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Raspberry Blancmange
Take four pounds of raspberries. Bruise the fruit a little, and place it in a preserving-pan high above a clear fire, that the juice may be gently drawn from it. Soak an ounce and a half of gelatine in cold spring water for an hour. Strain the juice from the raspberries, and boil it with half a pound of loaf sugar and the gelatine until the latter is dissolved. Add gradually three-quarters of a pint of cream, and stir this well in. Pour the blancmange into a damp mould, and put it in a cold place until it is set. Turn it out, and serve. Time, altogether, one hour and a half.
A gelatine cream mould from a period when both the measurements and the setting agent behaved differently from ours. The two things to watch are the strength of modern gelatine and the temperature at which the cream goes in.
- Gelatine strengthAn ounce and a half of Victorian gelatine is not equivalent to an ounce and a half of modern powdered gelatine, which is more refined and generally sets harder. That weight of modern powder would set far more liquid than the under two pints of mixture here. Judge by the modern packet's own guidance for the volume of liquid rather than following the ounce weight.
- Imperial measuresCassell's pint is the imperial 20 fl oz, so three-quarters of a pint of cream is 15 fl oz, about 1¾ US cups. Half a pound of sugar is a generous cup.
- Loaf sugarLoaf sugar was refined white sugar sold in a hard cone and broken or crushed for use. Ordinary granulated sugar is the direct replacement.
- Drawing the juice"High above a clear fire" means the gentlest possible heat. Use the lowest burner setting, or a bowl over simmering water, and let the fruit collapse and weep rather than boil; hard boiling dulls the raspberry flavour and clouds the juice.
- StrainingStrain through a fine sieve or jelly bag and resist pressing the pulp if you want a clear, bright set. Four pounds of berries yields roughly a pint of juice.
- The hinge: adding the creamLet the sweetened juice cool to lukewarm before the cream goes in, and add it in a slow stream while stirring. Raspberry juice is acidic enough to curdle cream that meets it hot.
- Moulding and settingRinse the mould in cold water and leave it wet — that is what "damp mould" means, and it is what lets the blancmange release. A cold larder is a refrigerator: allow four hours at least, not the hour and a half the recipe implies for the whole operation. To turn out, dip the mould in warm water for a few seconds and invert onto a wetted plate.
- YieldAbout 1¾ pints of mixture, serving six to eight.
Blancmange is literally "white food," and in medieval cookery it was exactly that: a pale dish of pounded almonds or shredded capon thickened with rice, as much a savoury as a sweet. By the time Cassell's New Dictionary of Cookery appeared in the later nineteenth century the name had drifted to the sweet side, and to almost any cream or milk preparation stiffened enough to be turned out of a shaped mould — which is why a bright pink raspberry version could be called a blancmange without anyone blinking. Cheap and reliable commercially prepared sheet and powdered gelatine did much to drive the change: the laborious calf's-foot stock that earlier cooks boiled down for their jellies was no longer necessary, and moulded creams became a standard item of the Victorian dessert table.