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Melon Cream
Slice a moderate-sized melon, removing the rind and seeds. Put it into a pan with half a pound of castor sugar, and place on the fire until of the consistency of a marmalade. Rub it through a sieve, return it to the fire, add three-quarters of an ounce of leaf gelatine, and stir until dissolved. Remove it from the fire, and when cool mix in half a pint of whipped cream lightly, and let it set. Garnish with crystallised fruit.
A Victorian moulded cream, essentially a melon purée set with gelatine and lightened with whipped cream. Two things decide whether it works: how much water you cook out of the melon, and how much gelatine you actually use.
- Cook the melon down properly"The consistency of a marmalade" is the hinge. Melon is largely water, and a thin purée will either refuse to set or set into something watery and grainy. A moderate melon may give a couple of pounds of flesh, and it will need to reduce by half or more; stir often near the end so the sugar does not catch.
- Gelatine strength has changedThree-quarters of an ounce is about 21 g, which by modern leaf gelatine (sheets run roughly 1.7-3 g depending on grade) works out at something like eight to twelve sheets — enough to make a stiff, rubbery cream. Victorian leaf gelatine was probably weaker and certainly less consistent than modern graded sheet. For a spoonable cream, 4-5 sheets is nearer the mark; for one turned out of a mould and expected to stand up, 7-8.
- Castor sugarSuperfine or caster sugar. Ordinary granulated works here since it dissolves in the cooking; half a pound is 225 g, which is generous — taste the melon first and cut it back if the fruit is very ripe.
- Half a pint of creamCassell's is British, so this is an imperial half-pint, 10 fl oz or about 1¼ US cups of heavy cream, whipped to soft peaks before folding.
- Temperature when you fold"When cool" means cool but still fluid — around body temperature. Too hot and the cream collapses and the fat separates; too cold and the gelatine sets in ropes as you fold, giving a lumpy set.
- SettingFour hours in the refrigerator, or overnight. If unmoulding, oil the mould lightly and dip it briefly in warm water.
- Melon choiceA fragrant cantaloupe or charentais gives colour and scent; honeydew and watermelon are too watery and too pale to be worth the effort.
- YieldSix small servings, or one 1½-pint mould.
Moulded creams of this kind — fruit purée, sugar, gelatine and whipped cream — were the backbone of the Victorian sweet course, and Cassell's gives them under a single pattern with different fruit substituted. The technique descends from the older blancmange and bavarois, but it became more of a household possibility than a confectioner's trick as commercially refined leaf and sheet gelatine became available in the nineteenth century, though the laborious business of boiling down calves' feet or isinglass for stock jelly persisted alongside it. Melon itself signalled some means: grown under glass in English kitchen gardens or imported, it was a fruit associated with the well-appointed table. The finishing touch here is crystallised fruit.