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Cream, Lemon
Rub the thin rind of a lemon on a quarter of a pound of loaf sugar, and squeeze over it the juice of two lemons, and add two glasses of sherry. Let it stand for nearly an hour. Strain the syrup, and pour over it one pint and a half of cream which has been boiled and slightly cooled. Pour it rapidly from one jug to another, till it is thoroughly mixed, and a little curdled. Serve in custard-glasses. Probable cost, with cream, 2s. 8d., exclusive of the sherry. Sufficient for ten or twelve glasses.
A Victorian lemon posset in the older sense: acid, wine and hot cream combined so that the mixture thickens and just begins to break. The whole thing hinges on the temperature of the cream when it meets the lemon and sherry.
- The hinge: how hot the cream isBoiled cream poured in scalding will curdle hard and grainy; cream that has cooled right down will not thicken. The recipe asks only for cream "boiled and slightly cooled" -- hot, but off the boil -- before pouring. "A little curdled" means a faint velvety graininess, not visible curds in whey.
- Loaf sugar and the rindLoaf sugar was a hard cone broken into lumps. Use sugar cubes for the rubbing, which drags the oil out of the zest, or simply grate the zest into 4 oz (115 g) of granulated sugar and work it with your fingers. A quarter pound is generous by modern taste, and 3 oz will do if you want it less sweet.
- "Two glasses" of sherryA Victorian wineglass is usually reckoned at roughly 2 fl oz, so about 4 fl oz in total. Note that the costing is given "exclusive of the sherry" -- the wine is left out of the price, not out of the recipe. A medium or cream sherry arguably suits it better than a dry fino.
- Imperial measuresA pint and a half imperial is 30 fl oz, about 3 3/4 US cups. Use heavy or double cream; single cream and half-and-half will not thicken enough to hold in a glass.
- Pouring between jugsThis is the mixing step, and it is worth doing with two large heatproof jugs as written rather than reaching for a whisk.
- Standing timeThe hour's maceration is to draw the lemon oil into the syrup, so do not shorten it. Strain out the zest and any pulp before the cream goes in, or the finished cream is bitty.
- Setting and servingThe recipe gives no chilling time; it sets to a soft spoonable cream rather than a firm jelly, so a spell in the cold will help it hold. Ten to twelve small custard glasses is what the book expects, or six to eight modern portions.
This belongs to the long English line of possets and syllabubs, in which cream is set not with gelatine or egg but with acid and wine, the cream curdling just enough to thicken. Possets, recorded from the fifteenth century, were drunk hot from a two-handled pot; by the eighteenth century the same combination had migrated to the dessert table, poured cold into small glasses, and the syllabub and "lemon cream" of the Victorian dinner are its descendants. Cassell's routinely gave a "probable cost," here 2s. 8d. The rubbing of lemon rind on hard loaf sugar was standard practice before microplanes: it also tells you that sugar still arrived as a cone to be broken up at home.