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Cream, Whipped, with Coffee
Mix a table-spoonful of a strong infusion of coffee in a pint of cream, sweeten it rather liberally, and whip it as in the last recipe. It will be of a light brown colour. If this is objected to, it may be obtained free from colour by roasting freshly two ounces of coffee-berries. When they are lightly browned, throw them at once into the cream, and let it stand for an hour before using. Strain, and whip as before. Serve in glasses. Double cream is the best for this purpose. Sufficient for eight or ten glasses. Probable cost, 2s.
A coffee-flavoured whipped cream, offered in two versions: a quick one with liquid coffee, and a subtler one where hot-roasted beans are steeped in the cream itself. Both depend on cream rich enough to hold air.
- Double creamBritish double cream runs around 48 per cent butterfat. US heavy or whipping cream (36-40 per cent) will whip, but the result is softer and needs to be served promptly; do not use anything labelled light cream or single cream.
- "Whip as in the last recipe"The preceding recipe is not reproduced here, but the usual Victorian method was to whisk the sweetened cream in a cool bowl and lift the stiff froth off the surface into a sieve as it formed, letting the unwhipped liquid drain back. Modern practice simply whips the whole quantity to soft peaks, which is quicker and wastes less.
- A strong infusion of coffeeOne tablespoon of concentrated brew in a pint of cream. Espresso or very strong cafetiere coffee, cooled, works; instant coffee dissolved in a spoonful of hot water gives a comparable concentration, whereas ordinary filter coffee is weaker than a tablespoon in a pint would need to be.
- The pintAn imperial pint is 20 fl oz, about 570 ml, or a shade over 2 1/3 US cups. Scale accordingly if working from US cups.
- Roasting the berriesThe second method is essentially an infusion: green or lightly roasted beans are browned in a dry pan and dropped straight into the cream, so the aromatics go in without the brown liquor. Two ounces is about 57 g. An hour's steeping, then strain.
- Chill everythingCream that has had hot beans dropped into it must go back to refrigerator temperature before whipping, or it will not take air. The book assumes a cold larder; use the fridge and chill the bowl and whisk as well.
- Sweetening"Rather liberally" against coffee's bitterness suggests roughly 2 to 3 tablespoons of caster or icing sugar per imperial pint. Icing sugar dissolves without grittiness and its small starch content helps the cream hold.
- Yield and servingEight to ten small glasses, as the recipe states. Whip no more than an hour or two ahead of serving.
- Probable costTwo shillings for the whole dish, a reminder that Cassell's routinely gave a probable cost, for a household budgeting to the penny.
Whipped cream flavoured with coffee belongs to the long Victorian family of "creams" that filled the sweet course: whips, fools, syllabubs, moulded creams and iced creams. What is interesting here is the second method, which treats freshly roasted beans as an aromatic to be steeped rather than a drink to be brewed, the same logic that puts a vanilla pod or a strip of lemon peel into scalded cream. It also suggests that coffee was still bought in some households as whole green or lightly roasted berries and finished at home, a practice that persisted alongside the growing trade in pre-roasted and ground coffee through the nineteenth century. Cassell's dictionaries of cookery, first issued in the later nineteenth century and reprinted and revised for decades after, sorted their entries alphabetically and gave a probable cost, so a cook could look up "Cream" and find a run of variations at differing prices.