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Cream, Sherry
Simmer a pint of cream, with an inch of stick cinnamon, and two table-spoonfuls of pounded loaf sugar. Let it get cold, then add gradually three table-spoonfuls of sherry. Strain, and serve in glasses. Strew a little powdered cinnamon on the top of each glass; stir it well. Time, a quarter of an hour to simmer the cream. Probable cost, cream, 1s. 6d. per pint. Sufficient for half a dozen glasses.
A cold cream drink of the syllabub family, thin enough to sip from a glass rather than spoon. The whole thing turns on temperature: the cream must be properly cold before the sherry goes anywhere near it.
- Add the wine cold, and slowlySherry is acidic and fortified; poured into warm cream it will curdle on contact. Chill the infused cream thoroughly, then trickle the sherry in while stirring. This is the hinge of the recipe.
- Imperial pintCassell's pint is 20 fl oz, about 2 1/2 US cups. Single (light) cream or half-and-half gives the pourable consistency intended; double or heavy cream makes something closer to a spoonable posset.
- Loaf sugarSugar was sold in hard cones and broken and pounded as needed. Granulated or caster sugar is the direct replacement, two tablespoons for the pint.
- A quarter of an hour to simmerThat is an infusion, not a reduction. Keep it at a bare tremble, uncovered, so the cinnamon flavours the cream without it catching on the base or forming a skin. Stir occasionally.
- Stick cinnamonAn inch of true cinnamon quill (Cinnamomum verum) is milder than the cassia usually sold as cinnamon in the US; with cassia, half the amount is closer to the intended effect.
- StrainPass it through a fine sieve to catch the bark fragments and any skin that has formed, then chill again before glassing up.
- Yield and serviceSix small stemmed glasses, roughly 3 1/2 fl oz each. Serve cold, dust the top with ground cinnamon, and give each glass a stir as directed so the spice does not sit dry on the surface.
- Sherry to useA medium or cream sherry suits the sweetness here; a dry fino will read as sharp against only two spoonfuls of sugar.
Cream flavoured with spice and cut with fortified wine belongs to the long English line of possets, syllabubs and "whips" that ran into the Victorian dessert course. Cassell's prices it at 1s. 6d. a pint for the cream, at a time when cream was bought fresh and daily and had to be used before it turned. The Spanish sherry trade with Britain was substantial through the nineteenth century, and sherry appears throughout period cookery books as a flavouring for trifles, jellies and creams. Unlike a whipped syllabub, this one is left liquid and served in glasses, closer to a drink than a pudding, and the book gives its yield in glasses rather than portions.