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Lemon Cream
Take the thin rind of one large or two small fresh lemons, and put it into a pint of cream. Let it soak for half an hour, then stir in four ounces of sifted sugar and the strained juice of the lemon. When well mixed, add one ounce of dissolved and cooled isinglass. Take out the lemon-rind, pour the mixture immediately into a well-oiled mould, and put it into a cool place to set. Time, about half an hour to prepare. Probable cost, 2s. 9d. Sufficient for a pint and a half mould.
A Victorian moulded cream that stands or falls on two things: keeping the acid from curdling the cream, and getting the setting agent right. The "half an hour" in the original is preparation time only.
- Isinglass to gelatineIsinglass is a collagen setting agent from fish swim bladders (best from sturgeon, a lower grade from cod), now sold mainly to brewers as a fining agent. Victorian moulds were set far stiffer than modern ones, so scale the quantity down: for a pint of cream use about 2½ teaspoons of powdered gelatine (a little over one standard envelope, about ¼ oz), bloomed in a few tablespoons of cold water and warmed until clear, not hot.
- Which cream"Cream" in a book of this date means pouring cream rather than anything as rich as modern double or heavy cream, so single cream or half-and-half is closer. Double cream is likely to set into something dense and pasty.
- The hinge: adding the juiceLemon juice will curdle cream on contact. Have the cream cool, dissolve the sugar in it first, then trickle the strained juice in slowly while stirring steadily; if it looks grainy at any point, stop rather than beat harder.
- Rind means zest onlyPare the rind in thin strips with a vegetable peeler and take no white pith, which turns the cream bitter over a long soak. Thirty minutes of infusion in cold cream is enough for the perfume.
- SugarFour ounces of sifted sugar is a generous half cup of granulated, or the same weight of caster if you want it to dissolve without warming. The result is sweet by design, since the acid is high.
- Oiling and unmouldingUse a flavourless oil, wiped on very thinly with paper. To turn out, dip the mould in warm water for five to ten seconds and invert onto a chilled plate.
- Setting time"A cool place" was a larder. In a refrigerator allow at least four hours, and overnight for a mould as large as a pint and a half.
- YieldA pint and a half mould serves six to eight as a dessert. The "probable cost, 2s. 9d." is a period price note, not an instruction.
Moulded creams like this one are the domestic descendants of the elaborate jellies and flummeries of the eighteenth-century confectioner, simplified for households that had a mould, a cold larder and no pastry cook. The setting agent, isinglass, was prepared from the dried swim bladders of sturgeon and other fish and was imported in leaf, staple or shredded form; it was the standard clear-setting jelly stock of the British kitchen until commercially sheeted and powdered gelatine displaced it towards the end of the nineteenth century, which is why the recipe still specifies it by the ounce. Lemon was a favourite flavouring for such creams because it kept well and gave a sharpness that carried through a rich dairy base.