Peach Dessert
Here is a very delightful dessert. Its foundation is a jar of preserved peaches; split the peaches and remove the pits. Lay three of the halves in a saucer and fill with ice cream. They will only hold a spoonful each, but they afford many a dainty mouthful. Three to a saucer with a spoonful of ice cream dropped in each and a few (home-made) lady fingers at the side, make as quick and beautiful dessert as you can obtain. The cost will be a pint of cream and a jar of preserves from your fruit pantry.
An assembly dessert rather than a cooked one, so the only real work is having good preserved peaches and ice cream firm enough to hold its shape. A few of the assumptions behind it need translating.
- What "a jar of preserved peaches" meansHome-canned peach halves in syrup from the fruit pantry, not jam. A modern equivalent is a can or jar of peach halves in syrup, drained; the halves need to be intact and cup-shaped, so slices will not do.
- "Saucer" is the serving dishA saucer here is a shallow individual dish, wider and flatter than a modern bowl. Any small dessert plate with a slight rim works, and it matters only in that the three halves should sit level and not slide.
- A pint of creamThe cost note assumes you churn your own ice cream from a pint (2 cups) of cream, which makes considerably more than the nine or so spoonfuls three or four servings require. A pint of bought ice cream covers the same ground.
- Drain and chill firstWet peach halves thin the ice cream into soup within a minute. Drain them well, blot the cavities, and chill the fruit and the serving dishes before filling.
- Fill at the last momentThe hinge of the dish is timing: a peach half holds about a spoonful, and that little is in contact with the fruit on all sides. Scoop into the cavities immediately before carrying the plates to the table.
- LadyfingersThe parenthetical "(home-made)" is the author's quiet preference; commercial savoiardi are drier and firmer than the soft home-baked kind, which is no disadvantage next to melting ice cream.
- YieldThree halves per person, so one jar serves three or four depending on its size.
This is the kind of page that shows what a well-stocked fruit pantry was for. Home canning in glass jars with screw or clamp lids was widely practised in households by the 1890s, and a summer's peaches put up in heavy syrup were a year-round resource — the author's closing line about cost treats the jar as already paid for, an asset on the shelf rather than a purchase. Ice cream, meanwhile, is generally said to have moved from luxury to weeknight possibility with the hand-crank freezer and reliable delivered ice, which is why a pint of cream can be spoken of so casually. The ladyfinger alongside is the older convention: a light sponge finger served with iced and creamed desserts throughout the nineteenth century.