Fruit Mold
3 cups raspberry, strawberry, blackberry, or cherry juice Sufficient sugar to sweeten to taste 1/4 level teaspoon salt 1/2 cup cream of wheat The juice which is drained from canned fruit may be used for this. In this case probably no extra sugar will be needed.
Heat the fruit juice to boiling in the inner cup of a double boiler placed directly over the fire. Whip in the meal, stir till the juice is thickened, and then set into the outer cup of the double boiler, which contains boiling water, and continue cooking for one hour. Then pour into molds wet with cold water, and cool.
When thoroughly chilled, turn from the molds, and serve with cream or whipped cream.
A fruit juice pudding set with farina rather than gelatin or cornstarch. The technique is simple; the two things that decide success are how the meal goes into the boiling juice and how long it cooks afterward.
- Whip the meal in off the boil's peakFarina lumps instantly in hot liquid. Sprinkle it in a thin stream while stirring hard with a whisk, or slake it first in a few tablespoons of cold juice held back from the three cups.
- Cream of wheat is farinaStill sold under that name, though the modern packaged product is enriched and offered in quick and instant versions; any plain farina or fine semolina cereal works. Do not substitute instant or flavored varieties, which usually contain added salt, sugar and sometimes dried dairy.
- "Inner cup" and "outer cup"These are the two pans of a double boiler. The recipe has you thicken over direct heat for speed, then move the pan over simmering water so the long cooking cannot scorch. A heavy saucepan over very low heat, stirred occasionally, does the same job.
- The hour is longer than neededPackaged farina today cooks in a few minutes. Twenty to thirty minutes over water is enough to cook out the raw starch taste; the full hour will not hurt it but the mixture may need a little extra juice to stay pourable.
- SweeteningWith fresh juice, start at about 1/3 to 1/2 cup sugar for 3 cups and taste while the mixture is still hot. It will read less sweet cold, so err slightly sweet. Canned-fruit syrup, as the recipe notes, usually needs nothing.
- Wetting the moldsRinsing the molds with cold water and leaving them wet is what lets the pudding slide out. Chill at least four hours, or overnight; a warm center will slump when turned.
- YieldThree cups of juice plus the swelling of the cereal gives roughly a quart of pudding, enough for four to six small molds.
- Cherry juiceSour cherry juice tastes best here. Sweet cherry juice is low in acid and can give a flat, faintly starchy result unless you add a little lemon juice.