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Pineapple Creams Served in Glasses
Pare a ripe pineapple, and cut the rind into pieces. Boil these until the flavour is drawn out in a quarter of a pint of milk, then strain it, and mix with it four ounces of loaf sugar, a pint of cream, and a tea-spoonful of lemon-juice. Pour the mixture into a saucepan, and stir over a gentle fire until it begins to thicken. Pour it out, let it cool, then whisk until it is nicely frothed, and put it into the glasses. When pineapple cream is made in this way, the pulp may be cut up and used for dessert. Time, half an hour to boil the rind in the milk. Probable cost, 3s. 2d. Sufficient for half a dozen glasses.
A Victorian flavour-extraction trick: the perfumed rind does the work and the fruit itself is saved for the table. Nothing here is difficult, but the measures are imperial and the mixture is easy to split.
- The measuresCassell's pints are imperial: a quarter of a pint of milk is 5 fl oz (about 140 ml), and a pint of cream is 20 fl oz (about 570 ml). Four ounces of loaf sugar is about 115 g.
- Loaf sugarSugar was sold as a hard cone to be broken up and crushed. Ordinary granulated or caster sugar is the direct replacement; caster dissolves faster in the warm milk.
- Cream"Cream" here is richer than modern single cream; use double or heavy cream. Single or light cream will not froth to any body when whisked.
- The hinge: gentle heat, and the lemon lastAcid plus dairy plus heat is how you get curds. Keep the pan below a simmer, stir constantly, and stop the moment it coats the spoon. If you are cautious, hold the teaspoon of lemon juice back and whisk it in once the mixture is cold.
- Boiling the rindHalf an hour in a quarter pint of milk will reduce it noticeably; cover the pan and top up with a splash of milk if it threatens to catch. Strain through a fine sieve, pressing the rind to get the perfume out.
- Chill before whisking"Let it cool" means properly cold. Refrigerate the strained mixture for several hours, then whisk to soft, frothy peaks. Warm cream will thin rather than aerate.
- Yield and servingSix small glasses, filled at once and kept cold. The froth begins to weep within a few hours, so this is not a dish to make the day before. The reserved pineapple pulp, cut up, is the intended accompaniment.
- Probable cost3s. 2d. was a substantial sum for a dessert for six, and the pineapple was probably the largest single item in it, though a pint of cream was no small cost either.
Pineapple was the ostentatious fruit of the British nineteenth century, and the arc of that century is visible in a recipe like this one. Grown at enormous expense in heated "pineries" on great estates in the Georgian period, pineapples became merely costly rather than unobtainable once fast steamships began bringing them from the West Indies and the Azores in the 1870s and 1880s; Cassell's could assume its middle-class readers might buy one for a dinner party, though the noted cost of 3s. 2d. shows it was not a casual purchase. Hence the thrift built into the method: the rind, which would otherwise go to the pig bucket, is simmered in milk to draw out the volatile aromatics, while the valuable flesh is kept whole for the dessert course. The technique of infusing a flavouring in hot milk before enriching it with cream is a familiar one, and the finish -- cooled, whisked to a froth and spooned into glasses -- belongs to the family of Victorian "creams" and syllabubs served in small stemmed custard glasses.