13. GILDING THE LILY: DESSERTS

Because most everyone is trying to eat their cake and re­tain their waistlines, too, few people eat desserts these days . . . and for all but the most impressive occasions, the quick-cook can stop dead with the salad. Coffee and liqueurs will suffice to round off the carte du jour.

Still, it's a pity to overlook the seasonal goodies of fresh fruits, and today's commercial ice creams and sherbets pos­sess few calories (being mostly full of substitutes like gela­tine unless rigidly controlled by State food laws).

Just as the salad is intended to cleanse the gourmet's taste-buds, so the dessert course has a real reason for existence, and should not be ignored. We no longer have the sweet-tooth that delights in cloying rich desserts—but fresh fruits in wine, or plain ice cream with a touch of good liqueur really do restore a taste balance after the hearty main dish.

For the sake of our diets, a gourmet cook does not serve cakes or pies or steamed puddings with brandied hard sauce except on great holiday occasions . . . but again, all de­pends upon the menu as a whole, for if the main part of the meal is extremely simple and plain, without rich sauces, Crapes Suzette will be the focal point of the dinner, toward which every other dish has tended.

Any gourmet cook knows a dozen different combinations of fresh seasonal fruits, to be served with red wine, white wine, sherry, a dash of brandy or rum, or any good liqueur that happens to be at hand. Defrosted frozen fruits are ex­cellent for this sort of dessert.

Similarly, any sort of plain ice cream may be topped by fresh or defrosted frozen fruits, or fruits from a tin—or by a tablespoon of good liqueur. A standard combination is Creme de Cacao dribbled over coffee ice cream.

And although modern diners often say "No dessert, thank you," it is a fact that many of the greatest desserts of tradi­tional gastronomy are utterly simple, uncloying, and easy on the waistline!

POIRES HELENE

This is simply well-drained tinned pears placed on vanilla ice cream, and covered with warm chocolate sauce.

PECHE MELBA

Place half a peach atop vanilla ice cream and cover with a raspberry sauce (Escoffier's Sauce Melba).

STRAWBERRIES ROMANOFF (2-Step Cookery— but all on one evening)

Here is a fancy dessert to be easily finished at the last mo­ment—after the main course dishes are removed, and while guests are chatting, and digesting, in anticipation of dessert.

1½ quarts fresh ripe hulled strawberries(or 3 defrosted frozen packages)

Juice of a lemon

½ cup Cointreau

2 T sugar(or a little more, depending on ripeness of berries)

1 cup heavy cream, whipped stiff

1 pint vanilla ice cream

Step #2

Clean strawberries, and slice if large; cover with sugar and 2 T Cointreau. Chill.

Allow the ice cream to defrost slightly—put it in the bot­tom part of the refrigerator instead of the ice compartment

Step #2:

With an electric beater, whip the cream stiff. In another bowl, slightly whip the vanilla ice cream; fold in the whipped cream, add lemon juice and remaining Cointreau and blend smooth.

Pour the whipped ice cream over strawberries in a pretty serving dish, and bring to the table at once.

MERINGUE GLACE

4 pairs of meringue shells (make these yourself, perhaps

—to use up the accumulation of egg whites!) ice cream fruit, or liqueur, or special sauce

Despite the fancy name, a meringue glac6 is simple: flank a small serving of suitable ice cream with a pair of meringue shells, and dribble sauce on top.

The combination depends on your imagination; tradition­ally, fudge sauce is used on vanilla ice cream—but why not try a tablespoon of Cointreau over peach ice cream, or fresh strawberries over raspberry ice?

If you couple meringues with ice cream, and top by plain sweetened whipped cream—nothing else—it is a Meringue Chantilly.

MERINGUES take an hour to bake, but the recipe is in­cluded because you will have to do something with all those egg whites that accumulate from fancy French sauces.

2 egg whites

½ cup sugar

½ tsp vanilla or any desired flavoring(almond, maple, etc.)

Beat egg whites until very stiff and dry; add the sugar slowly beating constantly until the mixture holds its shape. Add remaining sugar and flavoring and form into neat little mounds on a cookie sheet covered with waxed paper. The mixture spreads, so do not make the mounds too large.

Bake about 50 minutes in a very slow oven (250).

WARNING: this makes between 18 and 22 meringues . . . they can be eaten as cookies, but otherwise your family may grow very tired of Meringue Glace, Meringue Chantilly, and so on.

ZABAGLIONE

Italian wine-custard which may be served by itself, either hot or cold—or may be used as a sauce for other desserts. French cooks call this Sabayon.

8 egg yolks

4 heaping tablespoons of vanilla sugar(or plain sugar with ¼ tsp vanilla extract)

¼ cup Marsala wine

Combine in a double boiler over a very hot fire, beating constantly with a rotary egg beater until the mixture thickens to the consistency of thick cream.

Serve hot, by itself ... or poured over chilled drained fruits (peaches, apricots, Kadota figs) ... or over crumbled stale cake (sponge, pound cake, or any cake from which icing has been removed).

If you make it the previous evening and chill overnight, serve with a garnish of sliced Maraschino cherries and a teaspoon of Kirsch, Couryoisier or Grand Marnier floating on top—or use it for

TIPSY PUDDING

Place stale cake crumbs in serving dishes and sprinkle with a tablespoon or two of sherry, or brandy, or suitable liqueur.

Cover with Zabaglione, and chill.

Decorate with Maraschino cherry bits, and a teaspoon of whatever liqueur was used on the stale cake.

DESSERT SOUFFLES

These are far simpler than the main dish variety, princi­pally because the chef has a "captive audience" awaiting the masterpiece: guests are already at table while the souffle bakes off-stage, and all that is required for a fabulous effect is a clever hostess, able to control conversation so the first courses are finished and cleared away within 25-30 minutes.

Unless you have an exceptionally voluble guest, you may dare to produce either of the following as a superelegant gar­nish for even the humblest meal.

CHOCOLATE SOUFLE

2 squares bitter chocolate

2 T water

3 T sugar

4 eggs, separated(plus an extra egg white)

Melt chocolate, water and sugar in a double boiler until x smooth. Remove from heat and add egg yolks one at a time, stirring very vigorously. Beat the egg whites very stiff, and fold into the chocolate mixture delicately. Finally, pile in a generously buttered baking dish, and place in the oven for 20-25 minutes at moderate (375) heat. Serve with whipped cream, flavored with dark rum.

If you like, you may also add 2 tablespoons of the dark Jamaica rum as you fold in the egg whites.

For this dish, do not skimp the butter on the casserole dish, as it is the butter that will set the mixture and force it upwards.

LEMON SOUFFLE

5 eggs, separated

1 lemon – grated rind and juice

¾ cup of sugar

Beat egg yolks until very thick, adding sugar gradually. Add lemon rind and juice. Beat egg whites very stiff; cut and fold into lemon mixtures, pour into a generously buttered souffle dish, and bake 20-25 minutes in a moderate oven.

CHAFING DISH desserts are a boon to the quick gourmet cook: enormously impressive to guests and delightfully sim­ple to create.

It is an odd fact that hungry people will happily wait for as much as an hour to dine ... so long as they can see the food being prepared before them!

CHERRIES JUBILEE can be duplicated with any fruit you happen to have around—to dress up a meal of leftovers with the final fancy touch. Best of all, the dessert course can be forgotten until the last moment—provided you know what you are going to use for it.

2 cups Bing cherries  Vanilla ice cream for 4 serv-

2 ounces of Kirsch (or good ings brandy)

Heat cherries in their juice in the top of a chafing dish; add the Kirsch (or brandy), light with a match and stir until the flames die. Serve over vanilla ice cream.

Here is one of the great basic recipes which is capable of infinite permutations and combinations!

For all flaming fruits over ice cream, brandy is acceptable —but there will be an extra flavor if a fruit liqueur is also used. Fresh peaches in their juice, extended by peach brandy and flamed with 2 ounces of Armagnac, served over coffee ice cream—or defrosted packages of raspberries or straw­berries, brandy-flamed and served with fresh peach ice cream. . . . Make up your own personal combinations, com­bining whatever is in the liqueur closet with a suitable fruit.

CREPES SUZETTE

Thin pancakes in a flaming liqueur sauce. This is Henri Charpentier's own recipe—and as he invented the dish in Monte Carlo in 1898 for HRH Edward, Prince of Wales, it is unquestionably definitive . . . but not impossible to re­create.

The real difficulty in making perfect crepes Suzette is to make tender pancakes. The sauce should be made in advance, and allowed to mature. In fact, if you can master the art of the pancakes, you may dare to make the sauce in large quan­tities. It will keep almost indefinitely in the refrigerator.

CREPES

2 eggs 

2 Tmilk

2 T flour

a pinch of salt

1 T cream

Mix this very smooth; it should be the consistency of thick olive oil. Cook the crepes in an iron 6-inch pan, using a tea­spoon of butter for each pancake. Use only enough batter to thin-coat the bottom of the pan; about a tablespoon or two is usually ample. The cooking process requires a deft hand and considerable authority; your first effort may well be de­pressing, but persevere, and you will quickly get the hang of it!

The crapes need only a minute or two to brown, then should be quickly flipped over—Henri Charpentier, origina­tor of the recipe, is still (at the age of 80) able to keep two iron skiUets in operation simultaneously, and to flip his cre*pes in the air like a short-order cook with a Western omelette, talking all the while of la haute cuisine.

Sauce:

2 oranges

1 lemon

4 T vanilla sugar

⅛ lb butter

1 tsp orange blossom water

2 ponies each: kirsch, white curacao, rum

1 pony maraschino

Cut the orange and lemon peel in julienne strips, and squeeze and strain the juice. Combine with sugar and butter in a pan, bring to a boil. Add orange blossom water and liqueurs; again bring to a boil and remove from fire.

FINAL SERVICE

In a chafing dish, heat enough of the sauce to cover the desired servings (1 cup is ample for serving 4).

Make 3 crepes per serving. As each crepe is cooked, fold in half and remove to a warm plate. Place the crapes, three at a time, in the hot sauce. Turn and baste with the hot sauce, fold into quarters and stack around the outside of the chafing dish as you add the next three crapes. When all have been covered with the sauce, combine 1 pony of each liqueur used in the sauce; add to the chafing dish, heat for 1 minute and flame, turning and twisting the pan so all the crepes are well coated with the flaming sauce. When the flames die, serve quickly on pre-heated plates.

* Place a vanilla bean in a pound of granulated sugar, in a tight-capped glass jar, and store for several weeks until sugar is impregnated.

FROSTED GRAPES (2-Step Cookery)

A blending of chilled fruits with honey, liqueur brandy and sour cream. This dessert must be chilled overnight in order to blend its flavors.

1 pound seedless grapes

½ cup honey

2 T each of good Cognac brandy and lemon juice

1 pint of sour cream

Wash and pick over the grapes, removing all stems. Place in a serving bowl, pour over the honey, brandy and lemon juice. Mix well and place in the refrigerator. Stir occasionally (before you go to bed, and once or twice in the morning while you are having coffee . . .). Stir again while you are preparing the main dinner courses—and finally place in des­sert dishes, topped with a half cup of sour cream for each portion.

MOLASSES CAKE

Lightly spiced and not too rich, this recipe can be put together very rapidly—and left to bake while first courses are served. Serve hot from the oven, with a pitcher of heavy plain cream or a spoonful of vanilla ice cream.

2 T butter

½ cup brown sugar

1 egg

½ cup molasses

½ cup sour cream

1 T cinnamon

1 tsp baking soda dissolved in a tablespoon of warm water

1 scant cup of flour

Cream butter and sugar together, add beaten egg. Com­bine baking soda mixture with molasses (never add soda di­rectly to sour cream!) Add molasses to butter-sugar-egg and blend; add cinnamon, sour cream, and finally the sifted flour, mixing thoroughly but not beating too hard. Pour into a greased 6" square pan and bake in a medium (375) oven for 20 minutes.

APPLE DESSERT

4 large cooking apples, pared, cored and sliced thickly

4 T vanilla sugar

¼ cup butter

5 slices buttered toast, each cut into 3 strips

2 ponies brandy, rum or whisky

¼ cup melted butter

sugar

Simmer the apple slices in ¼ cup butter, sprinkle with 2 T vanilla sugar, over medium heat until half-cooked. Mean­while, make the toast, butter it, and cut into strips. Place a third of the toast strips on the bottom of a buttered cas­serole, cover with half the apples; cover with another third of the toast strips—placed so they are at right angles to the bottom layer—the remainder of the apples, and top with re­maining toast strips placed parallel to the ones at the bottom of the dish. Sprinkle with 2 T vanilla sugar and ¼ cup melted butter.

Bake 15 minutes in 400 oven.

Warm the brandy, rum or whiskey (not scotch or gin), flame and pour over the dish before serving.

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