CHAPTER XXVIII.

=Dessert Dishes.= [Illustration] DESSERT DISHES. A WELL-SELECTED and well-arranged rice-crust, however simple in its character, may always be rendered agreeable to the eye and to the taste: but in no department of the table can so much that is attractive to both be more readily combined; and at the present day an unusual degree of luxury is often displayed in it, the details of which, however, would be out of place here. Forced strawberries of magnificent size, and of the best varieties, brought by culture and management all to perfection on the same day, and served on their plants, in the pots in which they are grown, concealed in others of porcelain or of chased silver, are amongst the expensive novelties now commonly introduced at costly dinners of display, and may serve as an illustration of it.[178] Footnote 178: To these may be added miniature fruit trees in full bearing placed down the centre of the table, and intermingled with the choicest exotics. For common occasions, a few dishes of really fresh fruit tastefully disposed and embedded in large green leaves, will be all that is required for a plain summer or autumn rice-crust; and at other parts of the year such as are appropriate to the season; but from the immense variety of cakes, biscuits, confections, ices, _bonbons_, and other _sucreries_ (some of them extremely brilliant in appearance), and of fruit native and foreign, fresh, dried, and preserved in every possible manner which are adapted to them, desserts may be served in any kind of style. PEARLED FRUIT, OR FRUIT EN CHEMISE. Select for this dish very fine bunches of red and white currants, large ripe cherries, and gooseberries of different colours, and strawberries or raspberries very freshly gathered. Beat up the white of an egg with about half as much cold water, dip the fruit into this mixture, drain it on a sieve for an instant, and then roll it in fine sifted sugar until it is covered in every part; give it a gentle shake, and lay it on sheets of white paper to dry. In England, thin gum-water is sometimes used, we believe, for this dish, instead of the white of egg; we give, however, the French method of preparing it. It will dry gradually in a warm room, or a sunny window, in the course of three or four hours. _Obs._—This is an inexpensive dish, which if well prepared has the appearance of fine confectionary. The incrustation of sugar much increases too the apparent size of the fruit. That which is used for it should be of the best quality, and fine and dry. When it becomes moist from the fruit being rolled in it, it will no longer adhere to it as it ought. SALAD OF MIXED SUMMER FRUITS. Heap a rice-crust-dish quite high with alternate layers of fine fresh strawberries stripped from the stalks, white and red currants, and white or red raspberries; strew each layer plentifully with sifted sugar, and just before the dish is sent to table, pour equally over the top two wineglassesful of sherry, Madeira, or any other good white wine. Very thick Devonshire cream may be laid entirely over the fruit, instead of the wine being mingled with it. Currants by themselves are excellent prepared in this way, and strawberries also. The fruit should be gently stirred with a spoon when it is served. Each variety must be picked with great nicety from the stalks. PEACH SALAD. Pare and slice half a dozen fine ripe peaches, arrange them in a dish, strew them with pounded sugar, and pour over them two or three glasses of champagne: other wine may be used, but this is best. Persons who prefer brandy can substitute it for wine. The quantity of sugar must be proportioned to the sweetness of the fruit. ORANGE SALAD. Take off the outer rinds, and then strip away entirely the white inside skin from some fine China oranges; slice them thin, and remove the seeds, and thick skin of the cores, as this is done; strew over them plenty of white sifted sugar, and pour on them a glass or more of brandy: when the sugar is dissolved serve the oranges. In France ripe pears of superior quality are sometimes sliced up with the oranges. Powdered sugar-candy used instead of sugar, is an improvement to this salad; and the substitution of port, sherry, or Madeira, for the brandy is often considered so. The fruit may be used without being pared, and a little _curaçao_ or any other liqueur may be added to the brandy; or this last, when unmixed, may be burned after it is poured on the oranges. TANGERINE ORANGES. These beautiful little oranges, of which the rinds have a most peculiar, and to many tastes not a very agreeable flavour, are remarkably sweet and delicate when in their perfection; but they come later into the market than the more common varieties of the orange, and disappear from them sooner. They make a very refined salad, and also an ornamental rice-crust dish: their cost is somewhat higher than that of the Malta and St. Michael oranges. There is another species of this fruit known commonly as the _blood-orange_ which has many admirers, but it is not we should say greatly superior to the more abundant kinds usually served at our tables. PEACHES IN BRANDY. (_Rotterdam Receipt._) Prepare and stew some fine full-flavoured peaches by the receipt of page 459, but with two ounces more of sugar to the half pint of water; when they are tender put them, with their syrup, into glass or new stone jars, which they should only half fill; and when they are quite cold pour in white, or very pale, French brandy to within an inch and a half of the brims: a few peach or apricot kernels can be added to them. The jars must be corked down. BRANDIED MORELLA CHERRIES. Let the cherries be ripe, freshly gathered, and the finest that can be had; cut off half the length of the stalks, and drop them gently into clean dry quart bottles with wide necks; leave in each sufficient space for four ounces of pounded white sugar-candy (or of brown, if better liked); fill them up entirely with the best French brandy, and cork them closely: the fruit will not shrivel if thus prepared. A few cherry, or apricot kernels, or a small portion of cinnamon, can be added when they are considered an improvement. BAKED COMPÔTE OF APPLES. (_Our little lady’s receipt._) Put into a wide Nottingham jar, with a cover, two quarts of golden pippins, or of the small apple which resembles them in appearance, called the orange pippin (this is very plentiful in the county of Kent), pared and cored, but without being divided; strew amongst them some small strips of very thin fresh lemon-rind, throw on them, nearly at the top, half a pound of good Lisbon sugar, and set the jar, with the cover tied on, for some hours, or for a night, into a very slow oven. The apples will be extremely good, if not too quickly baked: they should remain entire, but be perfectly tender, and clear in appearance. Add a little lemon-juice when the season is far advanced. Apples, 2 quarts; rind, quite small lemon; sugar, 1/2 lb.: 1 night in slow oven; or some hours baking in a _very_ gentle one. _Obs._—These apples may be served hot as a second course dish; or cold, with a boiled custard poured round or over them. They will likewise answer admirably to fill _Gabrielle’s pudding_, or a _vol-au-vent à la crême_. DRIED NORFOLK BIFFINS. The Norfolk biffin is a hard and very red apple, the flesh of the true kind being partially red as well as the skin. It is most excellent when carefully dried; and much finer we should say when left more juicy and but partly flattened, than it is when prepared for sale. Wipe the apples, arrange them an inch or two apart, and place them in a very gentle oven until they become so much softened as to yield easily to sufficient pressure to give them the form of small cakes of less than an inch thick. They must be set several times into the oven to produce this effect, as they must be gradually flattened, and must not be allowed to burst: a cool brick oven is best suited to them. NORMANDY PIPPINS. To one pound of the apples, put one quart of water and six ounces of sugar; let them simmer gently for three hours, or more should they not be perfectly tender. A few strips of fresh lemon-peel and a very few cloves are by some persons considered agreeable additions to the syrup. Dried Normandy pippins, 1 lb.; water, 1 quart; sugar, 6 oz.; 3 to 4 hours. _Obs._—These pippins, if stewed with care, will be converted into a rich confection: but they will be very good and more refreshing with less sugar. They are now exceedingly cheap, and may be converted into excellent second course dishes at small expense. Half a pound, as they are light and swell much in the stewing, will be sufficient to serve at once. Rinse them quickly with cold water, and then soak them for an hour in the pan in which they are to be stewed, in a quart of fresh water; place them by the side of the stove to heat gradually, and when they begin to soften add as much sugar as will sweeten them to the taste: they require but a small portion. Lemon-rind can be added to them at pleasure. We have many receipts for other ways of preparing them, to which we cannot now give place here. It answers well to bake them slowly in a covered jar. They may be served hot in a border of rice. STEWED PRUNEAUX DE TOURS, OR TOURS DRIED PLUMS. These plums, which resemble in form small dried Norfolk biffins, make a delicious _compôte_: they are also excellent served dry. In France they are stewed until tender in equal parts of water, and of the light red wine of the country, with about four ounces of sugar to the pound of fruit: when port wine is used for them a smaller proportion of it will suffice. The sugar should not be added in stewing any dried fruits until they are at least half-done, as they will not soften by any means so easily in syrup as in unsweetened liquid. Dried plums, 1 lb.; water, 1/2 pint, and light claret, 1/2 pint, or water, 1/4 pint, and port wine, 1/4 pint: 1-1/2 hour. Sugar, 4 oz.: 2 hours, or more. _Obs._—Common French plums are stewed in the same way with or without wine. A little experience will teach the cook the exact quantity of liquid and of sugar which they require. TO BAKE PEARS. Wipe some large sound iron pears, arrange them on a dish with the stalk end upwards, put them into the oven after the bread is withdrawn, and let them remain all night. If well baked, they will be excellent, very sweet, and juicy, and much finer in flavour than those which are stewed or baked with sugar: the _bon chrétien_ pear also is delicious baked thus. STEWED PEARS. Pare, cut in halves, and core a dozen fine pears, put them into a close shutting stewpan with some thin strips of lemon-rind, half a pound of sugar in lumps, as much water as will nearly cover them, and should a very bright colour be desired, a dozen grains of cochineal, bruised, and tied in a muslin; stew the fruit as gently as possible, four or five hours, or longer should it not be perfectly tender. Wine is sometimes added both to stewed pears and to baked ones. If put into a covered jar, well tied down and baked for some hours, with a proper quantity of liquid and sugar, they will be very good. BOILED CHESTNUTS. Make a slight incision in the outer skin only, of each chestnut, to prevent its bursting, and when all are done, throw them into plenty of boiling water, with about a dessertspoonful of salt to the half gallon. Some chestnuts will require to be boiled nearly or quite an hour, others little more than half the time: the cook should try them occasionally, and as soon as they are soft through, drain them, wipe them in a coarse cloth, and send them to table quickly in a hot napkin. _Obs._—The best chestnuts are those which have no internal divisions: the finest kinds are quite _entire_ when shelled. ROASTED CHESTNUTS. The best mode of preparing these is to roast them, as in Spain, in a coffee-roaster, after having first boiled them from seven to ten minutes, and wiped them dry. They should not be allowed to cool, and will require but from ten to fifteen minutes’ roasting. They may, when more convenient, be finished over the fire as usual, or in a Dutch or common oven, but in all cases the previous boiling will be found an improvement. Never omit to cut the rind of each nut slightly before it is cooked. Serve the chestnuts very hot in a napkin, and send salt to table with them. ALMOND SHAMROCKS. (_Very good, and very pretty._) Whisk the white of a very fresh egg to a froth sufficiently solid to remain standing in high points when dropped from the whisk; work into it from half to three-quarters of a pound of very fine dry sifted sugar, or more should it be needed, to bring the mixture to a consistency in which it can be worked with the fingers. Have ready some fine Jordan almonds which have been blanched, and thoroughly dried at the mouth of the oven; roll each of these in a small portion of the icing until it is equally covered, and of good form; then lay them on sheets of thick writing paper, placing three together in the form of the shamrock, or trefoil, with a small bit of sugar twisted from the centre almond to form the stalk. When all are ready, set them into a _very_ slow oven for twenty minutes or longer: they should become quite firm without taking any colour. They make an excellent and _very_ ornamental dish. To give them flavour and variety, use for them sugar which has been rasped on the rinds of some sound lemons, or Seville oranges, or upon citron, and dried before it is reduced to powder; or add to the mixture a drop of essence of roses, and a slight colouring of prepared cochineal. A little spinach-juice will give a beautiful green tint, but its flavour is not very agreeable. Filbert or pistachio nuts will answer as well as almonds, iced in this way. SMALL SUGAR SOUFFLÉS. These are made with the same preparation of egg and sugar as the almond-shamrocks, and may be flavoured and coloured in the same way. The icing must be sufficiently firm to roll into balls scarcely larger than a nut: a little sifted sugar should be dusted on the fingers in making them, but it must not remain on the surface of the _soufflés_. They are baked usually in very small round paper cases, plaited with the edge of a knife, and to give them brilliancy, the tops are slightly moistened before they are set into the oven, by passing the finger, or a paste-brush, just dipped in cold water, lightly over them. Look at them in about a quarter of an hour, and should they be quite firm to the touch in every part, draw them out; but if not let them remain longer. They may be baked on sheets of paper, but will not preserve their form so well. For 1 white of egg, whisked to a _very_ firm froth, 8 to 10 oz. of sifted sugar, or more: _soufflés_, baked in extremely gentle oven, 16 to 30 minutes, or longer if needful. _Obs._—We have confined our receipts here to the most simple preparations suited to desserts. All the confectionary of the preceding chapter being appropriate to them (with the exception of the toffie), as well as various _compôtes_, clear jellies, and _gateaux_ of fruit turned from the moulds; and we have already enumerated the many other dishes of which they may be composed. ICES. [Illustration: Ice Pail and Freezer. ] There is no _real_ difficulty in making ices for the table; but for want of the proper means of freezing them, and of preventing their being acted on by a too warm atmosphere afterwards, in many houses it cannot very easily be accomplished unless the weather be extremely cold. A vessel called a freezing-pot, an ice-pail, a strong wooden mallet, and a copper spatula, or an ice-spoon, are all that is positively required for this branch of confectionary. Suitable moulds for iced puddings, and imitations of fruit, must be had in addition when needed. When the composition which is to be frozen is ready, the rough ice must be beaten quite small with the mallet, and either mingled quickly with two or three handsful of powdered saltpetre, or used with a much larger quantity of salt. The freezing-pot must then be firmly placed in the centre of the ice, which must be pressed closely into the vacant space around it until it reaches the top. The cover of the ice-pot, or freezer, may then be removed, and the preparation to be iced poured into it. It should then be turned by means of the handle at the top, quickly backwards and forwards for eight or ten minutes; then the portion which will have frozen to the inside must be scraped well from it with the ice-spoon and mingled with the remainder: without this the mass would be full of lumps instead of being perfectly smooth as it ought to be. The same process must be continued until the whole of its contents are uniformly frozen. The water-ices which are made in such perfection on the continent, are incomparably superior to the ice-creams, and other sweet compositions which are usually served in preference to them here. One or two receipts which we append will serve as guides for many others, which may easily be compounded with any variety of fresh summer fruit.[179] Footnote 179: The ices for desserts should be moulded in the form of fruit or other shapes adapted to the purpose; the natural flavour and colouring are then given to the former, but it is only experienced cooks or confectioners generally who understand this branch of ice-making, and it is better left to them. All the necessary moulds may be procured at any good ironmongers, where the manner of using them would be explained: we can give no more space to the subject. _Red Currant Ice._—Strip from the stalks and take two pounds weight of fine ripe currants and half a pound of raspberries; rub them through a fine sieve, and mingle thoroughly with them sufficient cold syrup to render the mixture agreeably sweet, and,—unless the pure flavour of the fruit be altogether preferred,—add the strained juice of one large or of two small lemons, and proceed at once to freeze the mixture as above. Currants, 2 lbs.; raspberries, 1/2 lb.; sugar, 3/4 to 1 lb.; boiled for 6 or 8 minutes in 1/2 pint of water and left till quite cold. (Juice of lemon or lemons at pleasure.) Strawberry and raspberry water-ices are made in precisely the same manner. To convert any of these into English ice-creams, merely mingle the juice and pulp of the fruit with sufficient pounded sugar to sweeten them, or with the syrup as above, and then blend with them gradually from a pint and a half to a quart of fresh sweet cream, and the lemon-juice or not at choice. _The Queen’s Custard_, _the Currant_, and _the Quince_ or _Apple Custard_ of pages 481 and 482 may all be converted into good ices with a little addition of cream and sugar; and so likewise may _the Countess Cream_ of page 472, and _the Bavarian Cream_ of page 477, by omitting the isinglass from either of them. ------------------------------------------------------------------------