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Peach Creams
Rub the contents of a tin of peaches through a sieve, then add a quarter of an ounce of gelatine that has been melted and heated in a little of the peach syrup, the juice of a quarter of a lemon, and three ounces of castor sugar. Whip half a pint of cream, add this to the other ingredients with three drops of cochineal; stir till it commences to set, then decorate a mould with chopped cherries, angelica, or candied fruit cut into small pieces; put in the mixture, and when quite cold turn out carefully; garnish with little heaps of whipped cream, some pink and the others white.
A cold moulded cream of the type Victorian and Edwardian kitchens turned out by the dozen. The whole thing hangs on the gelatine being fully dissolved and warm — but not hot — when it meets the whipped cream.
- The hinge: temperature of the gelatineMelt the gelatine in a few tablespoons of warm peach syrup until completely clear, then let it cool to barely warm before adding it to the purée. Poured in hot, it will slacken the whipped cream; poured in cold, it seizes into rubbery threads that no amount of stirring will disperse.
- Imperial measuresHalf a pint of cream is an imperial half-pint, 10 fl oz, or about 1¼ US cups; whipped it roughly doubles. A quarter-ounce of gelatine is about 7 g — roughly two to two and a half teaspoons of powder, or three to four leaves depending on brand.
- Set strengthSeven grams of gelatine to roughly a pint and a half of mixture is a soft, spoonable set, and it is the whipped cream as much as the gelatine that holds the shape; expect it to be fragile out of the mould. Chill at least four hours, preferably overnight.
- The tin of peachesAssume a standard can, around 14–15 oz net weight, in syrup rather than juice — the recipe relies on the syrup for both sweetness and the gelatine liquid. Peaches canned in juice will need a little extra sugar.
- Castor sugarSuperfine or caster sugar, which dissolves without grittiness in an uncooked mixture. Granulated will work if you give it time in the purée before the cream goes in. Three ounces is about 85 g; with syrupy canned fruit this reads sweet to modern palates and can be cut back.
- CochinealThree drops of cochineal is simply pink food colouring, from the dried insect. Any red colouring, or a spoonful of raspberry purée, does the same job. It is entirely cosmetic and can be left out.
- AngelicaCandied angelica stem, once a staple of the decorating drawer, is now specialist. Candied peel, glacé cherries or thin strips of dried mango stand in for the green-and-red effect.
- Lining and turning outSet the chopped fruit into a thin layer of the mixture in the base of the mould and let it firm before adding the rest, or the pieces will float. To unmould, dip the mould in hot water for three or four seconds, then invert onto a wetted plate so the cream can be slid into position.
- YieldAbout 1½ pints of mixture — six modest servings from a single mould, or eight in small individual dariole moulds, which set faster and turn out more willingly.
Cream moulds of this kind sat at the centre of the late Victorian sweet course, and their popularity owed as much to industry as to cookery: commercially refined gelatine, sold in sheets and packets from the middle of the century onwards, replaced the day-long labour of boiling calves' feet for stock jelly, while canned fruit put out-of-season peaches within reach of an ordinary household. That is why the recipe opens with a tin rather than fresh fruit and treats it as unremarkable. The cochineal is worth noticing too: a dye made from insects, cultivated chiefly in Mexico and Peru and, in this period, the Canary Islands under Spanish control, and by this period an entirely conventional item of the store cupboard, used to give blancmanges, ices and creams the delicate pink that a purée of pale canned peaches could never manage on its own. The finishing touch of piped heaps of cream, half tinted and half plain, belongs to the same aesthetic: a dish judged first by how it looked when it came to the table.