Melt in a dry pan four ounces of Baker"s chocolate, or of cocoa. Boil one and three quarter cupfuls of sugar with a cupful of water till it threads when dropped from the spoon, the same as for boiled icing. Turn it slowly onto the chocolate, stirring all the time. Use this icing for dipping eclairs and small cakes, and for layer cakes. Chocolate icing loses its gloss when at all stale.

=CHOCOLATE ICING No. 3=

Melt one ounce of chocolate; dilute it with two tablespoonfuls of milk; add two tablespoonfuls of sugar and a quarter teaspoonful of b.u.t.ter; stir till smooth and spread on the cake.

=ICING FOR SMALL CAKES=

Stir into confectioner"s sugar enough syrup of thirty degrees (see page 513) to dissolve it; add fruit-juice or liqueur to flavor it. When ready to use, heat it, stirring all the time, and stand it in a pan of hot water while the cakes are dipped into it.

=COFFEE ICING FOR eCLAIRS=

Make the same as the one given above, using very strong coffee or coffee essence to color and flavor it. Use enough sugar to make a soft flowing icing, and dip the cakes into it while it is hot.

=FONDANT ICING=

This is the best of all icings. It is soft and glossy, and is used especially for small cakes and eclairs. If the fondant is already made, it gives very little trouble. To make fondant see page 514. It will keep in tight preserve jars any length of time. Fondant does not work so well after it has been melted two or three times, therefore it is better to take only the amount to be used for one flavor or color at a time. Place it in a cup and stand it in a pan of boiling water. Stir the fondant constantly while it is melting, or it will become a clear liquid. It will soften at a low degree of heat; add the flavoring and coloring and dip the cakes into it. If it becomes too hard, add a few drops of syrup at thirty-four degrees (see page 513). When liqueurs are used for flavoring, add a drop or two at a time only, or they will dilute it too much. Should this occur, add a little more fondant to the cup.

Maraschino, curacao, kirsch, orange-flower water, rose, almond, and coffee essences make good flavorings for fancy-cake icings.

GARNISHING CAKES

WITH POWDERED SUGAR

[Sidenote: In lines or squares.]

The simplest of all garnishings is to sprinkle the cake with powdered sugar; strips of paper can be laid over the cake before it is dusted, so as to give lines or squares of white over the top; stencils for this purpose are easily cut, giving circles or diamonds.

WITH CHOPPED NUTS

[Sidenote: Almonds, walnuts, or pistachio nuts.]

Brush the cake with white of egg and then sprinkle with nuts chopped or sliced fine; or the cake may be lightly coated with a red jelly or jam, and then sprinkled with chopped nuts.

WITH COLORED SUGARS

Cover the cake with royal icing, and before it hardens sprinkle it with red and green colored sugar (see page 393).

It may be put on in dots or sprinkled evenly over the whole.

WITH TWO COLORS

Loaf cake may be iced in sections of alternate colors. To do this, place a strip of stiff paper upright between the colors while spreading them, and remove it carefully as soon as the icing is on. This will give a clean, sharp line. Cakes iced with chocolate or with boiled icing may be ornamented with fine lines of royal icing.

TO DECORATE IN DESIGNS

[Sidenote: To practise elaborate designs.]

Place royal icing in a pastry bag having a tube with small opening. Press the icing through slowly, following any design one may have in view. Points may be p.r.i.c.ked in the flat icing at regular intervals as a guide. It requires some practice to acquire the facility for making very elaborate designs, but straight lines, dots, and circles around the cake are easy to make, and with these a great variety of combinations can be made. Tubes of various-shaped openings are made to give different forms to the icing pressed through them. If one cares to practise making fancy decorations, draw a design on a paper or slab and follow the lines with icing; sc.r.a.pe off the icing when it is done, and repeat the operation until familiar enough with the design to be able to make it without a guide.

CHAPTER XXII

FROZEN DESSERTS

ICE-CREAMS, WATER-ICES, PARFAITS, MOUSSES, FROZEN FRUITS, PUNCHES, AND SHERBETS

Frozen desserts are the most acceptable of any that can be presented in the summer-time, and at any season they are served and expected at dinner entertainments.

[Sidenote: Comparative trouble and expense.]

The trouble of making them is not greater than that of making any dessert of the same cla.s.s, and the expense no more than any dessert using the same amount of eggs and cream; thus a plain ice-cream is the same as a custard, a mousse the same as whipped cream, etc.

Parfaits are especially delicious creams, and as they require no stirring while freezing are very quickly and easily made. The freezing of ice-creams which require stirring is accomplished in twenty to twenty-five minutes, and is much easier work than beating eggs for cake. In fact, the whole process of making ice-creams is easier than that of making cake, but the latter is so generally practised that nothing is thought of it. It will be the same with ice-cream if the habit is once formed. They have the advantage over hot desserts that they require no attention at dinner-time.

CLa.s.sIFICATION OF ICE-CREAMS

Philadelphia ice-creams are cream sweetened, flavored, and stirred while freezing.

French ice-creams are custards of different degrees of richness stirred while freezing.

Parfaits, biscuits, and mousses are whipped cream, with or without eggs, frozen without stirring.

Water-ices are fruit-juices sweetened with sugar syrup, stirred while freezing.

Punches and sherbets are water-ices with liquors mixed with them either before or after they are frozen.

[Sidenote: Fancy creams.]

These creams, in different degrees of richness and with different flavorings, give an infinite variety, and their combinations and forms of molding give all the fancy ices.

GENERAL RULES FOR MAKING ICE-CREAMS--TO PREPARE ICE-CREAM MIXTURES

[Sidenote: The cream.]