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Italian Cream
Soak one box of Cox' gelatine in a pint of cold water. Sweeten one quart of fresh cream; add to gelatine and season with lemons. Put in a cold place. When firm eat with cream, seasoned with wine.
A cold cream jelly of the plainest sort, written for cooks who already knew how gelatine behaves. The instructions leave out the one step it cannot do without.
- Dissolve the gelatine, don't just soak itSoaking in cold water only swells the granules; they will never set a quart of cream unless the mixture is then warmed until completely clear, with no grains visible on the back of a spoon. Warm the soaked gelatine gently over low heat or in a bowl of hot water, then stir it into the sweetened cream. If it goes in cold and lumpy the dessert will separate into a rubbery layer and a pool of cream.
- "One box of Cox' gelatine"Cox's was a Scottish brand, sold in sheets and later in granulated form; box sizes varied, but an ounce or so is a reasonable working assumption, equal to about four 1/4-oz envelopes of modern powdered gelatine. That would be a firm, sliceable set for three pints of liquid. Two to three envelopes gives a softer, spoonable cream more to current taste.
- The water is doing no favoursA pint of water to a quart of cream is a great deal of dilution, and it is there only to bloom the gelatine. Use the smallest amount of cold water that will cover the granules, about 1/2 cup, and make up the difference with milk or more cream if you want the dish to taste like its name.
- "Season with lemons"Meaning the grated zest and juice, quantity unstated. The zest of two lemons steeped in the warm gelatine and strained out, plus a tablespoon or two of juice, is about right. Add the juice off the heat and gradually, or the acid will curdle the cream.
- SweeteningThe original calls for it but gives no quantity. Six to eight tablespoons of sugar to the quart suits a lemon cream; dissolve it in the warm gelatine rather than trying to stir it into cold cream.
- Mould and setting timeA "cold place" meant a larder or icebox. Pour into a lightly oiled 2-quart mould or into individual glasses and refrigerate at least 4 hours, better overnight. Unmould by dipping the outside briefly in warm water.
- The sauce"Cream, seasoned with wine" is a pouring sauce: lightly whipped or plain heavy cream with a spoonful or two of sherry, Madeira or Marsala and a little sugar. Add the wine slowly and stop short of thinning the cream to water.
- YieldAbout 3 pints of set cream, serving 8 to 10 in the modest portions the period expected.
Cold moulded creams stiffened with gelatine were the backbone of the Victorian and Edwardian "fancy dishes" chapter, and the label Italian cream was applied loosely to almost any sweetened cream set with isinglass or gelatine and flavoured with lemon or wine. What makes this version a period document is the brand name: Cox's gelatine, sold by the box, was one of the products that turned moulded desserts from a two-day kitchen project into an evening's work. Before it, a cook wanting a set cream boiled calves' feet or clarified isinglass from sturgeon, which is why older recipes for the same dessert run to several paragraphs and this one runs to four sentences.