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Raspberry Sponge
Soak three-quarters of an ounce of gelatine in a little cold water for an hour. Dissolve it, and mix with it a quarter of a pint of raspberry-juice made either from jam or from the fresh fruit. Add half a pint of cream, half a pint of milk, the strained juice of a lemon, and as much sugar as is agreeable to the palate. Whisk the mixture in one direction until it thickens and looks like sponge, pour it into a damp mould, and turn it out when it is stiff. Time, half an hour or more to whisk the sponge. Probable cost, 2s. Sufficient for a quart mould.
A Victorian moulded sponge: gelatine whisked with fruit, cream and milk until it foams and sets light rather than solid. The hinge is temperature — whisk only as the mixture cools to setting point, or it will never aerate.
- The whisking windowChill the mixture over a bowl of iced water and whisk continuously; it aerates only in the narrow band where the gelatine is thickening but not yet set. Too warm and the foam collapses, too cold and it seizes into lumps. An electric hand mixer does in five to ten minutes what the original expects in half an hour.
- "In one direction"A direction commonly repeated in period cookery books. Direction has no effect on the set or the foam; steady, continuous whisking does.
- Gelatine quantityThree-quarters of an ounce is about 21 g, or three standard 7 g sachets of powdered gelatine. Modern gelatine is more consistently strong than the sheet and shred gelatines of the period, and 15-18 g is usually enough for this volume of liquid; the full amount gives a firm, distinctly rubbery set.
- Imperial measuresA pint here is the imperial 20 fl oz, so a quarter pint of raspberry juice is 5 fl oz (about 140 ml) and each half pint is 10 fl oz (about 285 ml). Total liquid is a pint and a quarter, roughly 710 ml before whisking, plus the lemon juice.
- Raspberry juice from jamWarm the jam with a splash of water and press it through a sieve to remove seeds. Jam is heavily sweetened, so taste before adding sugar; from fresh fruit you will need considerably more.
- The mouldA quart mould is about 1.1 litres, and the recipe treats that as sufficient, which allows for the whisked mixture expanding from the roughly 710 ml of liquid. If your foam grows beyond the mould, divide the surplus between glasses. Rinsing with cold water and leaving it wet, as directed, is what lets the sponge slip out cleanly.
- Setting and turning outAllow at least four hours in the refrigerator, or overnight. Dip the mould briefly in warm water, loosen the edge with a fingertip and invert onto a wetted plate so the sponge can be slid into position.
- Yield and costServes six to eight. The "2s." is two shillings, the book's estimate of the cost to a Victorian household; cream would have been among the dearer items on the list.
Whisked gelatine sponges — sometimes called snows, whips or fluffs — were a fixture of the late Victorian and Edwardian sweet course, and Cassell's dictionary carries a number of variations on the same formula: a set liquid beaten to a foam as it cools, then moulded. They depended on cheap, reliable commercial gelatine, which had become a common grocery item in the second half of the nineteenth century; before that a cook wanting a jelly boiled calves' feet or bought expensive isinglass. The recipe's casual "either from jam or from the fresh fruit" reflects the difference between the two: the fresh version was a summer luxury, the jam version something that could be put on the table in February. A turned-out sponge was also a piece of table display.