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Cream, Velvet
Cut three or four sponge biscuits into thin slices, and spread on each a little apricot or greengage jam. Pour over them a glass of sherry, and the juice of a lemon, and let them stand to soak. Dissolve half an ounce of isinglass in a cupful of water, put it with a pint of cream, and two table-spoonfuls of sugar into a saucepan, and let it simmer gently for ten minutes, strain it into a jug, and, when nearly cold, pour it from a good height upon the fruit and spongecake. When stiff, it is ready to serve. Probable cost, 2s. 8d. Sufficient for a good-sized dish.
A Victorian moulded cream in the trifle family: soaked sponge under a set cream. Nothing here is difficult, but the setting agent and the imperial measures need translating.
- Isinglass to gelatineIsinglass is a collagen setting agent from fish swim bladders, sold in shreds or sheets. Half an ounce is about 14 g; powdered gelatine at that weight will set a pint of cream plus a cup of water quite firmly, and 10-11 g gives a softer, spoonable result. Bloom it in the cold water rather than dissolving it over heat.
- Do not boil the creamThis is the hinge. The ten-minute simmer suits shredded isinglass, which needs long, patient dissolving; modern gelatine can lose setting strength if held near boiling. Warm the cream and sugar only until the bloomed gelatine has dissolved, no more.
- Sponge biscuitsThese are savoiardi or ladyfingers, dry and porous, not soft sponge cake. Their whole purpose is to drink up the sherry and lemon juice without collapsing.
- A glass of sherryThe recipe says only "a glass"; in cookery books of this period a wine glass is usually reckoned at about 2 fl oz (roughly 60 ml). A medium or cream sherry suits the jam; a dry fino will read as sour beside the lemon.
- Imperial pintThe book's pint is 20 fl oz, about 570 ml, not the US 16 fl oz. Single cream or a mix of double cream and milk is closer to Victorian "cream" than modern heavy cream, which will set very rich.
- Pouring from a heightThe recipe does not say why; the practical effect is to spread the cream across the soaked biscuits rather than deliver it all in one spot. Strain first, as instructed, to catch any undissolved threads.
- Setting and yield"When stiff" means several hours refrigerated, and overnight is better. The recipe promises only "a good-sized dish"; the mixture comes to rather less than a litre in all, and it is assembled and served in the dish rather than turned out.
- The cost line2s 8d is the price in pre-decimal shillings and pence, a figure Cassell's gave throughout so a housekeeper could budget. It has no bearing on the method.
Velvet cream belongs to the long English line of set creams that runs from seventeenth-century leaches and flummeries through to the trifles and "shapes" of the Victorian table, and this version is essentially a trifle whose custard has been replaced by a cream jelly. Isinglass was the usual setter of the period, imported from Russia and later from Brazil, and valued because it clarified as well as gelled; sheet and powdered gelatines were becoming widely available by the time Cassell's Dictionary was compiled. The apricot or greengage jam is a domestic marker of the era: greengages were a common English garden plum and their preserve a storecupboard staple, though it is far less easy to buy now than apricot.