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Milanese Cream
Dissolve an ounce of isinglass in a quarter of a pint of water, and beat until light the yolks of eight eggs. Sweeten a pint of fresh milk with four ounces of sifted sugar, and make it hot, when stir in the beaten yolks, and continue to stir over a slow fire until the mixture becomes thick, but on no account should it boil. Strain through a fine sieve, and add the dissolved isinglass, and a cupful of double cream. Flavour to taste with a small glass of rum, or liqueur--maraschino or Curacoa. Pour the cream into a mould, well-oiled, and let it stand for three hours in a cool place to set. Sufficient for one mould.
This is a moulded egg custard set with isinglass — a Victorian ancestor of the Bavarian cream. Two things decide whether it works: keeping the custard below boiling, and getting the setting agent right, since isinglass is no longer a kitchen staple.
- Do not let it boilThe custard thickens at about 175-180F (80C); above that the yolks curdle and no amount of straining will hide it. Stir constantly over low heat until it coats the back of a spoon, then pull it off at once.
- IsinglassA collagen gelatine prepared from fish swim bladders, sturgeon being the prized source, sold in shreds or sheets and dissolved by soaking then warming. Modern gelatine replaces it, but the setting strengths are not equivalent and the original ounce cannot be converted exactly. The mixture here comes to nearly 2 imperial pints of liquid, so scale the substitute gelatine to that volume using the packet's own guidance for a mixture firm enough to unmould.
- Imperial measuresAn imperial pint is 20 fl oz, so the milk is 2½ US cups and the quarter-pint of water is 5 fl oz. Four ounces of sugar is about ½ cup plus a spoonful.
- Double creamBritish double cream runs around 48% butterfat. Heavy or whipping cream is the nearest substitute; it is stirred in unwhipped here, so the cream sets as a rich custard rather than a mousse.
- A small glass of spiritRead this as about 2 fl oz. Add it once the custard has cooled somewhat, so the aroma is not lost. 'Curacoa' is one of several nineteenth-century variant spellings of curacao.
- Oiling the mouldUse a flavourless oil, applied thinly with paper and wiped almost dry — a slick of oil leaves a greasy film on the turned-out cream. To unmould, dip the mould briefly in hot water and invert onto a wetted plate.
- Setting timeThe recipe allows three hours in a cool place. In a refrigerator a small or shallow mould may well set in that time; allow longer, up to overnight, for a deep or full-sized one.
- YieldClose to 2 imperial pints of mixture, which fills a quart mould and serves six to eight.
Cassell's dictionary belongs to the great age of the moulded cream, when a dinner table was expected to show at least one glossy shape turned out whole, and cookery books ran through dozens of near-identical custards distinguished chiefly by flavouring and by a national label — Bavarian, Italian, Neapolitan, Milanese, Venetian. The names rarely indicate much about the city in question; they functioned as menu French, signalling refinement rather than provenance, and the same base recipe often appears under two or three of them in a single volume. What ties the family together is technique: an egg custard lightened or enriched with cream and held in shape by isinglass. Isinglass itself was a valuable import, prepared from the swim bladders of sturgeon and long associated with Russia; it was prized for setting clear and clean-tasting, and was used equally for fining wine and beer. Commercially refined gelatine, cheaper and standardised in strength, displaced it from domestic kitchens in the decades either side of 1900, and the moulded cream survives today mainly in its French name, crème bavaroise.