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Cocoa Tutti-frutti Cream
Use recipe for Cocoa Cream. Add one half cup macaroons which have been dried in the oven and pounded, and one cup candied cherries cut in small pieces; or one half dozen marshmallows and one half dozen raisins, and one tablespoon each of citron and candied cherries, chopped fine, may be added just before molding.
This is a variation rather than a standalone recipe: it assumes you have the book's Cocoa Cream in front of you, a molded cornstarch- or gelatine-set cocoa pudding turned out of a form. The additions go in at the last moment, once the base has begun to thicken.
- The hinge: when to add the fruitFold everything in only when the cream has cooled to the point of setting but is still pourable. Added to a hot, thin mixture, the macaroon crumbs dissolve into sludge and the cherries and citron sink to what will become the top of the turned-out mold.
- Drying the macaroonsThe direction to dry them in the oven is not optional. Use a low oven until they are crisp through, then pound to coarse crumbs; a soft macaroon goes pasty on contact with the cream instead of giving the intended texture.
- Two versions, not oneThe recipe offers alternatives separated by "or." The first is a heavily fruited cream (a full cup of cherries with half a cup of macaroon crumbs); the second is a much lighter scattering. Use one set or the other.
- Marshmallows have changedA 1900s marshmallow was a denser, firmer gum- and gelatine-based confection than the modern extruded kind, though sizes varied. Half a dozen modern large marshmallows, snipped small, is a reasonable equivalent; miniature ones are likely to disappear into the cream.
- CitronCandied citron peel, sold in blocks around the winter holidays. Candied orange or lemon peel substitutes without much loss. Chop it genuinely fine, as the pieces are tough and chewy against a soft cream.
- Molding and unmoldingRinse the mold in cold water rather than oiling it. Chill at least four hours, or overnight for a large mold, then dip the outside briefly in warm water and invert onto a cold plate.
Lowney's Cook Book was published in 1907 for the Walter M. Lowney Company of Boston, a chocolate and cocoa manufacturer, and like most house cookbooks of the period its job was to find as many uses for the company's product as a reader could stand. The Desserts chapter accordingly proceeds by variation, one Cocoa Cream begetting a tutti-frutti. Tutti frutti is simply Italian for "all fruits," and by the late nineteenth century it had settled in American usage as a name for any confection studded with mixed candied fruit, most familiarly the ice cream. Candied cherries, citron and macaroon crumbs are often said to have been kept on hand in households that baked at holidays, which may be part of why they turn up here: the recipe is as much a way to use them up as a way to dress up a plain molded cream.