Queen of Trifles.
½ lb. “lady fingers,” or square sponge-cakes.
½ lb. macaroons.
½ lb. sweet almonds blanched.
½ lb. crystallized fruit, chopped fine.
1 cup sweet jelly or jam.
1 glass of best sherry.
Rose-water.
1 pint of cream, whipped.
1 pint of rich milk for custard.
4 eggs, whites and yolks separated.
1 table-spoonful corn-starch.
1 small cup sugar for custard.
A little powdered sugar for whipped cream.
Vanilla flavoring for custard.
Put sponge-cakes at the bottom of a large glass dish; wet with brandy, and cover thinly with jelly. Strew the minced fruits thickly upon this. Next come the macaroons. Wet with the wine and cover thickly with jelly. Set the dish in a cool place while you prepare the custard. This will give the cakes time to soak up the liquor.
Scald the milk; beat the yolks and sugar together and make a paste of the blanched almonds by pounding them in a Wedgewood mortar (or, in a stout bowl with a potato beetle), adding rose-water as you go on to prevent oiling. Stir this paste into the hot milk, and, a minute later, the yolks and sugar. Cook, stirring constantly, for three minutes more, when put in the corn-starch, wet up with cold milk. Let all thicken well and smoothly; take from the fire, beat up to break possible lumps, and turn out to cool.
Whip the cream, and sweeten to taste. Whisk the whites of the eggs stiff and mix thoroughly with the whipped cream. When the custard is perfectly cold, cover the cakes in the glass dish with it, and heap the cream on top.
There is no better trifle than this.
Apple Snow. (No. 1.)
6 fine pippins.
2 cups powdered sugar.
1 lemon—juice and half the grated peel.
1 pint of milk for custard.
4 eggs.
Make a good custard of the milk, one cup of sugar and the yolks. Bake the apples, cores, skins and all, in a covered dish with a little water in the bottom to prevent burning. The apples should be so tender that a straw will pierce them. Take off the skins and scrape out the pulp. Mix in the sugar and lemon. Whip the whites of the eggs light, and beat in the pulp by degrees until very white and firm. Put the custard, when cold, into the bottom of a glass bowl and pile the snow upon it.
Apple Snow. (No. 2.)
½ lb. macaroons.
1 cup good custard.
4 fine pippins (raw).
Whites of 4 eggs.
½ cup powdered sugar.
Put the macaroons in the bottom of a glass dish, and cover with the custard before you make the snow. Whisk the eggs and sugar to a méringue before paring the apples. Peel and grate each directly into the frothed egg and sugar, and whip in quickly before touching the next. The pulp will better preserve its color if thus coated before the air can affect it. It is well for one person to hold the egg-beater and work in the apple while an assistant grates it. Pile upon the soaked macaroons and set on ice until wanted. It should be eaten soon after it is made.