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CREAM (a la Valois)
Cut three or four spongecakes into thin slices. Arrange them on a dish with a little jam spread on each, and pour over them a wine-glassful of sherry. Dissolve an ounce and a half of isinglass in one pint of boiling milk or cream. Sweeten it, and add a table-spoonful of brandy and the same of lemon-juice. Stir it well, then pour a little into an oiled mould, and let it set; then place the sponge slices on it. Fill the mould with the remainder of the cream, and when it is firm turn it on to a glass dish. Time, an hour to prepare. Probable cost, 2s. 6d., exclusive of the sherry and brandy. Sufficient for a quart mould.
A Victorian moulded cream, essentially a set trifle. The only real obstacle is the setting agent: isinglass and modern gelatine are not interchangeable by weight.
- Isinglass to gelatineIsinglass is dried fish swim bladder, chiefly sturgeon, sold in leaves or shreds; it was variable in quality and Victorian recipes call for far more of it by weight than a modern cook would use of refined gelatine. An ounce and a half to the pint would give a rubber ball if you used powdered gelatine at that rate; for a soft cream that still unmoulds, about 1 tablespoon (¼ oz / 7 g) of powdered gelatine or four leaves per pint of liquid is the working figure. Bloom it in cold milk first, then dissolve in the hot.
- Pints and wine-glassesAn imperial pint is 20 fl oz, so scale to about 2½ US cups. A wine-glassful in Victorian cookery books is roughly 2 fl oz, not a modern 6 oz pour.
- Lemon juice and hot milkAcid added to near-boiling milk will curdle it. Let the sweetened milk cool to lukewarm before stirring in the lemon juice and brandy; cream is more forgiving than milk if you want insurance.
- Oiling the mouldUse a flavourless oil — almond or a neutral vegetable oil — wiped out with kitchen paper so only a film remains. Any pooled oil will show as a greasy patch on the turned-out surface.
- Building in layersThe base layer must be properly set, not merely cool, before the soaked sponge goes on, or the slices float and the finished cream shows a muddled seam. Allow 30-40 minutes in the fridge for the first pour.
- Sponge cakesThe original means small individual sponge cakes or Savoy fingers, dry rather than moist. Trifle sponges or plain ladyfingers are the closest supermarket equivalent; a slice of modern buttery pound cake will not absorb the sherry the same way.
- Setting and turning outReckon on four hours in the refrigerator rather than the hour of preparation quoted, which covers only the work. To unmould, dip the mould to its rim in hot water for a slow count of five, then invert onto a wetted dish so the cream can be slid into place.
- YieldA quart mould serves six to eight as a dessert.
Cassell's belongs to the great age of the moulded cream, when a household's reputation for elegance rested partly on its ability to turn out a shapely blancmange or Bavarian cream from a copper mould. Isinglass, made from the swim bladders of sturgeon and imported chiefly from Russia, was the gelling agent of choice before commercial powdered gelatine became cheap and reliable. Dishes tagged à la Valois in nineteenth-century English books seem rarely to have any documented link to the French province or to the royal house of that name — the label is often said to have served as a general mark of refinement applied loosely by cooks and cookbook compilers, much like à la reine. What the dish actually is, under the name, is a trifle given a firm set so it can be unmoulded and presented on a glass dish: sponge, jam, sherry and cream, the standard English combination, dressed for the table.