IN THE KITCHEN

Some sweet dishes. So, to please some readers, let's move from "serious" to "mild" and indicate dessert recipes.

First here is the (requested) recipe for :

French toast also known as crusted bread or, what is more noble, “golden crust”.
This very old dessert is prepared with stale bread or, what is better, with stale brioche. Cut the brioche into 1cm thick slices. Soak them in cold, sweetened vanilla milk.
A few moments before serving, dip the brioche slices in omelette-beaten and sweetened eggs. Cook them in clarified butter in a pan, browning them well on each side. Place on a hot dish and sprinkle with vanilla sugar.

Montmorency golden crusts:
Prepare the crusts as directed in the previous recipe. Arrange them in a circle on a hot dish. Garnish the middle of the dish with pitted cherries stewed with sugar and a little water.

Tapioca pudding:
Pour 125 grams of tapioca into half a liter of boiling milk with 65 grams of sugar, a pinch of salt and 50 grams of butter. Mix well and cook in the oven over low heat for twenty-five minutes.
Incorporate into the composition, off the heat, three egg yolks, two spoonfuls of butter and, at the last moment, three egg whites whipped until very stiff.
Pour this mixture into a cylinder mold, generously buttered and sprinkled with raw tapioca.
Poach in a bain-marie for approximately twenty-five minutes. Leave to rest for a few minutes before unmolding. Serve with sabayon, vanilla cream or fruit sauce flavored with kirsch or rum.

Devilled Cherries: It is a little premature to give this recipe now. But, with the cherries being close, our readers will be able to run it soon. Steam the pitted cherries, that is to say with sugar and very little water. Drain them and arrange them in small hollow crusts cut from stale sandwich bread (called English bread) or, what is better, in brioche bread (called Réjanc bread) lightly browned with butter. Place the crusts on a buttered dish; sprinkle with chopped blanched almonds and powdered sugar. Brown lightly in the oven. Sprinkle with kirsch and flambé while serving. Serve with the cherry cooking juice bound with a little starch and flavored with kirsch.

Finally, here is the exact formula for Strawberry Melba. This recipe, due, as we know, to Maître Escoffier, was requested by a reader.
Garnish the bottom of a silver tumbler (or crystal bowl) with vanilla ice cream. Place hulled strawberries on this layer of ice. Top with a few spoonfuls of thick, slightly sweetened raspberry pulp.

PROSPER MONTAGNE.