Home › Refrigerator Menus › Fruited Cheese Salad
Fruited Cheese Salad
3 ounce package cream cheese 1/4 cup mayonnaise 1/2 cup cream, whipped 1 tablespoon lemon juice 1 teaspoon sugar 1/2 teaspoon salt 1/2 cup cooked prunes 1/2 cup cooked apricots 1/2 cup pineapple Mash cheese and blend with mayonnaise. Blend thoroughly with the cream whipped until stiff, add seasonings and the fruit cut in pieces. Put in ice tray of electric refrigerator and let stand three hours. Serve on lettuce with cream, mayonnaise or French dressing. Recipe serves eight.
A frozen fruit salad of the sort promoted in the 1930s to show off what an electric refrigerator could do. The method is sound, but the freezing instructions were written for a cabinet far warmer than a modern freezer.
- The ice trayThis means the metal freezing tray from the refrigerator's ice compartment, with the cube divider lifted out. A small loaf pan or a 1-quart plastic container lined with plastic wrap does the same job and unmolds more willingly.
- Freezing timeThree hours suited a 1930s freezing compartment, which ran considerably warmer than a modern freezer. A modern freezer at around 0F will set this firm well before three hours, so check it earlier. Let the block stand 10-15 minutes at room temperature before slicing, or the fruit will shatter rather than cut.
- Order of operationsWhip the cream to stiff peaks in a separate bowl, then fold it into the mashed cheese and mayonnaise. "Blend thoroughly" here means combine without knocking the air out; that trapped air, along with the fat and sugar, is what keeps this sliceable, since nothing churns it as it freezes.
- Cooked prunes and apricotsDried fruit, stewed in water until plump and tender, then drained and cooled. Modern soft-pack dried apricots and pitted prunes need only a short simmer or a soak in hot water. Drain them well and blot dry, or the extra liquid will freeze into ice crystals.
- PineappleIn this period almost certainly canned, drained crushed pineapple. Fresh pineapple works but is more acidic and wetter; drain it thoroughly. Cut all fruit small, no larger than a pea, so slices hold together.
- MayonnaisePeriod recipes sometimes meant a sweeter commercial salad dressing rather than mayonnaise proper. A plain full-fat mayonnaise is the right substitute; skip anything labeled light, as the added water freezes badly.
- ServingEight portions from a single tray means fairly thin slices, laid on lettuce leaves. The suggested dressings are optional and, with the sugar and mayonnaise already in the mixture, a plain leaf of lettuce is usually enough.
Frozen fruit salads like this one belong to a brief, confident moment in American cooking when the electric refrigerator was still a novelty and cookbooks were written partly to justify the purchase. The freezing compartment - designed for ice cubes and little else - was pressed into service for desserts, mousses and salads that needed no churn and no ice-and-salt freezer. The combination of cream cheese, whipped cream, mayonnaise and sweetened fruit was a luncheon standard of the 1920s and 1930s, served on lettuce and counted as a salad because it arrived at the salad course.