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Orange Delight
To the sherbet add grated or shredded pineapple, candied cherries, white grapes, nuts chopped fine, fresh-grated cocoanut or angelica, mixing as one pleases, and serve with a spoonful of whipped cream on top of a spoonful of the sherbet in tall slim glasses.
This is an assembly, not a cooked dish: it assumes you have already made the orange sherbet given earlier in the section. The whole thing hinges on temperature, since a soft sherbet folded with cold fruit turns to slush in a minute.
- The sherbetUse a firm orange sherbet or sorbet, hardened in the freezer for several hours until it holds a clean scoop. A commercial sherbet works, though it may be sweeter than a home-churned one.
- Chill everythingHave the fruit, the nuts, the glasses and the cream all cold, and assemble at the last minute. Layer rather than stir if you want the sherbet to hold its shape.
- AngelicaCandied angelica stem, sold as bright green strips, was a standard confectioner's garnish and is now sold mainly by baking suppliers. Candied citrus peel or a strip of candied ginger gives a similar chew, though not the green colour.
- White grapesMany grapes of the period had seeds and would have needed halving and pipping. Modern seedless green grapes need only halving; whole ones roll off the spoon.
- Fresh-grated cocoanutMeans the meat of a fresh coconut grated on a box grater, which is moist and mildly sweet. Unsweetened desiccated coconut is the nearest substitute; sweetened flake will push the dish over.
- PineappleFresh, grated or shredded, and drained well. Its juice will thin the sherbet if it goes in wet, so add the cream just before serving.
- Whipped creamWhip to soft peaks and leave it barely sweetened, or not at all; the sherbet and candied fruit carry plenty of sugar.
- Glasses and yield"Tall slim glasses" suggests something of the parfait or sundae type, perhaps 6 to 8 oz. The recipe gives no yield; as a rough guide, a quart of sherbet with a cup or so of mixed fruit will fill about six.
Fruit-and-ice combinations in tall glasses belong to the soda-fountain era, when American ice cream parlours and the home entertaining that imitated them made layered parfaits and sundaes a standard course. The recipe's freedom of composition, "mixing as one pleases," is often said to be characteristic of fruit books of the period, which could treat a base preparation as a platform for whatever was in the pantry. Candied cherries and angelica, red and green, recur in period desserts. Coconut in a home kitchen meant a good deal of work with a hammer and a grater.