Original White House Cookbook

Pick the strawberries, put them into a pan, squeeze them well with a wooden spoon, add sufficient pounded sugar to sweeten them nicely, and let them remain for one hour that the juice may be extracted ; then add half a pint of water to every pint of juice. Strain the strawberry juice and water through a napkin ; measure it and to every pint allow half a package of Cox’s gelatine dissolved in a teacupful of water. Mix this with the juice, put the jelly into a mold and set the mold on ice. A little lemon juice added to the strawberry juice improves the flavor of the jelly, if the fruit is very ripe ; but it must be well strained before it is put with the other ingredients, or it will make the jelly muddy. Delicious and beautiful. RECIPE FOR CHEESE CUSTARD. For three persons, two ounces of grated parmesan cheese ; the whites of three eggs beaten to a stiff froth, a little pepper, salt and cayenne, a little milk or cream to mix; bake for a quarter of an hour. ★ ★ ★ ICE-CREAM. ONE pint of milk, the yolks of two eggs, six ounces of sugar and one tablespoonful of cornstarch. Scald but do not boil. Then put the whites of the two eggs into a pint of cream ; whip it. Mix the milk and cream, flavor and freeze. One teaspoonful of vanilla or lemon is generally sufficient. The quantity, of course, can be increased to any amount desired, so long as the relative proportions of the different ingredients are observed. PURE ICE-CREAM. Genuine ice-cream is made of the pure sweet cream in this proportion : Two quarts of cream, one pound of sugar ; beat up, flavor and freeze. For family use, select one of the new patent freezers, as being more rapid and less laborious for small quantities than the old style turned entirely by hand. All conditions being perfect, those with crank and revolving dashers effect freezing in eight to fifteen minutes. FRUIT ICE-CREAM. Ingredients. — To every pint of fruit juice allow one pint of cream; sugar to taste. Let the fruit be well ripened ; pick it off the stalks and put it into a large earthen pan. Stir it about with a wooden spoon, breaking it until it is well mashed ; • then, with the back of the spoon, rub it through a hair-sieve. Sweeten it nicely with pounded sugar ; whip the cream for a few minutes, add it to the fruit, and whisk the whole again for another flve minutes. Put the mixture into the freezer and freeze. Easpberry, strawberry, currant, and all fruit ice-creams are made in the same manner. A little pounded sugar sprinkled over the fruit before it is mashed assists to extract the juice. In winter, when fresh fruit is not obtainable, a little jam may be substituted for it ; it should be melted and worked through a sieve before being added to the whipped cream ; and if the color should not be (357) good, a little prepared cochineal may be put in to improve its appearance. In making berry flavoring for ice-cream, the milk should never be heated ; the juice of the berries added to cold cream, or fresh rich milk, mixed with cold cream, the juice put in just before freezing, or when partly frozen. CHOCOLATE ICE-CREAM. No. 1. (Very fine.)