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Banana Cream
Put a quarter of an ounce of soaked gelatine with one gill of double cream, and whisk till stiff; then mix with one pint of sweetened thick custard, four bananas peeled and cut into slices about a quarter of an inch thick, and the juice of half a lemon. Mix well, and when just beginning to set pour the mixture into a wetted mould. When cold, turn out, and decorate with little heaps of whipped cream of different colours. Probable cost, 1s.
A moulded gelatine cream of the sort Victorian and Edwardian kitchens turned out by the dozen. Nothing here is difficult, but the gelatine and the fruit both need handling with a little care.
- The gillCassell's is a British book, so a gill is a quarter of an imperial pint — 5 fl oz, or a little over half a US cup. Double cream (at least 48% butterfat) whips readily at this quantity.
- The gelatineA quarter of an ounce is about 7 g, or roughly one standard sachet of powdered gelatine, or three to four leaves. "Soaked" means bloomed in cold water until soft; it must then be warmed until completely clear and liquid before it goes anywhere near the cream.
- The hinge — temperature matchingMelted gelatine hitting cold cream sets instantly into threads that never disperse. Let the dissolved gelatine cool to barely warm, then trickle it into the custard while whisking, and fold the whipped cream in after. The instruction to whisk gelatine directly into cream is best ignored in favour of this order.
- Thick custardA rich egg custard sauce, cooked to the coating stage — not a set baked custard and not a pouring-thin sauce. Cool it before use.
- The bananasToss the slices in the lemon juice as you cut them rather than adding both separately; the acid is there to stop browning as much as for flavour. Slices this thick will sink unless the mixture really is on the point of setting when you fold them in.
- Setting and turning outAllow for something over a litre of mixture once the cream is whipped and the bananas are in, so a mould of about that capacity; four to five hours in the refrigerator, or overnight. To unmould, dip the mould to its rim in hot water for five seconds, loosen the edge with a fingertip and invert onto a wetted plate.
- Coloured creamThe period effect came from cochineal for pink and spinach-green or saffron for others. Modern gel food colours, used sparingly and beaten into separately whipped cream, do the same job without thinning it.
- YieldServes six to eight. Eat it the day it is made — the banana softens and darkens inside the cream by the second day.
Cassell's places this among the "creams," a whole family of Victorian desserts built on the same formula: custard, whipped cream, a little gelatine, and whatever flavouring was to hand — coffee, ratafia, apricot, chocolate. What is striking in this one is the fruit. Bananas began arriving on British tables in quantity from the Canaries by fast steamer in the late 1880s, and for a while they were a fashionable novelty rather than a staple, priced accordingly. The "probable cost, 1s." attached to the recipe is one of Cassell's most useful habits for the modern reader: a shilling sits mid-range among the probable costs Cassell's gives. The moulded shape mattered as much as the flavour, since a cream that turned out cleanly and stood up on the dish was a visible proof of a competent kitchen.