turning the handle if the utensil is on a central axle, fitted with the usual mechanism. In either case, the rotary movement of the utensil causes the preparation to splash continually against the sides of the freezer, where it rapidly congeals, and the congealed portions are removed by means of a special spatula, as quickly as they form, until the whole becomes a smooth and homogeneous mass. The delicacy and creaminess of the ice depend a great deal upon the care with which this freezing operation is effected; hence the preference which is now given to freezers fitted with a mechanism whereby two fans revolve inside in a direction opposite to that of the body of the machine, and thus not only detach the congealed portions of the preparation under treatment from the sides of the receptacle, but also work it with a regularity impossible to human motion.

2745—THE MOULDING OF ICES

Having thus frozen the preparation, it may now be set in rock-form on a napkin, as it used sometimes to be served in the past, or in glasses. But as a rule it is put into special moulds, having closely-fitting covers. These moulds should be carefully filled, and banged on a folded napkin, that the ice may settle and drive out any air which might be the cause of holes being found in the preparation. When it is filled, place the mould in a receptacle of a suitable size, and surround it with broken ice, prepared as for the packing. The mould should remain at least an hour in the ice, in the case of an ordinary ice, and an extra two hours if the ice be light and not previously frozen as are the Bombes.

When about to serve, take the mould out of the ice; wash it to rid it of the taint of salt; dip it in tepid water for an instant, that the surface of the preparation inside may melt and separate easily from the mould. Overturn the mould; and turn out the ice upon a folded napkin lying on a dish.

2746—PREPARATIONS FOR SIMPLE ICES

Preparations for simple ices are of two kinds: those made from cream, and those made from syrup; the latter being principally used for fruit ices.

As the quantities of sugar and eggs used for these preparations vary exceedingly, the following recipes have been based upon a working average.

If creamier ices be required, all that is needed is an increase in the sugar and egg-yolks per quart of milk; while, if the ices be required harder but less creamy, the two ingredients above mentioned should be proportionately reduced.

As an example of the difference that may exist between cream preparations, I might instance the case of ice-cream, which may be made from seven to sixteen egg-yolks, and six oz. to one lb. of sugar per quart of milk. In regard to ices made from syrups and fruit, their preparations may measure from 15° to 30° or 32°. (saccharometer) respectively.

2747—ICE-CREAM PREPARATION (Generic Recipe)

Work two-thirds lb. of sugar and ten egg-yolks in a saucepan until the mixture reaches the _ribbon_-stage. Dilute it, little by little, with one quart of boiling milk, and stir over a moderate fire until the preparation veneers the withdrawn spoon. Avoid boiling, as it might decompose the custard.

Strain the whole into a basin and stir it from time to time until it is quite cold.

N.B.—For the various ice-cream preparations, the amount of sugar and number of egg-yolks, as also the procedure, do not change. They are only distinguishable by the particular flavour or infusion which may happen to characterise them.