The "Queen" cookery books: Ices

this all through a sieve or tammy ; you now mix this with the egg whites and the syiup as before, flavouring it with a good tablespoonful of orange flower water, and colouring it to a pretty pistachio green with vegetable colouring ; finish as in the preceding recipe, adding to it some blanched and chopped pistachios. These make a delicious centre for any soi-t of ice ; for instance, fill a strawberry water, ice-lined plain or egg-shaped mould with the spongada alia Toledo, close it up and freeze for three hours or so ; or make the spongada by the second almond recipe, using blanched pistachios instead of the sweet almonds ; hne a melon or any nice shaped mould an inch thick with cherry or raspberry water ice, and fill up with the green spongada, and finish asbefore. Coffee Spongada. — Have ready half a pint of black Mocha coffee, in which you have dissolved 4oz. to 8oz. of sugar (this is a matter of taste), aud when cold stir into it a gill of unwhipped egg whites and a quart of stiffly whipped cream, run it through a sieve into the freezer, and proceed as directed above, adding just before serving a little more sugar syrup and a glassful of cognac, and finish off. Apricot Spongada. — Peel and stone sufficient apricots tcf produce, when sieved, one and a quarter pints of pulp, add to it the whites of six unwhipped eggs, and one and a quarter pints of sugar syrup, boiled to 38 degrees, strain it all into the freezing pot, and add just at the last a good liqueur-glassful of noyeau and sugar syrup, or simply use noyeau syrup. Finish off in the usual way. Any very finely sieved frnit pulp can be used in this way. Maraschino Spongada. — Dissolve lOoz. of sugar in a quart of whipped cream, and when quite melted stir to it the whites of enough eggs to fill a giU, and half a pint of maraschino ; strain into the freezer and proceed as before, adding a little more maraschino at the last. Any liqueur can be used in this way ; Curacao, for instance, is very good thus, but the cream should be faintly tinted with saffron or apricot yellow. Strawberry Spongada. — Stalk a quart of strawberries, and sprinkle them well with 3oz. or 4oz. of •caster sugar, then crush them through a fine sieve. Have ready a syrup made by boiling together 4oz. of loaf sugar and half a pint of water for twenty minutes, and beat this into the strawberry pulp for five minutes, working it over ice ; then stir in quickly and lightly the frothed whites of four eggs und a pint of stiffly whipped cream, and freeze in the usual way. This is not, strictly speaking, a spongada, though it goes by that name. As a matter of fact, a clever cook can prepare these frothy ices with any flavourings or purees to taste, but they are not altogether easy to make successfully, and take too much time and trouble for the average cook ; so it is unnecessary to multiply recipes for spongadas in this book, which is primarily intended for the average household, and not for one which can afford to keep a first-rate chef with many assistants ; while, if the cook likes, and can succeed in these ices, the above hints will be sufficient to enable her to vary their nature indefinitely. CHAPTER IX. CHAELOTTES AND aATEAUX GLACES, &c.