Mrs. Rorer’s, Grandmother’s and My Just Desserts
Mothers and fathers are necessary I know, but their minds are so often taken up with seeing that little Mary wears her rubbers or finishes her milk, that all children should have grandparents to give them a little extra spoiling. For nothing brings that sense of security and well-being so important to the hearts of small fry as the occasional companionship and approval of a doting elder.
In this respect I was a very lucky little girl. Not only was I my grandmother’s favorite, but she lived in the country. Not on a farm in the real country, that would have been too much to ask, but her house in a still undeveloped suburb was a most satisfactory substitute. There was a lake surrounded with woods where I could hunt the hepatica’s blue flowers in early spring; next-door neighbors kept a cow and chickens, and hay was actually mowed in a nearby field. All never-ceasing wonders to a city-bred child. There was also a tree in the backyard that produced the smallest sourest black cherries I have ever tasted. I spent many happy hours planting the fallen seeds, and such is my faith in Mother Nature that I hopefully drove by the old house just a few years ago still unable to believe that my earliest gardening experiment was a complete failure.
But the kitchen is where my memory really lingers, for in it Grandmother spent most of her time, always willing to let me help by licking the yellow bowl clean of its remaining cake batter or drying the everyday dishes. There, too, perched on a stool, I made my first acquaintance with Mrs. Rorer’s Philadelphia Cook Book and it remains high on my list of favorite reading, although compared to today’s completely standardized manuals her easygoing directions might find a more appropriate rest on the fiction shelf.
Mrs. Rorer’s publishers were well ahead of their time in that they embellished their volume with a photograph of its authoress; and, while the firm common-sense face that stares from the flyleaf may lack the sex appeal of the modern female novelist, their heroines could certainly use to advantage the homely advice to cooks on proper behavior set forth in its pages.
Mrs. Rorer’s list of adequate kitchen equipment covers three pages in closely printed double columns—and the recipes! Each an adventure although sometimes a depressing one, for after drooling through paragraphs on preparing boned chicken comes the stern warning that “this is almost impossible to do unless you have seen it done before” and the same discouraging advice follows puff paste. Mrs. R. may have been kindhearted in trying to keep the inexperienced cook from waste but her photograph made me feel that she was more likely to be found lurking in a cupboard ready to pop out with an “I told you so” at a failure, and I’ll bet many of her less confident readers went to their graves with an unfulfilled longing for both of those delicacies.
“Game” has a long chapter to itself which gives many helps for “getting rid of the gamey flavor,” and leaves the general impression that, while the little woman may have slaved away long hours at her husband’s favorite bird’s-nest pudding—“troublesome but beautiful when done”—in return it was a poor provider who didn’t put in his dull moments at the office popping deer out of the window or, at the very least, set up a duck-blind behind his rolltop desk.
Any mention of wine is generally followed by a coy, “if you use it,” although in one glorious recipe for fruitcake she cuts loose, practically thumbs her nose at the W.C.T.U., and wants on hand not only brandy and rum but demands a pint of good Champagne for soaking the finished product, ending with a nonchalant, “this well repays one for the trouble.” So it may be that the lady was more tolerant than her photograph shows.
Grandmother rarely used the cookbook, which accounts for my intimacy with its contents, but when sponge cake was in the offing Mrs. Rorer was wrenched from my grasp and, repeating the still true slogan “The oven can wait for the cake, never the cake for the oven,” Grandmother started on an interminable adjustment of drafts and shakings of the ancient black coalstove. Flour and sugar were each sifted five times and then balanced against selected eggs on the kitchen scales, lemon peel grated, and both my gay young aunts were conscripted to help, for though I was no hindrance to that loving heart, Grandmother was generally firm against other women being underfoot in her kitchen. Sponge cake, however, was a major undertaking. The whites and yolks of the eggs were first separated with fanatical care, placed in two big cold china platters, and each aunt received one, with a flat wire whisk and the command to keep them level and beat the contents evenly and slowly, while Grandmother dashed between, adding alternately to the platters at strategic moments the finely sifted sugar. Then the foamy masses were mixed together, the flour folded in with such care that I was almost afraid to breathe, and the precious batter was eased into its pan. Finally the oven was tested once more with Grandmother’s dependable hand as a thermostat, the result of all this labor was slipped in, the door closed as gently as on a sleeping child and we were “shooed” from the kitchen for the next half-hour for fear too-unguarded footsteps or loud shouting might cause the cake to fall. If I had been especially good and quiet during these sacred rites, I was permitted to have a little of the batter which had been baked with the big cake as a “taster.” The precautions always seemed most unnecessary to me, for the cake never did fall that I can remember and I felt unjustly exiled from my favorite playroom. Finally after a few tense, stealthy peeps, Grandmother announced that the cake was baked and we all trouped back to watch its golden beauty tilted from the pan, simultaneously with the disappearance of the “taster” down my hungry little throat. Grandmother split the cake in two while it was still slightly warm and spread between the pieces either tart homemade currant jelly or a creamy orange filling, but no matter what the inside held the top was never desecrated by anything more than a snowy dust of finely sifted powdered sugar. No second ring of the tea bell was needed with the delectable dessert on its way and if any pieces were left there was equal excitement at the thought of trifle or baked-cake pudding in the offing.
Grandmother’s recipe, brought up to date, isn’t at all troublesome—to quote my friend Mrs. Rorer—and with our dependable ovens even an inexperienced cook can easily make that pride of an old-time kitchen, and, when eggs are low in price, cheapness is added to its charms.
SPONGE CAKE. Sift flour onto waxed paper, then measure 1 cup and sift it twice more with ¼ teaspoon of salt. Sift once and measure 1 cup of sugar. Beat the whites of 5 eggs until they form peaks, then beat into them ½ cup of the sugar. Add 1 tablespoon of lemon juice and 1 tablespoon of grated lemon rind to the 5 yolks and beat until thick. Add the balance of the sugar and beat again. Combine the two egg mixtures, carefully fold in the sifted flour with an over-and-over motion, and do not beat again. Remember Grandmother’s slogan and have the oven ready. Bake in one deep ungreased pan for 45 minutes at 325°, or in 2 or 3 shallower layers at 350° for 30 minutes. For CURRANT JELLY FILLING simply beat 1 cup of jelly to a spreadable consistency with a fork and put it between the small layers or the split larger cake. The ORANGE FILLING will have to be made ahead—perhaps while the cake bakes—and left to cool a little, covered, before using in the same way. Heat 1 cup of milk till scalding, in the top of a double boiler. Beat 1 tablespoon of cornstarch, the yolks of 2 eggs, and 2 tablespoons of sugar until light. Pour and stir the scalded milk slowly over them. Return to the fire, in the boiler, add 1 tablespoon of butter, and cook, stirring constantly, until just thick. Then remove from over the water and stir in 2 tablespoons of orange juice and the same amount of grated orange rind.
TRIFLE, for four or six people, has a foundation of about one third of the big sponge cake, or one whole single layer, that is two or three days old. Even a hard, stale piece will do, so keep the cake safely locked up! Put ½ cup of sherry in a shallow serving dish, follow with the cake cut in fairly thin slices, and spread with currant jelly, raspberry or strawberry jam, and let the wine absorb while making the BOILED CUSTARD. For this, scald 3 cups of milk in the top of a double boiler. Beat 3 eggs with ¼ cup of sugar and ½ teaspoon of salt. Pour and stir the hot milk over them slowly. Return to the top of the boiler, and cook over a medium fire, stirring constantly, until just thick. Remove from over the hot water immediately and stir in ¼ teaspoon of vanilla. Let cool, covered, and pour over the cake and wine. Chill before serving. Dots of more jelly or jam can decorate this and whipped cream makes a rich garnish. It is very good without the jellies, too, served as is, or with plain cream passed at the table, and altogether this famous English dessert is entirely undeserving of its boardinghouse reputation.
BAKED-CAKE CUSTARD has almost the same ingredients. Start the custard with the 3 cups of scalded milk poured over the 3 beaten eggs, sugar and salt, as in the preceding recipe. Add the vanilla and pour over 2 cups of coarse stale cake crumbs that have been spread in a greased baking dish. Set the dish in a pan of water and bake in a medium 350° oven for 30 or 45 minutes, until a knife blade inserted in the custard comes out clean. Cool before serving.
Plain BAKED CUSTARD is the same recipe without the cake crumbs and can be made in small greased glass or china cups, if you prefer, and 1 cup of grated cocoanut (fresh, please) added before baking, makes it naturally COCOANUT CUSTARD.
RICE COMPOTE, for four, is 2 cups of boiled rice, covered with 2 cups of stewed or canned peaches, garnished optionally with boiled custard or whipped cream. Served very cold, it is a dessert men seem to like as much, or more than their favorite RICE PUDDING but for added popularity with the opposite sex make the latter thus for four or six: Wash 3 tablespoons of rice and add to it 3 cups of milk with 4 tablespoons of sugar and ½ teaspoon of salt. Stir in ¼ teaspoon of vanilla. Bake this in a greased dish in a 325° oven for 3 hours. Stir it three or four times in the first hour or so, but this bid for male attention needs no further watching. Serve it cold with a little grated nutmeg over the surface.
CRÈME BRULÉE is a rich relative of the custard family. Scald 2 cups of thin cream in a double boiler. Beat 4 egg yolks slightly with ¼ teaspoon of salt and 1 teaspoon of sugar. Pour and stir the scalded cream over them and cook over hot water until just thick. Pour about 2 inches deep into a greased heatproof dish and let it get very cold overnight if you will. Then scatter ¾ cup of light brown sugar over the top and run the dish high up under a very hot broiler until the sugar just starts to melt. Chill thoroughly again before serving. Gourmets shuddered at this heresy—before they tested it, but fresh strawberries or sliced peaches are a wonderful addition before it goes to the table. Mrs. Rorer would undoubtedly murmur “troublesome to make” again, but then she never heard of this dessert.
My CHERRY RING, for four or six, calls for 1 can of big black sweet stoned cherries or 1½ cups of fresh ripe ones. If using the ripe fruit, sweeten to taste (about ¼ cup of sugar) and let simmer until their juice starts to flow. Drain the juice and add sufficient water to make 2 cups. Bring this to a boil and dissolve in it 1 package of cherry-flavored gelatine. Add the cherries. Pour into a ring mould and chill till firm. Turn from the mould and serve with 2 cups of whipped cream or vanilla ice cream in the center. Garnish the edge with cherries and top the cream with ½ cup of crushed stale macaroons.
CHERRY PUDDING for four. Take 2 cups of sour seeded canned or fresh cherries, sweetened to taste (1 cup of sugar here or even more) and simmer for 15 minutes. Drain the cherries, place in a greased baking dish and boil the juice until reduced to 1 cup. Pour over the fruit. Cream 4 tablespoons of butter with ⅓ cup of sugar, add 1 well-beaten egg, then add 1 cup of flour sifted with 2 teaspoons of baking powder and ¼ teaspoon of salt, alternately with ½ cup of milk. Pour over the cherries and juice and bake for 40 minutes in a 350° oven. Serve it hot or warm. Sour cream is good on this, as it is on all sour cherry dishes, even pie.
STRAWBERRY or PEACH SHORTCAKE, for four or six, has three versions, but starts for each with 2 cups of either fruit, crushed and sweetened, and a few additional whole berries or slices saved for a garnish. The simpler COUNTRY SHORTCAKE uses the soda biscuit dough (page 144) with 1 tablespoon of sugar added to the flour. Roll out half and put in a round cake tin. Spread with ¼ cup of melted butter and top with the other rolled half. Bake at 450° for 15 minutes. Split into halves while warm with a fork, spread the bottom half with ¼ cup of butter, put in the strawberries, cover with the other half, decorate with the reserved fruit, and serve with plenty of rich thick cream.
CITY SHORTCAKE has a layer of our old friend, sponge cake for a top and bottom and 1 cup of whipped cream over it before garnishing.
SHORTCAKE VIENNOISE with its rich foreign flavor starts with the making of a TORTE with whipped cream, a good dessert in its own right. Roll 7 unsalted large soda crackers on waxed paper until they are coarse crumbs. Beat the yolks of 4 eggs lightly with ½ cup of sugar. Add the rolled crackers, 1 cup of broken nut meats, 1 teaspoon of baking powder, and ½ teaspoon of vanilla. Fold in 4 stiffly beaten egg whites and bake in 2 greased layer cake tins for 25 minutes in a 375° oven. Put 1 cup of crushed sweetened fruit gently over one layer, then 1 cup of whipped cream, cover with the second torte and finish with the same amount of fruit and cream. Garnish with the whole fruit and hear yourself hum “The Blue Danube.”
My recipe for fruitcake came to my husband down through four generations along with his determined chin, and that family feature undoubtedly helped preserve the faded paper intact through the years. Its vague instructions, including “Add 1 cup of distilled rose water but I never do” and “Taste the batter again to see if you have enough spices,” made it at first a real terror and took years to standardize. Even if two or three helpers interested in sharing the proceeds make the labor go more quickly, Mrs. Rorer would always have been too ladylike to repeat my remarks on the work involved. Still I persevere, for if at least one batch of FRUITCAKE isn’t baked and ripened for Christmas giving, complaints from friends and relations clutter the mail by New Year’s. These quantities fill 8 bread pans but for gifts to be mailed, straight-sided pans are better, and best of all for this purpose are new glass casseroles with a lid that can be left on while the cakes are baking and help protect them afterward when journeying. Surround the wrapped cakes with heavy cardboard and wrap again in heavy brown paper before they go off to your friends. Bake in deep pans as small as 3 inches by 7 or cut the larger cakes in half after ripening, for wonderful “extras” to tuck in Christmas or birthday packages. Mine have gone half around the world in perfect condition. Gauge the weights of the dried fruit in the recipe by the statements on their packages. Don’t fall for the ready sliced and packaged peels—they are not as good as when cut freshly. Use an electric mixer if possible for the eggs, butter and sugar, and roll up your sleeves before starting, for you’ll be in to the elbows. Pick over 3 pounds of currants, 1½ pounds of seeded raisins, and 1½ pounds of the seedless variety. Cut 1 pound of seeded dates into small pieces. Shred 1 pound of candied citron and ¼ each of candied lemon and orange peel. Cut in half ½ pound of candied cherries. Mix the fruits and peels together and sprinkle over them ½ cup of rum. In another bowl, cream 1 pound of butter with 1 pound of soft light brown sugar. Beat 12 eggs until light and add to the butter and sugar, with ¾ cup of molasses and ½ cup of brandy or rye whisky, and beat again. Sift into this 4 cups of flour and 1 tablespoon each of cinnamon, nutmeg, and mace, and ½ teaspoon each of clove and allspice. Beat again. Pour the batter over the fruit and peel, and mix thoroughly until every piece is coated. Bare hands are the best implements here and a big cooking pot or dish pan the best container. Grease the chosen pans or casseroles with oil or lard. Line the bottoms and sides with heavy brown paper and grease that, too. Pat the completed cake batter gently into its pans up to the three-quarter mark. Bake the smaller cakes for 3½ hours and the large bread-pan size for 4 hours, in a 275° oven that has a pan filled with water on the bottom. Turn out of the pans and remove the paper when hot. Cool and dribble 1 tablespoon of liquor (rum sherry, whisky or brandy, but not, I beg, gin) over each cake. Stack the cakes for at least two months in a covered crock or a tin breadbox that has been lined with waxed paper, turning them over every 2 weeks or so and repeating their intoxicating dose. Whew! That was a job. It can be lightened a little at the start by baking the cakes in shifts, for the completed batter can rest in a cool place at least 24 hours, or the prepared fruit and peel can be sprinkled with liquor and left that long, too. Except the delicious cake itself, the real reward—and what a big one—of all this labor is, that made in a peaceful autumn moment a great part of your Christmas list is taken care of, inexpensively, before that harried season approaches. Decorate the cakes before using or giving away with leaves and berries of sliced citron and candied cherries, gluing them on with a syrup of ½ cup of sugar and ¼ cup of water that has been boiled until a few drops become brittle when dropped in ice water. Wrap each cake carefully in double layers of waxed paper or cellophane before tying up in holiday tissue, and, finally, hesitate before presenting one to a temperance friend, for after his finishing a large slice of my well-aged fruitcake I was once falsely accused of supplying an innocent youth with strong drink.
A piece of fruitcake steamed 1 hour makes a good pudding but real ENGLISH PLUM PUDDING is better and, like the cakes, can be made well ahead of the holiday season for home consumption or an appreciated personal gift. I actually found a three-year-old one tucked away last Christmas and it was the best we have ever had. First, line up the deep pudding bowls which may be kitchen ones of heavy china or pottery. This recipe will make 1 large, or 1 medium and 1 small pudding. The bowls should hold the batter with room to spare. For the large pudding a bowl that holds 3 quarts is about right and use bowls sized in proportion for smaller ones. Now, a little easy plain sewing. Measure the top circumference of each bowl and its top diameter and cut a piece of heavy muslin the length of the circumference and one-half the diameter, plus three inches. Seam firmly together on the diameter edge a half-inch deep and turn in and stitch the raw edges of the top and bottom. These are the bowl covers and belong in the family of good King Arthur’s pudding bags. Grease the bowls. Pick over 1 pound of currants and 1 pound of raisins and cut the raisins in pieces. Shred ¼ pound of citron and ¼ pound of lemon or orange peel and dust the fruit and peel with ½ cup of flour. Beat 3 eggs with 1 cup of milk. Stir in 1 cup of flour and 2½ cups of bread crumbs (homemade ones are best) and beat again. Add the floured fruit and peel, 1½ cups of sugar, and ½ pound of ground suet. Beat well. Add ¼ teaspoon of nutmeg, ½ teaspoon each of cinnamon and salt, 1 tablespoon of grated lemon peel, and ⅛ teaspoon each of clove and mace. Then finally beat in ½ cup of brandy and ½ cup of milk. Soak the bowl covers in boiling water for a few minutes, wring them out—don’t burn your fingers—and flour the inside thickly. Grease the bowls and fill three-quarters full with the batter. Now carefully pull the covers over the bottoms of the bowls until one of the hemmed edges fits just below the top. Gather and tie the muslin tightly with heavy string or tape. Stand on a rack or tin-can lid in a pot of boiling water, see that they are kept well covered with the liquid, and boil for 4 hours. These can be served direct from their original hot bath by cutting the muslin cover close to the edge of the bowl and turning out the pudding, but are much better dried and stored for a few months, and then reheated in boiling water for 1 hour. Accompany with the hard sauce (page 142) or rum- or brandy-flavored sweetened cold whipped cream. As gifts, cook them in bright-colored bowls and be sure to enclose in the package written directions for their reheating and perhaps for the hard sauce, too. Turn out the lights and surround the hot pudding with blazing sugar lumps first soaked in brandy, for a thrilling finish to a holiday meal.
PIECRUST for two covered pies. The best there is, just as good as puff paste and—hi, there, Mrs. Rorer—easy to make. Have 1 cup of lard, and ⅓ or ½ cup of butter cut in bits, both icy cold. Sift 3 cups of flour with 1 teaspoon of salt. Cut the lard into the flour with a pastry cutter or two knives until the whole is like fine meal. Add just enough ice water to hold the flour and lard together, mixing quickly with a fork, and pushing the damp sections to one side before moistening the dry. Roll lightly about ¾-inch thick on a floured board and scatter one third of the cold bits of butter over the surface. Fold in thirds, first the sides and then the ends and roll. Give the dough a quarter turn and repeat with the butter, folding and rolling. Do this once more, always rolling away from you as much as possible. Wrapped in waxed paper, this dough will keep a week in the refrigerator.
For a COVERED PIE, roll the dough about as thin as a five-cent piece, place loosely on an ungreased pie plate, and trim the edge, leaving an inch overhang, and turning this “hem” under. Brush the crust with white of egg and fill the pie with the sweetened fruit of your choice. Roll and cut a top crust 1 inch larger than the pie plate, wet the edges of the pie with cold water, adjust the top crust, turn under and press the edges firmly together with your fingers or a fork. Cut a few slashes in the top, and for fun prick in some appropriate initials too (Do you remember the story of the old lady and her “T.M.” for “’Tis Mince” or “T’aint Mince”?). Bake the pie 15 minutes at 400°, then reduce the oven heat to 350° and bake 30 minutes longer. If the filling is especially juicy, a small metal funnel inserted in the top crust before baking will keep things under control. For a BAKED PIE SHELL cover the pie plate with crust as before but leave the trimmed edge a little longer and pinch it up with your fingers into a triple-layered dam. Prick with a fork. Bake 15 or 20 minutes in a 400° oven until light brown. This is good, filled with a cooked sweetened fruit and topped with a MERINGUE made of 3 cold egg whites and a pinch of salt beaten stiff before adding gradually 7 tablespoons of sifted powdered sugar. Flavor with ½ teaspoon of lemon juice or a few drops of vanilla. Pile on the filled pie and bake in a 300° oven for 15 or 20 minutes. Canned or fresh apple sauce, sweetened and flavored with ⅛ teaspoon of nutmeg makes a good filling under a meringue, and the same flavored and sweetened apple sauce, or the cooked fruit, alone, covered with the meringue piled in high peaks, baked and chilled and served with cream makes what I have always called BIRD’S-NEST PUDDING in spite of Mrs. Rorer and her different and difficult recipe.
For MINCE PIE use any good readymade mince meat, adding ¼ cup of brandy per pie.
Thanksgiving PUMPKIN PIE should be extra rich. Add to 1¾ cups of strained cooked pumpkin—the canned is easier—¾ of a cup of light brown sugar, 1 teaspoon of cinnamon, ½ teaspoon of ginger, ⅛ teaspoon of nutmeg, ½ teaspoon of salt, and 1 tablespoon of grated orange rind. Beat in 2 eggs and 2 cups of thin cream and 1 teaspoon of sherry. Pour this into an unbaked pie shell first brushed with egg white and bake it as directed for covered pies. Serve it warm and if it is being reheated—it keeps well for a day—dribble 1 tablespoon of melted butter over the surface before putting it in the oven. Pass the sherry, too.
Make a CUSTARD PIE with the recipe for boiled custard (page 111). Pour the raw eggs and scalded milk into the uncooked shell and bake as directed above. A cup of GRATED COCOANUT in the custard makes you know what! Meringue can be baked over any open-faced cooked pie but for our luscious pumpkin it’s really too obviously lily-gilding.
Try to roll out your piecrust with as little waste as possible but any scraps can be rolled together for TURNOVERS: Cut them into 4- or 6-inch squares, put a tablespoon of jam or cooked fruit in the center of one corner, fold into a triangle, and press the dampened edges closed with a fork. Bake in a 400° oven 15 minutes. Cheese whirls (page 207) can be made with pastry scraps, too.
Pies can be prepared ahead by fitting the pie plate with its crust, wrapping carefully in waxed paper, and keeping in the refrigerator. Roll and wrap the top crust separately. When ready to cook add the filling, adjust the top, and bake as usual, for at any time, the colder the crust is before baking, the better the pie. And don’t forget that pie calls for a piece of sharp cheese as a teammate.
Through the long years since Martha Washington invented it in that town, Philadelphia ice cream, like a Philadelphia lawyer, has been a smooth affair and those famous legal brains have owed a great deal to its soothing coolness.
A friend, whose family’s weddings and formal parties have been served for three generations by an equally old firm of Quaker City caterers, recently dared ask its present head for the secret of their superb ice cream. “Madam,” he said, serenely, “we have never had any secret. We use only the best cream.”
Nevertheless, a thorough search through a large collection of modern cookbooks reveals very few recipes for ice cream that do not contain the heresy of condensed or evaporated milk, eggs, gelatin or cornstarch. And in some cooks’ heaven, for there surely is one, Mrs. Rorer must be mingling her tears with those of our first President’s wife as they ponder sadly on what has happened to Washington’s favorite dessert. Here is why he enjoyed it and it has no equal. To make PHILADELPHIA ICE CREAM, scald 1 pint of cream (rich coffee cream is best) in a double boiler and dissolve thoroughly in it ¾ cup of sugar. Take from the stove and add 1 pint of unscalded cream. Flavor it with vanilla just to taste, from 2 teaspoons up depending on the strength of the extract, and let it get cold. Have a 2-quart freezer ready, adjust the dasher in the can, and pour in the flavored cream. Put on the top, clamp the handle firmly into place and, if you have the common female distrust of machinery, give it a few twirls just to be sure that everything is under control. Then pack the space between the can and the outside container firmly with layers of crushed ice and rock salt in the proportion of 8 to 1, turn the handle slowly and steadily for about 20 minutes until it starts to “buck” a bit, and the ice cream is frozen. Drain off any water from the ice, see that the ice itself is well below the top of the can, and remove the handle. Wipe off the top of the can carefully below its edge and remove it. Take out the dasher and if someone doesn’t grab it and lick it off, scrape the ice cream from it back into the can. Then with a long wooden spoon scrape the ice cream from the sides of the can, stir and beat it well for 2 or 3 minutes, pack it down solidly, and replace the top, corking the dasher hole. Repack the freezer with ice and salt in the same proportion as before and set the freezer in a cool place, covering it with a thick layer of newspapers. Leave the ice cream for 1 or 2 hours to ripen and reach perfection. Then drain off the water again, wipe the top of the can once more, open it up, and with the first taste it will be very easy to understand why the youthful nation that originally produced it has since become a great world power.
This is one more of those basic recipes, and can be varied to individual taste or convenience, provided you remember the caterer’s advice and use real cream. For CHOCOLATE ICE CREAM, break 2 squares of bitter chocolate into bits in the top of a double boiler, add 2 tablespoons of water, and melt over hot water before stirring slowly into the scalded cream and sugar. Then proceed as in the first recipe (above).
COFFEE ICE CREAM uses ½ cup of strong black coffee with the cream (above) and needs no vanilla flavoring.
FRUIT ICE CREAM, strawberry, raspberry, peach or what you will, has the fruit crushed and sweetened and allowed to stand until the juice starts to flow, before adding to unsweetened cream that has been frozen to the mushy stage. Remove the handle and top of the freezer, poke the fruit lightly around the dasher, and finish freezing and ripening as directed. The amount of fruit can vary, although for the basic 1 quart of cream, 1½ cups of fruit is a good standard.
These recipes should provide enough for six or eight people but that can’t be guaranteed, as the Father of his Country certainly knew a good dish when he tasted it.
A 2-quart freezer will use about 10 pounds of ice for freezing and ripening, and if there is no local purveyor the ice can be made in the trays of an electric refrigerator. “A pint’s a pound, the world around” is true here, too. The best method of crushing ice is in a heavy cloth bag with a wooden mallet or potato masher. Thick folds of newspaper or a piece of old carpet will do at a pinch to keep the cold stuff in its place, and all the work will be gladly taken off your hands by the promised reward of the scrapings from the dasher. Here’s looking forward to seeing our kitchen porches once more bearing in their shade that old-time ornament, a filled freezer of real homemade ice cream.
QUICK TEA COOKIES. Cream 2 tablespoons of brown sugar with 2 tablespoons of butter. Add 1 well-beaten egg, ½ cup of sifted flour, a pinch each of salt and cinnamon, and 2 pinches of nutmeg, and beat well. Drop by small flattened spoonfuls, well apart, on a greased cooky sheet. Put a pinch of brown sugar on the top of each cookie and bake 8 minutes in a 425° oven. A teaspoon of caraway seeds can be mixed in the batter if you like the old-fashioned flavor, or a half-walnut or a sliced blanched almond placed on the top of each cooky before baking. This recipe even antedates Mrs. Rorer, coming from a very old, longhand cookbook presented to me by a farmer whose “sale” I was looking over for nonexistent antiques. The book, he said, had been his “grandmom’s mom’s.” The cookies are soft and delicious, just spicy enough, can be mixed and baked while the kettle is coming to the boil for an unexpected guest’s cup of afternoon tea, and go equally well with a glass of sherry. The recipe makes about a dozen. “Three times is
just enough for the family” is noted underneath in surprisingly clear ink, and is still too true almost a century and a half later; as is the quaint poem that follows it:
Return, sweet muse, for I resign
The epicurean world forever.
I’d rather sup on thought divine,
And please my palate never.
But, changed his theme of poetry,
My spouse is all for cookery.
Alas, that e’en a taste for books
Should change to be a taste for cooks.
MOTHER’S SOUR-CREAM COOKIES come next in the ancient volume. Cream together ⅓ cup of butter with 1 cup of sugar. Beat in 1 egg and an optional few drops of vanilla, and ⅓ cup of thick sour cream. Add 1½ cups of flour that have been sifted with ¼ teaspoon of salt, ½ teaspoon of baking powder, and ¼ teaspoon of baking soda. Then add just enough flour to make a soft dough and chill. Not more than a half-cup extra should be necessary; remember the dough will stiffen when cold. Roll and cut out on a lightly floured board or cloth, sprinkle with sugar, bits of candied citron, raisins, or what you will, and bake at 375° for 8 or 10 minutes. These are fun to experiment with. Rolled very thin and decorated with cinnamon and sugar and slivers of almond they are SAND TARTS, a classic holiday snack. Cut into star and animal-shapes they make Christmas tree decorations that appeal to young and old much more than the usual inedible glistening baubles, although the tree itself is apt to acquire a bare look as New Year’s approaches. When using the cookies thus, press an inch-long folded piece of string into an edge before baking, and watch the younger members of the family closely lest they devour the hanger with the ornament.
CRULLERS are another very old recipe and while their shape and coloring make them look like doughnuts they are much richer and taste more like cake. Cream 1 cup of butter and if you use vegetable shortening instead, add ½ teaspoon of salt. Add 1 cup of sugar, beat until thoroughly mixed. Beat in 4 eggs, one at a time, add 1 teaspoon of nutmeg, 1 cup of sour milk or buttermilk, and 1 teaspoon of soda dissolved in 1 tablespoon of water. Beat in 2½ cups of flour or just enough more to make a very soft dough. Chill thoroughly, roll out about ¾ inch thick. Cut out with a round cutter with a hole in the middle and fry in hot fat. Do not roll the unused centers back into the dough but fry them, too, for extra delicious little nubbins to snack on with a between-meal glass of milk. The fat need be no deeper than 4 inches. Turn the crullers when the undersides brown, finish frying, and drain on brown paper. Sprinkle lavishly with powdered sugar to which a tiny pinch of cinnamon may be added. These will keep at least a week in a covered crock—if well hidden.
My brother’s first job took him to a small country town some miles away from home and her cherished son’s constant complaints of the food served in his boardinghouse greatly upset his mother and me, too, until finally his stomach and our hearts were all eased by my sending him a carefully packed souvenir of home cooking every week or ten days. Sometimes this was a loaf of nut bread (page 145) but more often a CHOCOLATE LAYER CAKE. Melt 2½ squares of chocolate, ½ cup of butter or vegetable shortening, 3 tablespoons of strong coffee, ¼ teaspoon of salt, and 1? cups of sugar over boiling water. Let cool a little. Beat the yolk of 1 egg and 1 teaspoon of baking soda dissolved in a little water with 1 cup of sour milk or buttermilk. Beat in the chocolate mixture, mix well, and stir in gently 2 cups of sifted flour and a tablespoon of rum. Bake in greased floured pans in 1 large or 2 smaller layers at 325°; the large cake for 45 minutes, the smaller for 30 minutes. Watch carefully, for chocolate burns easily. Make a light depression with a finger in the top, and if the cake springs back it is done. Water can be used instead of coffee, and 1 teaspoon of vanilla instead of rum. A cup of chopped nuts can be added to the batter for the large cake; either way, baked in muffin tins, it makes good CHOCOLATE CUPCAKES.
Covered with whipped cream the cake is a filling dessert, but when sent to my brother I used BOILED WHITE ICING between the layers and over the top. Boil 1 cup of sugar and ¼ teaspoon of cream of tartar (or 2 teaspoons of lemon juice), and ½ cup of water until it spins a thick thread from the tines of a fork dipped in the syrup and lifted quickly out. Beat the white of an egg until stiff and slowly and carefully beat into it the hot syrup. Continue until the icing is cool and thick, flavor it with a little vanilla or almond, and spread on the cake.
CARAMEL ICING will add a homemade touch to a tasteless bakery effort and, used hot, puts such a finish on drugstore ice cream that no one will know that the entire dessert was not made in your own kitchen. It is a little rich for chocolate cake although my brother didn’t think so. Boil 2 cups of brown sugar with 1 cup of top milk and a pinch of salt until it forms a soft ball in cold water. Cool, add 2 teaspoons of butter, and an optional cup of chopped nuts, and beat until of the right texture to spread. This gets a little harder after it’s on the cake, so stop the beating while the icing is still soft.
Apparently my packages cheered more than one boarder, for just recently I met a most attractive man who, it turned out, had roomed next to my brother twenty-five years ago. Discovering my relationship to his former neighbor, the stranger managed to restrain himself from an embrace, but grasping my hand with fond recognition in his eyes and beaming smile, he introduced the assembled company to “the sister who made those chocolate cakes.”
Beauty contestants may have their silver cups, movie picture stars their glamour and Oscars—Mrs. Rorer, Grandmother and I are content with more lasting fame.
