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Cream, Soda
Put three pounds of loaf sugar, two ounces and a half of tartaric acid, and two quarts of cold water into a preserving-pan. Let it just boil, then add the whites of three eggs beaten to a firm froth. Let this boil exactly four minutes, stirring all the time. Strain, and when it is cold, add a small tea-spoonful of any flavouring essence that may be preferred. Keep the liquid in a bottle closely corked. When an agreeable refreshing summer beverage is wanted, two table-spoonfuls of this may be put into half a tumblerful of water, and stirred briskly with a third of a tea-spoonful of carbonate of soda. Drink during effervescence. Probable cost, 2s. 2d. for this quantity. Sufficient, two table-spoonfuls for a tumbler.
This is a bottled acid syrup, not a finished drink: the fizz comes from mixing the tartaric-acid syrup with bicarbonate of soda in the glass. Everything depends on keeping the two apart until serving.
- Loaf sugarLoaf sugar was refined sugar broken from a cone, and it is simply granulated white sugar now. Three pounds is about 6 3/4 cups, or 1.36 kg by weight.
- Tartaric acidStill sold for winemaking, baking and confectionery; two and a half ounces is about 70 g, or roughly 5 tablespoons. Citric acid behaves similarly.
- The preserving-panVictorian preserving-pans were typically wide copper or brass, though the recipe does not specify. Use stainless steel or enamel: the acid will pit aluminium and pick up a metallic taste.
- Why the egg whitesBeaten whites are a clarifier, not an ingredient. The albumen coagulates in the hot syrup and traps scum and sediment, which is why the four minutes of boiling and the straining both matter. Pour through muslin or a coffee filter and do not press the solids through.
- TimingFour minutes of boiling with constant stirring is enough to set the albumen without driving off much water. Longer boiling concentrates the syrup further and may encourage crystallisation in the bottle.
- Flavouring essenceVictorian essences were generally concentrated alcoholic extracts. Vanilla, lemon or almond extract works; start with the small teaspoonful specified and taste.
- Keeping itThree pounds of sugar in two quarts of water is only about 40 per cent sugar, well below the concentration that keeps a syrup shelf-stable, and the acid alone will not preserve it. Bottle it and refrigerate, and expect a few weeks rather than a season.
- Mixing and yieldMixing -- Two tablespoons of syrup, half a tumbler of water and about 1/3 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda, stirred and drunk at once. Keep the soda dry and separate; it fizzes only on contact with the acid.
The "cream" here has nothing to do with dairy. Cassell's belongs to a large family of Victorian home-made effervescing drinks built on an acid syrup and a pinch of carbonate of soda; the recipe itself gives no explanation of the name. Bottled soda water and commercial siphons existed by the time this dictionary appeared, but they were expensive and awkward for a household, so the fizz was generated in the glass instead, one tumbler at a time. Tartaric acid itself was a by-product of winemaking, refined from the crude argol scraped out of casks, which made it cheap and widely available to grocers; the same acid did duty in baking powders, effervescing salts and lemonade powders throughout the century.