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Cereal Molded with Fruit
Take cream of wheat or wheatena left from breakfast. If very stiff add a little milk or water and stir into it a few scalded cut-up dates or figs. Pour into bowl or mold and serve cold as a dessert with sugar and cream.
A thrift dessert built from the porridge pot, and it works as long as the cereal is loosened while still warm and the mold is properly chilled.
- The hinge: warm it before you mold itThe hinge: loosen it before you mold it -- Cold cooked farina sets into a stiff block and resists stirring. The recipe's own remedy is to work in a little milk or water; gentle warming makes that easier. Slacken it until it moves like thick batter, then fold in the fruit and mold at once.
- WheatenaA toasted whole-wheat cereal still sold in some markets. Any hot wheat farina works — Cream of Wheat, cream of farina, or fine semolina porridge cooked thick enough to hold a spoon upright.
- "Scalded" fruitCover the cut dates or figs with boiling water briefly, then drain well. This plumps them and keeps hard dried fruit from drawing moisture out of the cereal as it sets.
- Molding and chillingRinse the bowl or mold with cold water first, or brush it lightly with a neutral oil, and it will turn out clean. Give it at least three hours in the refrigerator; overnight is better.
- Consistency to aim forThinner than the breakfast porridge, thicker than pudding. If it pours freely it will slump when unmolded rather than holding the shape of the mold.
- SweeteningThe original leaves the cereal unsweetened and sugars at the table. A tablespoon of sugar and a pinch of salt stirred in while warm gives a better-tasting dessert, since sugar dissolves poorly on a cold set surface.
- YieldThe recipe gives no quantities; it simply uses whatever cereal is left from breakfast, which will fill a bowl or a few small molds. Eat within a couple of days; cooked farina turns sour and weepy.
The Cook Book of Left Overs belongs to a genre that flourished in American kitchens between the 1890s and the First World War, when domestic science teaching and rising food prices together made the reuse of cooked food a point of pride rather than embarrassment. Molded cereal desserts appear repeatedly in such books because breakfast farina was cheap, cooked in quantity, and set firm on its own with no gelatine or eggs required — the starch does the work. Cream of Wheat dates from the 1890s and Wheatena from earlier still, commonly dated to the late 1870s, both sold as wholesome packaged breakfast cereals. The formula can be thought of as a plain blanc-manger made from porridge instead of cream, and the sugar and cream poured over at table are what lift it from thrift into dessert.