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Pineapple Ambrosia
1 fresh pineapple 1/2 pound marshmallows 1 cup heavy cream 2 tablespoons sugar 1 1/2 tablespoons lemon-juice Shred the pineapple with a fork. Cut the marshmallows into small pieces, using a pair of scissors. Mix the pineapple and marshmallows and let stand on ice until thoroughly chilled. Just before serving, whip the cream and add the sugar to it. Add lemon-juice to the pineapple mixture and then fold in the whipped cream. Serve immediately in individual glasses or in a large dessert dish.
A 1920s icebox dessert that depends on the marshmallows softening in pineapple juice, so the long chill is the working step rather than a convenience.
- Marshmallow quantityHalf a pound is 8 oz, roughly 32 modern large marshmallows or about 4 cups of miniatures. Miniatures can be used whole and skip the cutting entirely.
- Cutting marshmallowsScissors are still the right tool; dip the blades in cold water or dust them with confectioners' sugar between cuts to stop the cut faces gumming up.
- "Let stand on ice"The icebox, so the refrigerator now. The recipe asks only that the mixture be thoroughly chilled; allow long enough for the marshmallows to soften and take up pineapple juice.
- Shredding the pineapplePeel, quarter and cut out the hard core first, then rake the flesh lengthwise with a fork so it comes away in juicy threads. Chopping gives cubes that stay separate; shredding releases the juice the marshmallows need.
- Use fresh, not cannedCanned pineapple is cooked soft and is often packed in syrup, so the mixture turns sweet and slack. If a substitute is unavoidable, drain crushed pineapple well and cut the added sugar.
- The creamOne cup of heavy cream whips to about two cups. Whip to soft peaks only \o loosen the fruit as you fold, and fold in two additions rather than all at once.
- Serve at onceThe instruction is practical rather than polite. Unstabilised whipped cream folded into juicy fruit separates, and the dessert weeps in the glass if it stands.
- YieldThe recipe gives none; roughly six small glasses, fewer if served generously.
Ambrosia in nineteenth-century American cookery meant sliced oranges layered with sugar and grated coconut, a Southern holiday dish whose name borrowed the food of the Greek gods. By the 1920s the term was being applied more loosely to chilled fruit-and-cream mixtures, and commercial marshmallows -- cheap, uniform and sold by the pound -- appear in a number of them. The New Delineator Recipes came out of The Delineator, the Butterick pattern company's magazine, and reflect a test-kitchen enthusiasm for desserts built from packaged goods and an icebox rather than a stove.