Historic Cooking: Fourth of July Pudding from 1916.

Fourth of July Pudding.  Photo: Liz Raven.

The Redone Challenge: Today in History (June 29-July 12, 2014) Make a dish based on or inspired by a momentous occasion that took place on the day you made it. Get creative - you would be surprised by all the interesting things that happened every single day!

The Recipe:

A Fourth of July Luncheon. To be served buffet style or on the porch.  By Cora Farmer Perkins.

FOURTH OF JULY PUDDING: Pick over, wash and hull one quart box of strawberries.  Sprinkle with one cupful of granulated sugar, cover, and let stand two hours.  Mash, squeeze through a double thickness of cheesecloth, and add one cupful of cold water, and lemon juice to taste.  Turn mixture into a brick mold.  Beat one pint of heavy cream until stiff and add one-half cupful of powdered sugar, one-half tablespoonful of vanilla, a few grains of salt, and two thirds of a cupful of rolled dried macaroons.  Pour cream mixture over fruit mixture to overflow mold.  Cover with buttered paper (buttered side up) and adjust cover, when mixture should be forced down sides of mold.  Pack in rock salt and finely crushed ice, using equal parts, and let stand three hours.

            Remove to chilled serving dish, garnish with selected strawberries, and cut in slices for serving.

--from _Woman’s Home Companion_, July 1916. 

The Date/Year and Region: the United States, 1916. 

Making strawberry ice cream the Victorian way: without a freezer!

image from BryBackManor.com

I got 3 pints of strawberries at the farmer's market last week, and they've been sitting in the fridge since I brought the home!  A bunch of great strawberries that will go bad if I don't do something with them *right now* is a great motivator to get into the kitchen!  But the house is too hot to make jam, and berries this ripe shouldn't be cooked (much) anyway, I think.  Ice cream sounds good, but I don't have an ice cream maker.  There is a popular recipe for making ice cream without a machine, but it involves cooking an egg custard, and taking the mixture out of the freezer to stir it around every 30 minutes for 2 to 3 hours.  I think I have a better idea (although it will make more of a semifreddo instead of a soft ice cream texture)!

"Strawberry Ice Cream.--Mix one pound of strawberry juice, strained and sweetened, with one pint of whipped cream; if to be frozen in a mould, add a little isinglass, melted and strained.  If to be eaten in glasses, isinglass is not necessary."  From The Good Housekeeper, by Lydia Maria Child, 1841.

Now, I am not going to do this exactly as Mrs. Child directs (I can't leave well enough alone).  I'm not using isinglass (a kind of gelatin) for one thing.  I'm also not using strained strawberry juice; I'm going to mash the strawberries with the sugar, and fold them into the whipped cream.  Then I'm going to line a baking dish with plastic wrap, pour the mixture in, and just freeze it.  I also inherited some fancy Jello-molds from my grandma so I may line some of them with plastic and make little molded ice creams for fun!  

How about some frozen lemon curd and cream?

image from PublicDomainPhotos.com

It has been so hot this last week that I came up with a frozen dessert recipe! Now, I love ice cream but I don't have an ice cream maker, so I am usually able to control my ice cream consumption by only purchasing one small pint of real ice cream every once in a while, and keeping fat-free fudgesicles or popsicles in the freezer for the rest of the time. But now, there is real ice cream danger!

In preparing for the South Bay Ladies' Tea Guild's Tea with Rhys Bowen, I made a bunch of lemon curd and stirred it into whipped cream, to use as a filling for miniature tarts, topped with fresh berries. I ended up making much more than I needed for the tarts, and the rest of it sat in the fridge for several days until I was afraid it would go bad. Then, it struck me: lemon curd freezes well, so will this lemon curd cream freeze well? Boy, does it ever! Especially if you put it in popsicle molds! The danger is, it's too easy, so I'll be making (and eating) this more than I should! Here's how you make frozen lemon curd cream:

2 pints heavy whipping cream (organic, if you can get it)

2 cups homemade lemon curd (I used Meyer lemon curd)

Whip the cream to soft peaks, then slowly drizzle the lemon curd from a spoon (homemade will do this, you'll have to soften it if you use store-bought) over the cream as you continue to beat it. After you have beaten in the first cup of lemon curd, slow down the beating as you drizzle in the rest of the curd. The cream will not whip to stiff peaks, but should retain a light, mousse-like consistency. Use to fill tart shells, topped with sugared fresh berries, or fill re-usable popsicle molds or the small bathroom-sized Dixie cups. Insert popsicle sticks into the center of each lemon cream-filled mold, cover with plastic wrap, and freeze solid.

To serve, remove from the freezer, remove plastic wrap, run warm water over the outside of the mold to loosen the frozen pop, remove from the mold and enjoy! You can also just spoon the unfrozen lemon curd cream into a sealable freezer container, and freeze until slushy, and then serve. You'll have to break it up if you let it freeze solid, but the heavy cream in it will keep it from getting too hard. How easy is that? Dangerously easy!