Freezing

Patented freezers sometimes carry with them directions for their use.

In breaking the ice for freezing, a duck or canvas bag and hammer or mallet should be used. Or the ice may be chopped or shaved. When the ice is in small pieces, pack it in the pail or tub about the can which holds the mixture to be frozen, putting in alternate layers of ice and rock salt. The proportions of ice and salt depend a little upon what you are going to freeze and the quality of the ice commonly the less salt the slower the freezing. Ice cream takes a shorter time than water ices. But you want ice cream smooth, while fruit and water ices are granulated. Therefore, since the slower the freezing the smoother, the best general rule for proportion is onethird of rock salt to twothirds of ice. Of different kinds of ices, the wet, porous snow ice is best, because its dampness and porous quality allow an easy union with the salt. Ice cream is smoother if stirred during the first part of its freezing, allowing an hour and a half to two hours for the whole process.

Ice Shaver.

Guard against any salt getting into the can. Until the stirring is over, pack the ice to within an inch of the top of the freezer. After the stirring, tie a firm band of cloth about the rim of the can and cover the top with ice and salt, to complete the freezing. While this is finishing, lay a piece of blanket or carpet over the freezer.

In packing a mixture to keep it frozen, or to chill thoroughly, use less salt than the proportion named above.

Freezing Without A Freezer

If one is without a freezer, cream or sherbet may be frozen in a tin pail covered and set in a larger pail or tub packed with three parts of cracked ice and one part rock salt The cream in the pail should be scraped from the sides toward the middle and beaten together during the first of the freezing. The pail should also be turned round from side to side several times at intervals.

Salt In Freezer

Do not throw away the salt which remains in the freezer after ice cream has been made. The salt will do for the next freezing. If it is slushy and wet, use it for top layer in the next freezing, and thus hasten the chilling.

Bag For Pounding Ice

White duck makes a good bag. Cut it about fourteen inches long; one width of duck, one yard wide, will make two bags. Stitch the bag together with a sewing machine. Make a hem on the top one inch wide. Cut a strip of the duck two inches wide. Double and stitch it together. This is for the handle. Fasten it tight on either side of the bag, in the center.

How To Make Meringue Shells

Beat the white of an egg with a knife to a stiff froth. Add little by little a teacup of granulated sugar. Lay a clean, strong paper on an inverted dripping pan, and on the paper drop the meringue with a large spoon. Set the pan in the top of the oven and leave the door open. In half or threequarters of an hour the shells will dry out. These meringue shells are filled with ice cream and served one on a plate to each guest.

How to Make Ice Cream

Dissolve thoroughly quarter of a box of gelatine in a little water. To it dissolved, put two quarts of cream, the beaten whites of two eggs, a cup and threefourths of sugar, and half a teaspoon of salt. Flavor with what is to your taste, and freeze.

Simple Ice Creams For Children

A simple way to make ice cream for children is to mix a cup of sugar, a pinch of salt, and two and a half tablespoons of flour, and pour over the mixture a pint of hot milk. Set the whole in a doubleboiler and cook a full quarter of an hour, at the end adding a beaten egg, a cup of cream, and a pint of milk with whatever flavoring you choose.

If vanilla, add a full tablespoon and a half.

If strawberry or raspberry, crush a box of berries, sprinkle with sugar till quite sweet, stand long enough to draw out some of the juice, and then add to the cream before freezing.

If peach, peel and stone a large quart of peaches, sugar well, crush and add to the cream before freezing.

If banana, skin three or four bananas, crush, add a sprinkle of sugar and the juice of half a lemon, and put in the cream before freezing.

If chocolate, add scraped chocolate to the boiling plain ice cream till you have the quantity suited to your taste. In the event of adding unsweetened chocolate, extra sugar should be put in.

Burned Almond Ice Cream

Sweeten to your taste a custard of four eggs and a pint of milk. Take half a pound of blanched almonds and brown them in a saucepan with six tablespoons of sugar. Pound to a paste and add little by little a quart of cream. Mix with the custard and put in the freezer. After it is frozen pack it in a mold or serve without molding.

Almond And Raisin Frozen Pudding

Boil one cup of sugar in a cup of water till the sugar begins to thread. Move where it will merely simmer, and stir in gradually the yolks of four eggs which have been beaten. Let boil till quite thick. Take from the fire and beat till cool. Then add a tablespoon of gelatine soaked in two tablespoons of water and beat till thick. Stir in a pint of boiled cream, a cup of ground almonds, half a cup of seeded raisins, pack in a freezer and freeze. Instead of raisins candied orange peel may be used, or preserved pineapple. This pudding may be served plain, or with a sauce of whipped cream flavored to the taste.