Home › The Principles of Cookery › Noyeau Cream
Noyeau Cream
Dissolve one ounce of best Russian isinglass in half a pint of water, add four ounces of loaf sugar, the strained juice of a small lemon, and one pint of thick cream, together with a little noyeau. The quantity must be regulated by the strength of the noyeau, as well as by taste. Pour the liquid into a well-oiled mould, and put it in a cool, dry place to set. Turn it out carefully before serving. Time, half an hour to dissolve the isinglass. Probable cost, 3s., exclusive of the noyeau. Sufficient for a quart mould.
A Victorian moulded cream of the blancmange family, thickened with fish gelatin and flavoured with an almond-scented kernel liqueur. Two things decide whether it works: the strength of the setting agent and the temperature at which the acid meets the cream.
- Isinglass to gelatinIsinglass is dried sturgeon swim bladder, sold in leaves or shreds; its setting power varied by grade, so no conversion is exact. For a quart mould, modern practice is about 1/2 oz (14 g, roughly two envelopes) of powdered gelatin or the leaf equivalent, bloomed in the half pint of water rather than boiled.
- Imperial measuresCassell's pint is 20 fl oz, so "half a pint of water" is 10 fl oz (about 285 ml) and "one pint of thick cream" is 20 fl oz (about 570 ml). Thick cream means double cream, about 48% fat; heavy whipping cream is the nearest American equivalent.
- Loaf sugarLoaf sugar was refined white sugar broken from a cone, and granulated sugar substitutes weight for weight. Dissolve it in the warm gelatin liquid, not in the cream.
- The hinge: temperatureLet the dissolved gelatin cool to just tepid before adding the lemon juice and cream. Hot liquid plus acid can curdle the cream, and the mixture may then set grainy and separated.
- How much noyeauThe recipe declines to say because bottlings differed. Two to three tablespoons of crème de noyaux for this quantity gives a clear almond note; add it at the end, off the heat, since alcohol carries flavour that boils away.
- Oiling the mouldUse a neutral oil applied with a paper towel, then wipe out the excess. Too much pools and leaves greasy streaks on the turned-out cream.
- Setting time"A cool, dry place" meant a larder. Refrigerate at least four hours, preferably overnight; the half hour given in the recipe is only the time to dissolve the isinglass.
- Turning out and yieldDip the mould briefly in warm water and invert onto a chilled plate. A quart mould serves eight to ten as part of a dessert course.
Noyeau is an older English spelling of noyau, French for the stone or kernel of a fruit, and the liqueur takes its name from the apricot, peach or cherry kernels once steeped in brandy to give it a marzipan flavour; the best-known version, Noyau de Poissy, was made outside Paris and shipped widely in the nineteenth century. Moulded creams like this one belong to the blancmange tradition, in which a flavoured dairy mixture was set with isinglass and served cold in an ornamental shape, and they were a staple of the Victorian dinner table precisely because they could be made the day before. The insistence on "best Russian isinglass" reflects a real trade distinction: sturgeon from the Caspian and the Volga yielded the clearest, most reliable grades, and cheaper substitutes were notorious for setting cloudy or not at all. Commercial packaged gelatin was already displacing isinglass in British kitchens by the end of the century.