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Vanilla Sauce
Follow the directions for lemon sauce, but omit the lemon and add a teaspoon of vanilla after the sauce is taken from the fire. HOT CHOCOLATE SAUCE No. 1 1 cup boiling water Pinch of salt Cook all the ingredients together slowly until they form a syrup slightly thicker than maple syrup. Add the vanilla just before serving. 1 ounce unsweetened chocolate 1/2 cup sugar HOT CHOCOLATE SAUCE No. 2. 1/2 cup sugar 1 cup boiling water 2 tablespoons cocoa 1 tablespoon butter Stir the sugar in the boiling water until dissolved; then boil without stirring until a spoonful makes a soft ball when dropped in cold water. Add the cocoa moistened with hot water and the butter; boil and beat again. Serve hot over vanilla ice cream. レーレ HARD SAUCE No. 1 1/4 cup butter 1 teaspoon vanilla or 1 cup powdered sugar 1 tablespoon lemon juice Grated nutmeg Cream the butter and add the sugar gradually, beating until very light. Then add the flavoring; beat well and shape it in a mound on a glass dish. Grate a little nutmeg over the top and set in a cool place until needed.
HARD SAUCE No. 2 1/2 cup butter 1 cup powdered sugar Whites of 2 eggs 1 teaspoon vanilla Grated nutmeg Beat the butter to a cream; add the sugar gradually; then the whites, one at a time, and beat until stiff and frothy. Add flavoring; beat again; then heap on a glass dish and sprinkle with grated nutmeg.
A run of dessert sauces from the frozen-dessert chapter: two hot chocolate sauces meant for ice cream, and two hard sauces for steamed puddings. Read the notes on Hard Sauce No. 2 before starting anything.
- Hard Sauce No. 2 is uncooked egg whiteThe two whites are beaten raw into the butter and sugar and the sauce is never heated, so nothing in it reaches a temperature that would kill Salmonella. (The direction to set the sauce in a cool place until needed belongs to Hard Sauce No. 1, not No. 2.) It is a poor risk for anyone pregnant, elderly, very young or immunocompromised. Use a current recipe if you want a foamy hard sauce.
- Hard Sauce No. 1 is the safe oneButter, powdered sugar, flavouring and nutmeg, with no egg at all. It is the standard accompaniment for hot steamed or boiled puddings and keeps well covered in the refrigerator.
- Powdered sugarThe period's "powdered" sugar was generally coarser than today's confectioners' (10X) sugar, which is blended with cornstarch; modern confectioners' sugar is the usual stand-in. Sift it before creaming to avoid lumps.
- The soft-ball testIn Hot Chocolate Sauce No. 2, "a soft ball when dropped in cold water" is 235-240F on a thermometer. Go past it and the sauce sets hard on cold ice cream instead of pouring.
- Unsweetened chocolateOne ounce corresponds to one square of the old-style baking chocolate; today it is easiest to weigh the amount from a bar. It is bitter and unsweetened; do not substitute a sweetened chocolate bar or the syrup will be cloying.
- Cocoa needs moisteningStirring dry cocoa into boiling syrup gives lumps that never disperse. Paste it smooth with a tablespoon or two of hot water first, exactly as the original directs, then beat it in.
- Vanilla goes in off the heatBoth the vanilla sauce and Chocolate Sauce No. 1 add the flavouring after cooking. The volatile aromatics of an alcohol-based extract are driven off in a boiling syrup, which is why the addition is late rather than early.
Hard sauce is the English pudding sauce that travelled to America with plum pudding: butter creamed with sugar and a spirit or extract, served cold in a mound so it melts into the hot pudding at the table. It is "hard" only by contrast with the pourable custards and lemon sauces beside it, and in Britain the brandy-flavoured version is still called brandy butter.