ANOTHER WAY.—Boil a vanilla bean in half a pint of milk till the flavour is well-extracted. Then take out the bean, wipe it dry, and put it away. It may be used a second time for a slight vanilla flavouring. Scrape down a quarter of a pound of excellent chocolate, or of Baker’s prepared cocoa, and mix with it the vanilla-milk. Put it into a chocolate pot or a sauce-pan, and pour on it a pint and a half of rich milk. Set it over the fire, or on a bed of hot coals, and boil it slowly; stirring it till the chocolate is entirely dissolved and thoroughly incorporated with the milk. Beat six eggs very light, and stir them, gradually, into the mixture; continuing to stir, lest it should curdle. When the egg is all in, and it begins to boil up, take it off, and when cool enough transfer it to glasses, or to a bowl.
PISTACHIO CREAM.—Take half a pound of pistachio nuts. Throw them into scalding water, and peel off the skins. Put the nuts (not more than two at a time) into a marble mortar, and pound them to a smooth paste, adding frequently, as you proceed, a few drops of rose-water. Sweeten a quart of cream with half a pound of powdered loaf-sugar, and stir into it, gradually, the pistachio paste. Set the mixture over the fire; and let it just come to a boil. Then take it out; stir in two table-spoonfuls of rose-water or peach-water, and set on ice to cool. Either serve it up liquid in a glass bowl, or put it into a freezer, and freeze it as ice-cream. If you freeze it, you must substitute for the rose-water or peach-water, a table-spoonful of extract of roses, or the same quantity of extract of bitter almonds. The process of freezing diminishes the strength of every sort of flavouring; and of sweetening also.
If you serve it up as frozen, stick it all over with slips of pistachio nut, peeled and sliced.
ALMOND CREAM.—Take a pound of shelled sweet almonds, and two ounces or more of shelled bitter almonds, or peach-kernels. Blanch them in scalding water, throwing them as you proceed into a bowl of cold water. Then pound them (one at a time) in a mortar, till each becomes a smooth paste; pouring in, as you proceed, a little rose-water to make the almonds white and light, and transferring the paste to a plate as you go on. Then when they are all done, mix the almonds with a quart of rich cream, and a quarter of a pound of powdered loaf-sugar. Add half a dozen blades of mace; put the mixture into a porcelain kettle, and boil it, slowly, stirring it frequently down to the bottom. Having given it one boil up, remove it from the fire, take out the mace, and when it has cooled a little, put the cream into glass cups, grating nutmeg over each. Serve it up quite cold. You may ornament each cup of this cream with white of egg, beaten to a stiff froth, and heaped on the top.
COCOA-NUT CREAM may be made as above; substituting for the almonds a pound of cocoa-nut grated finely. When it has boiled, and is taken from the fire, stir into the cream a wine-glass of rose-water.
A similar cream may be made with pounded pistachio nuts.