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Jerusalem Pudding
3/4 tablespoonful gelatine Walnuts, figs, dates, half a cup together 1/2 teaspoonful vanilla tablespoonful gela- Walnuts, figs, dates, tine half a cup together + cup boiling water teaspoonful vanilla + cup cold water pint heavy cream ed rice (dry) 1/4 tablespoonful cook- 1 cup powdered sugar Soak gelatine in cold water, when softened dissolve in hot water. Scald fruit, chop with nuts, and add with rice (beaten soft) to gelatine. Whip cream stiff, flavor, sweeten, and fold lightly into gelatine mixture. Place in ice-box. Serve very cold, turned out into glass dish.
Frosted Chocolate (from Left-over Ice-cream) Add milk or cream and bits of ice to any leftover chocolate ice-cream. Serve in glasses. The custard should always be turned out from the freezer can, kept as cold as possible, and used the same day.
Marguerites from Left-over Icing If it happens that there is any boiled icing of any sort left over, set it at once in hot water so it will not harden. Cut two marshmallows in small pieces and stir them into the warm icing. Prepare a few chopped nuts and add them, together with a little shredded cocoanut. Drop by teaspoonfuls on saltines or zephyr crackers, and brown delicately in the oven.
The ingredient list has come through the scanner scrambled, so read it as a set of quantities to be reassembled: about 1 tablespoon gelatine, 1/4 cup cold water and 1/4 cup boiling water, 1/2 cup mixed walnuts, figs and dates, 1 tablespoon cooked rice, 1 pint heavy cream, 1 cup powdered sugar and 1 teaspoon vanilla. Two smaller items follow the pudding on the same page.
- The hinge: gelatine must be fully dissolved before it meets the creamSoften the gelatine in the cold water for about five minutes, then stir it into the boiling water until no grains remain and the liquid is clear. If it is still warm when it goes into the whipped cream it will thin the cream; if it is already setting it will make rubbery threads. Work with it lukewarm and fold quickly.
- One tablespoon of gelatineThat is roughly a third of an ounce, or about one and a third modern envelopes of powdered gelatine. It is enough to set a pint of whipped cream into something that can be turned out of a mould, though the book's instruction to serve it very cold suggests a soft set.
- "Scald fruit"Pour boiling water over the dried figs and dates and let them stand a few minutes to plump and soften, then drain and dry them before chopping. Dried fruit chopped straight from the box stays leathery in a cold cream pudding.
- The rice"1 tablespoonful cooked rice (dry)" means rice already cooked and cooled, measured dry-ish rather than wet, and "beaten soft" means mashed to a paste before it goes in. A single tablespoon in a pint of cream will barely register; if you want the rice to read as rice, use more and expect a firmer, more old-fashioned result.
- SugarA full cup of powdered sugar with a pint of cream plus figs and dates is very sweet by current taste. Half a cup gives a dessert that still sets and still tastes of the fruit.
- Ice-box means refrigeratorNot the freezer. Chill at least four hours, and overnight is better for unmoulding. To turn it out, rinse the mould with cold water before filling, then dip it briefly in warm water and invert onto the glass dish.
- YieldRoughly a quart and a half of finished pudding; six to eight servings, since it is rich.
- Frosted ChocolateThis is a milkshake made by slackening melted ice cream with milk and ice rather than throwing it out. The note about turning custard out of the freezer can and using it the same day belongs to hand-cranked ice cream and ice-box storage, where there was no way to hold a dairy custard cold for long.
- MargueritesBoiled icing is a hot sugar syrup beaten into egg white; holding the bowl over hot water keeps it spreadable. The recipe gives no temperature, only 'brown delicately in the oven': use a moderate oven, around 350F, and watch them closely, because marshmallow and coconut colour fast. "Zephyr crackers" were a thin, light cracker of the period; any plain saltine or water cracker works.
Jerusalem pudding is one of a large family of turn-of-the-century moulded creams: gelatine, whipped cream, dried fruit and nuts, set cold and turned out onto glass. The name is not documented as coming from any particular kitchen, and is generally taken to refer to the dried figs, dates and nuts of the eastern Mediterranean that flavour it, the same associative naming that gave American cookbooks Spanish cream and Bavarian cream. Its appearance in a book of left-overs is the point: the dish is built to absorb a spoonful of cooked rice from dinner, and it sits beside instructions for reviving melted ice cream and leftover boiled icing. Household economy of this kind was a moral as well as a financial subject in American domestic writing of the period, when a home refrigerator was typically an insulated box cooled by delivered ice, so anything made with cream and custard was best eaten the day it was made.