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Raspberry Bavaroise
Remove the stalks from one pound of raspberries and bruise the fruit slightly. Put it with four ounces of loaf sugar, one ounce of isinglass, and three-quarters of a pint of water, in a saucepan. Bring the mixture to a boil and let it simmer for ten minutes. Strain the syrup through a jelly-bag or fine cloth into a basin, and set it aside to cool. When just becoming a light jelly, whip half a pint of cream to a stiff froth, and add the raspberry jelly, spoonful by spoonful, to it, beating all the time. There will probably be a slight sediment at the bottom of the basin which must not be used. Beat the bavaroise for about ten minutes until it becomes very thick, and put in half a tea-spoonful of cochineal, which should be well beaten in. Pour into a well-wetted mould, and put in a cool place (or on ice) to set. Sufficient for a pint and a half mould. Probable cost, 2s.
A fruit bavarois built on isinglass rather than custard, from the era before packet gelatine. The technique is sound; only the setting agent and one or two of the measurements need translating.
- The hinge: catch the jelly at the right momentThe raspberry syrup must be cool and just beginning to thicken to a loose syrup before it goes into the cream, and it must go in slowly, a spoonful at a time, with constant beating. Too warm and it slackens the cream; too far set and it seizes into rubbery threads that will not disperse.
- IsinglassIsinglass is dried sturgeon swim bladder, sold in shreds or sheets and still used mainly as a fining agent for beer and wine. It is a far less consistent setter than modern gelatine, so no reliable weight-for-weight swap exists. For the quantity of syrup given here a modern cook would work from the instructions on a packet of leaf or powdered gelatine rather than from the ounce given here.
- Loaf sugarLoaf sugar was refined white sugar broken from a cone or moulded block. Four ounces of granulated or caster sugar is the equivalent; the syrup will taste sharper or sweeter depending on the fruit, so taste before it cools.
- CochinealCochineal is carmine, the red extract of the dried scale insect Dactylopius coccus, still sold as a food colour (E120). Half a teaspoon is generous by modern standards, and it is there purely to keep the mixture pink, since boiled raspberry juice beaten into cream goes a dull salmon. Omit it and the dessert is unaffected in flavour.
- Cream"Cream" here means what would now be sold as double or heavy cream, at 36 per cent fat or above. Whip only to soft, holding peaks rather than truly stiff; a fully stiff cream will not accept the jelly smoothly and tends to give a grainy set.
- The sedimentThe warning is worth heeding. Fine pulp and any undissolved isinglass settle out and, if stirred back in, leave gritty specks through an otherwise smooth cream. Pour off the clear jelly and discard the last spoonful.
- Straining and simmeringTen minutes at a simmer is for extracting colour and flavour, not for cooking the fruit to a pulp; press the raspberries only lightly through the cloth or the jelly will cloud.
- Moulding and turning outWetting the mould helps it release. Allow at least four hours in the refrigerator, longer for a deep mould. To unmould, dip the outside briefly in warm water and invert onto a wetted plate so the shape can be nudged into place.
- Yield and costA pint and a half mould gives six modest portions. "2s." is two shillings, a tenth of a pound sterling.
Bavaroise or bavarois covers a family of moulded creams set with gelatine, generally traced to the French kitchens of the early nineteenth century, where Carême and his contemporaries codified the crème bavaroise as a custard base lightened with whipped cream and stiffened enough to turn out of a mould. Fruit versions like this one skip the custard entirely, relying on a strained fruit jelly for both flavour and set, which makes them cheaper and quicker and suited them well to the Victorian supper table. What dates the recipe most precisely is the isinglass: reliable commercial powdered gelatine only displaced it in domestic use over the later nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, and household books of Cassell's generation still assumed a cook would keep shredded isinglass in the store cupboard alongside the cochineal bottle.