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Rhenish Cream
Dissolve an ounce of isinglass and four ounces of loaf sugar in a pint of boiling water, and let the liquor stand until cold. Add the grated rind of half a Seville orange, and one lemon, and the juice of both, or, if preferred, the rind of two lemons and the juice of three. Add the yolks of four fresh eggs, and half a pint of light wine, and boil gently, stirring all the time until it is on the point of boiling; pour it into a damp mould, and let it stand in a cool place till set. The flavour of this cream is often varied by the addition of two ounces of sweet almonds and eight bitter ones, which have been blanched and pounded, then mixed with a cupful of cold water, and allowed to soak for an hour. When this addition is made it will be desirable to add the yolks of two more eggs to the cream. Time to prepare the almonds, an hour and a half. Probable cost, 1s. 10d. Sufficient for a quart mould.
A Victorian moulded wine cream, set with fish glue rather than gelatine. Read the ingredient list to the end before anything else: the almond variation calls for bitter almonds, which is the reason this page carries a caution.
- Bitter almondsBitter almonds contain amygdalin, which releases hydrogen cyanide when the kernels are crushed and soaked in water — exactly what this recipe directs. Eight of them steeped in cold water and stirred into the cream is enough to matter in a dish shared out among several people, particularly children. Their sale for eating is prohibited in the United States and restricted elsewhere; a current recipe should be used if you want almond flavour in a set cream.
- The custard is never properly cookedThe custard's cooking is left vague -- Four yolks — six with the almond variation — go into an isinglass syrup the recipe has expressly let stand until cold, and the whole is then taken only "to the point of boiling" before being poured into a mould to set in a "cool place" rather than a refrigerator. Whether the eggs reach a safe temperature depends entirely on how far a cook takes that direction.
- IsinglassA gelatine made from the swim bladders of sturgeon and other fish, sold in leaf or shred form and dissolved in hot water. It was the standard setting agent for creams and jellies before commercial powdered gelatine became cheap; an ounce to a pint gives a firm, sliceable set.
- Loaf sugarRefined white sugar sold in a solid cone and broken off with sugar nippers. It is simply granulated sugar by weight — four ounces is a little over half a cup.
- Imperial measuresA British pint here is 20 fluid ounces, not 16, and the half-pint of wine is 10. The quart mould is likewise 40 fluid ounces; the recipe itself gives no number of servings.
- Seville orangeThe sour bitter orange used for marmalade, in season only in midwinter. Its rind and sharp juice were valued for cutting the richness of egg creams; the recipe's own alternative of lemon rind and juice tells you the flavour aimed at is acid rather than sweet.
- Light wineThis means an unfortified still wine rather than a fortified one, and the name Rhenish points at Rhine wine — hock or Moselle.
- Probable cost1s. 10d. is one shilling and tenpence.
Rhenish cream takes its name from the wine of the Rhine — Rhenish was the standard English word for hock and Moselle from the Middle Ages onward, and a wine cream flavoured with citrus and set stiff enough to turn out of a mould was a fixture of the English supper table long before Cassell's. It belongs to the large family of moulded creams and "solid syllabubs" that filled the sweet course between the decline of the great baked pudding and the arrival of the commercial jelly packet. What is really being taught is the behaviour of isinglass and egg yolk together, with the wine and orange as flavouring on top. The bitter-almond variation reflects a period habit — bitter almonds, ratafia and noyau were commonly used for that marzipan note, and the toxicity of the kernels seems not to have been something a household book thought worth mentioning.