Strawberry Parfait

A one-line variation that assumes you have the coffee parfait recipe in front of you. A parfait in this book is a still-frozen dessert — a sweetened egg-and-syrup base folded into whipped cream and frozen in a covered mould without stirring — not the layered glass of yogurt and granola the word now suggests.

• A cupful of juiceEight fluid ounces of strained juice takes roughly 1½ to 2 lb of ripe strawberries, crushed with a little sugar and left to stand half an hour before straining. Underripe or greenhouse berries give thin, pale juice and a weak parfait.
• Strain means strainPush the crushed fruit through a fine sieve or jelly bag and leave the seeds and pulp behind for a smoother frozen texture.
• Add the juice coldAcid can curdle cream, and a warm base will slacken whipped cream. Cool the base thoroughly, stir in the juice, then fold in the whipped cream last.
• Reduce the liquid, not the sugarYou are adding a cup of thin liquid where the original had coffee, so keep the sugar in the base as written. Sugar is what keeps a still-frozen mixture soft enough to spoon; cutting it gives you a brick.
• Freezing without a churnIn a modern freezer, pack the mixture into a covered mould or loaf tin, press plastic wrap onto the surface, and give it four to six hours. It should not be stirred — the whipped cream is doing the work an ice-cream churn would otherwise do.
• The egg baseTurn-of-the-century parfait bases were often made by pouring hot syrup over beaten yolks, which cooks them only partially. If you are serving anyone who should avoid undercooked egg, use pasteurized yolks or cook the base over water to 160F before chilling.
• ColourStrawberry juice pales once diluted with cream and frozen. Recipes of the period sometimes call for a drop of vegetable colouring; the alternative is simply to accept a pale, pinkish-cream parfait.