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Fruit Sauce
1 cup fruit and juice. 1/2 cup water. 1 cup sugar 2 level tablespoons cornstarch Whites of 2 eggs Any kind of fresh or canned fruit may be used, reducing the amount of sugar if the fruit is very sweet. Mix the sugar and cornstarch thoroughly; add the boiling water and the fruit mashed to a pulp. Cook until clear, stirring constantly. Serve hot or cold, adding the stiffly-beaten whites just before using.
A cornstarch-thickened fruit sauce lightened with beaten egg white, meant to go over ices and puddings. The ingredient list is incomplete as printed, which is the first thing to sort out.
- The missing waterThe method calls for boiling water but the list never gives an amount. For 1 cup sugar and 2 tablespoons cornstarch, roughly 1 cup of boiling water gives a pourable sauce; the fruit pulp adds more liquid, so start there and thin as needed.
- Mix dry first, and mean itSugar and cornstarch must be stirred together thoroughly before any liquid touches them. The sugar keeps the starch grains apart, which is what prevents lumps when the boiling water goes in.
- "Cook until clear"Cornstarch turns from cloudy to translucent as it gelatinizes, which happens as the mixture approaches a boil. Bring it to a full bubble and hold it a minute or two, stirring; undercooked starch tastes chalky.
- Acidic fruit thins the sauceStrawberry, raspberry, apricot and pineapple are acidic enough that prolonged boiling can break down cornstarch. The recipe adds the pulp with the boiling water, so stop cooking as soon as the sauce clears.
- Fresh pineapple is a special caseFresh pineapple — Raw pineapple contains bromelain, a protease that does not affect starch but can interfere with an egg-white foam. Here the pulp is cooked until the sauce clears, which inactivates it, so this matters mainly if fresh pulp is stirred in at the end.
- The egg whitesThey are folded in uncooked, off the heat, and never reach a safe temperature — particularly if the sauce is served cold. Use pasteurized whites, and fold gently just before serving, as the foam soon begins collapsing into the syrup.
- Sugar in canned fruitFruit packed in heavy syrup brings sugar of its own. Taste the pulp first and reduce the sugar if the fruit is very sweet, as the recipe itself directs.
- YieldAbout 2 cups before the whites go in, closer to 3 after — enough sauce for six to eight servings of ice cream, sherbet or a plain steamed pudding.
Sauces of this kind — sugar, starch, water and fruit, foamed at the last with beaten white — were a staple of the home dessert table. Cornstarch was the American thickener of choice by the time this book was compiled, and it appears throughout period cookbooks in puddings, pie fillings and sauces alike. Its purpose here is easy enough to guess: home ice creams turned in a hand-cranked freezer were often plainly flavored, and a bright fruit sauce over the top was how a cook varied them without churning a second batch. The instruction to use "any kind of fresh or canned fruit" reflects the book's practical bent — one formula the cook adapts to whatever the season or the pantry shelf offers.