Home › Fancy Dishes › Almond Cream
Almond Cream
Blanch a quarter of a pound of sweet almonds; pound in a mortar; add six ounces of white sugar and mix them well with the yolks of four eggs beaten light. Dissolve one ounce of Cox' gelatine in a quart of boiling milk; strain and pour it into the other ingredients; stir it all over a moderate fire until sufficiently thick and smooth. Pour into your mould and keep until needed. When ready to serve, plunge the mould in warm water; wipe the mould and turn out the cream carefully upon your dish.
A gelatine-set almond custard in the blancmange family, turned out of a mould. The whole thing hinges on temperature: once the eggs are in, the mixture must thicken without ever boiling.
- Do not let it boil"Stir over a moderate fire until sufficiently thick and smooth" means cooking a custard to roughly 170-175F, when it coats a spoon. Past that the yolks scramble and no amount of straining will make it smooth again.
- Cox' gelatineJ. & G. Cox of Edinburgh sold a "sparkling gelatine" that was a household standard, generally in packeted sheets or flakes. One ounce is about four modern envelopes, which gives a stiff, sliceable mould that will stand up on a dish; two envelopes to the quart makes something closer to a modern panna cotta if you prefer a softer set.
- Weights in cupsA quarter pound of blanched almonds is about three-quarters of a cup of whole nuts; six ounces of sugar is a scant cup. A quart of milk is four cups.
- Pounding the almondsA food processor replaces the mortar, but almonds ground dry turn oily and gritty. Pulse them with a spoonful of the sugar, or a little of the cold milk, to keep the paste fine.
- StrainingStrain after the gelatine has dissolved in the hot milk, and strain again after the custard thickens. Ground almonds leave enough coarse residue to spoil the texture, and the second pass catches any threads of set egg.
- "Keep until needed"At the time that meant a cold larder or the icebox. Refrigerate, covered, at least four to six hours for a full set, and eat within two days -- it is a lightly cooked egg custard.
- The mouldRinse the mould with cold water or wipe it with a neutral oil before filling. To unmould, dip in warm (not hot) water for only ten to fifteen seconds; longer and the outer layer slumps.
- YieldA quart of milk plus eggs and almonds fills a 1.5-quart mould and serves six to eight.
Almond cream belongs to the long line of European almond puddings that runs back through blancmange to medieval cookery, when ground almonds and almond milk were staples of both fast-day and feast-day tables. What marks this version as late nineteenth century is the gelatine: instead of relying on calf's-foot jelly or isinglass, which had to be rendered and clarified at home, the cook reaches for a packaged commercial product and is told the brand. J. & G. Cox of Edinburgh were among the best-known suppliers of refined sheet and powdered gelatine in the English-speaking world, and American cookbooks of the period often name Cox's or Nelson's the way a modern recipe might specify a particular chocolate -- gelatine strengths varied enough that the brand may well have been practical information as much as advertising. A moulded cream turned out whole was display food: cheap in ingredients, impressive on the table, and dependent on a cook steady enough to keep a custard off the boil.