should not be cooked at a higher temperature in making desserts than
when they are being poached. Then, again, starchy materials that are
used to thicken desserts or that form a basis for these dishes must be
thoroughly cooked in order to be agreeable and digestible. Therefore, to
put both starchy materials and eggs into a dessert at the same time and
give them the same amount of cooking at the same temperature, is, as the
woman who understands cookery knows, not only a very poor plan, but a
possible means of ruining good material. Another waste of good material
results when a custard is so prepared that it is half water or when a
rice or a bread pudding floats in liquid that was never intended to be
served with it. Again, nothing is less tasty than a corn-starch pudding
or a blanc mange in which the starch has not been thoroughly cooked or a
tapioca pudding in which the centers of the tapioca are hard and
uncooked. Such mistakes as these, however, can be avoided if the
housewife will apply to desserts the principles she has learned in other
parts of cookery, for knowledge coupled with care in preparation is the
keynote of successful dessert making.

The cookery methods usually applied in the preparation of desserts are
boiling, steaming, dry steaming, and baking. As these methods are
explained in _Essentials of Cookery_, Part 1, and are used constantly in
the preparation of the majority of dishes served in a meal, they should
by this time be so well understood that practically no difficulty will
be experienced in applying them to desserts.

* * * * *


COLD DESSERTS AND THEIR PREPARATION