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Barberry Cream
This pleasant sharp cream is made by mixing one pint of cream, half a pint of barberry jelly, and half an ounce of isinglass. Stir over a slow fire until the isinglass is dissolved. When removed from the fire add a little cochineal, if required. Sweeten to taste, beat to a froth, and pour into a mould to set. Probable cost, 3s. Sufficient for a large mould.
A Victorian moulded cream, set with fish glue rather than gelatine sheets and coloured with insect dye. It works, but three of its four ingredients need translating.
- The hinge: cool before you frothBeating a warm gelatine cream gives you a foam that collapses and a solid layer at the bottom of the mould. Let the mixture cool until it thickens to the consistency of unbeaten egg white, then whisk, then pour at once.
- Isinglass to gelatineIsinglass is dried sturgeon swim bladder, sold in leaves and shreds and hugely variable in setting power, so half an ounce is not a fixed value. For 1.5 imperial pints (about 850 ml) of liquid, start with 10-12 g of powdered gelatine bloomed in cold water; that gives a cream firm enough to unmould without turning rubbery.
- Pints and ouncesAn imperial pint is 20 fl oz, about 570 ml, so this is roughly 570 ml cream to 280 ml jelly. Half an ounce is about 14 g.
- "A slow fire"Low heat, well under a simmer. Cream held at a boil with gelatine in it will scald and can break; take it to no more than about 60C/140F, just enough to dissolve.
- Barberry jellyMade from Berberis vulgaris, sharply acidic and rarely sold in Britain now. Dried barberries (zereshk) from Middle Eastern grocers can be cooked down and strained, or redcurrant jelly sharpened with lemon juice stands in for the tartness, though it is sweeter and less astringent.
- CochinealStill available as carmine or E120; beetroot- or anthocyanin-based colourings are common alternatives. It is optional here: the recipe says 'if required', and the jelly may already carry some colour of its own.
- SweeteningSugar dissolves best while the mixture is still warm, before it begins to set. Taste at that stage rather than after frothing, as chilling mutes sweetness.
- Yield and turning outThe mixture is about 850 ml before frothing, so a mould of a litre or more allows for the aeration. Give it at least four hours in the refrigerator, and dip the mould briefly in warm water before inverting.
- That priceThree shillings was a serious sum for a pudding in the 1870s, which tells you cream, isinglass and preserved fruit were all luxuries rather than staples.
Barberries were once a common English hedgerow fruit, prized for a sourness closer to redcurrant than to any garden berry, and put up as jelly, pickled as a garnish, or candied in sprigs to decorate sweet dishes. Their disappearance from British and American countryside is generally traced to their role as an alternate host for black stem rust of wheat; colonial New England legislated against the shrub in the eighteenth century, and eradication campaigns continued into the twentieth. Cassell's places this among the moulded creams, a whole class of dish that depended on isinglass, the clarified swim bladder of sturgeon and the standard setting agent before commercially refined gelatine became cheap and reliable.