Roman Cream
One quart cream, one half box Cox's gelatine, dissolved in onehalf pint milk, five ounces powdered sugar, added while hot, flavor to taste; when cool, strain the milk in which is dissolved the gelatine, sugar, etc., into the cream, and whip it to a froth before putting it into the mould.
A moulded gelatine cream of the plainest Victorian sort, and it depends almost entirely on getting the gelatine and the whipping right. Read the two points on those before you start.
- The hinge: temperature when you combineThe gelatine milk must be cool but still fluid when it goes into the cream, and the cream cold. Too warm and the cream will not hold air; too cool and the gelatine sets in threads that no amount of whipping will smooth out. Aim for the milk at roughly body temperature and the cream straight from the refrigerator.
- Half a box of Cox'sA box of Cox's gelatine is usually reckoned at about an ounce, so half a box is roughly 1/2 oz, or two 1/4-oz envelopes of modern powdered gelatine (about 4 to 5 teaspoons). Box sizes were not standard across the period or between brands, so treat this as an approximation rather than a fixed figure.
- Dissolving itSprinkle the gelatine over the half pint (1 cup) of cold milk and let it swell for five minutes, then warm gently until clear. Do not boil it; prolonged heat weakens the set.
- Powdered sugarIn this period the term means finely ground granulated sugar, not modern confectioners' sugar with its cornstarch. Five ounces is about 2/3 cup granulated. It is stirred into the hot milk so it dissolves completely.
- Flavour to tasteLikely candidates are vanilla, a spoonful of sherry or maraschino, or grated lemon rind. About 2 teaspoons vanilla, or 2 tablespoons of a fortified wine, suits a quart of cream. The recipe does not say where to add it; the cooled milk is the easier place.
- WhippingWhip only to soft, mounding peaks. A quart of cream stiffened with gelatine will firm considerably in the mould, and cream taken too far turns grainy and buttery once set.
- The mouldRinse the mould with cold water and do not oil it; the film of water is what lets the cream slip out. Chill at least four hours, preferably overnight. To turn out, dip the mould a few seconds in warm water and invert onto a cold plate.
- YieldA quart of cream plus the milk should fill a 2-quart mould and serve ten to twelve. The mixture is rich, and small portions, perhaps with fruit or a thin sauce, suit it.
Moulded creams set with gelatine were the backbone of the Victorian supper and dessert table, and "Roman cream" belongs to the same family as Bavarian cream, Spanish cream and Charlotte Russe " a flavoured dairy base, a measured amount of gelatine, and a decorative mould. The names in this group seem to have been decorative rather than strictly geographic; there is no documented Roman origin, and the label appears to have been applied loosely to a whipped, wine- or vanilla-flavoured cream. What is specific here is Cox's: the Edinburgh firm of J. & G. Cox, whose gelatine was sold by the box on both sides of the Atlantic and which American writers named as a matter of course, much as later cooks would write "a package of Knox." Before such branded, refined products, a cook wanting a set cream had to boil calves' feet or isinglass for hours; the boxed gelatine is the reason a dish like this could appear in an ordinary household book as a supper dish rather than a set piece for a trained confectioner.