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Cream and Its Substitutes

And, Johnny, you don't need real cream so much as you need a thorough beating. If a man that knew how was to open next door in opposition to you he might take milk and you might take cream, and soon you would hear customers say "ah, the cream next door is the best, it certainly must be made of the purest cream, you can taste it, it is so rich!" when in fact it would be its foamy smoothness and delicacy that gave them the impression, while your real cream would be coarse with grains of ice, and heavy with sugar. It does not make nearly so much difference how you make your cream as how you freeze it and keep it. Why you may take a sweet water ice, especially a white cherry ice, or a peach ice will do, some kind with the sweet pulp mashed in it, and make it according to directions it will be so white, so soft and foamy, and will increase in bulk so much it can't be told from cream except by melting which I want to say shows that it isn't the cream itsel that makes the quality, since sweetened fruit juice will do so well, and better yet if mixed with cream like our cherries in cream some way back, but the method. So having prepared your cream, custard, or sherbet put it in a freezer large enough to hold twice as much and strive to make the ice fill the freezer when done. The greatest help but not the only material for the purpose is some raw but light--beaten white of eggs. The French cooks, some of them, use what they call Italian meringue, which is a boiling sugar yrup made of six ounces of sugar, poured into four whites well whipped. If anyone who has tried has found a difference in effect between that and the raw whites I will not gainsay their word, but, Johnny, you will find the shorter way good enough and it saves sugar from what is already generally too sweet. So when your ice is frozen mix in the whipped whites, and if it is a patent freezer turn it as fast as you can til you see the white ice forcing its way out at the freezfer lid. That is if you want that sort, but if it is only a demi--glace leave out the whites, like the pink part of our Niagara ices, where the white desiccated cocoanut can be seen powdered all through as it could not be if the sherbet was beaten to whiteness with egg.