Fancy Cream Fruit Dressing

A cooked fruit custard lightened with cream, meant for fruit salads rather than greens. The whole thing hinges on how the hot juice meets the eggs.

• Temper, do not dumpPour the boiling juice into the eggs in a thin stream while whisking hard and without stopping. Tipped in at once, the eggs scramble in the acid and no amount of beating will smooth them out.
• Bring it to a real custard temperaturePouring hot liquid over raw eggs off the heat does not reliably take them past 160F. Return the combined mixture to a low burner or a bowl over simmering water and stir until it thickens and registers 160F on a thermometer, then cool.
• Strain before coolingPush the hot custard through a fine sieve. It catches any set egg and the bits of pulp from the citrus, and gives the finished dressing the smoothness the name promises.
• Cool completely before the creamChill the custard to refrigerator temperature. Whipped cream folded into anything still warm will deflate and thin the dressing.
• Cream, unsweetened'Half a cup of whipped cream' most likely means half a cup measured after whipping, which is roughly a quarter cup of heavy cream, though the recipe does not say. Whip to soft peaks only and leave it unsweetened; the half cup of sugar in the base is doing that work.
• The juicesBottled or canned pineapple juice works well. Fresh juice is fine here since the mixture is boiled, which deactivates the enzyme in raw pineapple.
• Yield and keepingAbout two cups, enough for six to eight fruit salads. Refrigerate and use within two days; the cream will begin to weep and the dressing wants a stir before serving.
• Where it belongsToo sweet for lettuce. Spoon it over grapefruit and orange sections, a fruit cup, banana and pineapple, or a moulded fruit salad.