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RICE CREAM (another way)
Simmer a pint of milk with a little lemon-rind or cinnamon till it is pleasantly flavoured. Mix in a bowl two ounces and a half of ground rice smoothly with two table-spoonfuls of cold milk, and add the well-beaten yolks of four eggs and the whites of two. Stir the milk when boiling into this, then boil it, and add a little sugar. Pour the rice into a mould, and set it in a cool place until wanted. Turn it out, and serve with fruit or custard. It is better made the day before it is to be used. Time to boil the cream, three minutes. If liked, the eggs can be omitted. Probable cost, 10d. (See also CREAM, RICE.)
A moulded ground-rice custard of the blancmange family, set by starch rather than gelatine. The original assumes an imperial pint and a cook who knows when a custard has thickened.
- Temper, then cook gentlyThe hinge is pouring the boiling milk into the rice-and-egg mixture in a thin stream while whisking, not the reverse. Returned to the pan it wants steady stirring over moderate heat; the three minutes' boiling in the original works only because the ground rice stabilises the yolks against curdling, and even so the mixture should never be left unstirred.
- A pintCassell's pint is the imperial 20 fl oz, about 2.5 US cups or 570 ml. Using a 16 oz US pint gives a noticeably stiffer set.
- Ground riceThis is milled raw rice, not cooked rice or whole grains. It is traditionally a coarser grind than modern fine rice flour and is still sold as "ground rice" in Britain; a coarser grind gives a slightly grainy texture probably closer to what the book intends, while fine rice flour sets smoother.
- Sugar unspecifiedThe recipe says only "a little sugar", and gives no quantity. Two to three tablespoons for this quantity is a plausible range; adding it at the end, as the recipe directs, keeps it from interfering with the starch as it thickens.
- The eggsFour yolks and two whites is what gives the richness; the note that they may be omitted turns the dish into a plain ground-rice mould, less rich and blander. Keep the two spare whites for meringue or a second dish rather than adding them here, as more white makes the set rubbery.
- The mouldRinse the mould in cold water and leave it wet before filling. A starch-set cream releases on a damp surface; a dry or greased mould fights you. Dip briefly in hot water before turning out.
- Overnight is not optional adviceStarch-set creams continue to firm as they cool and rest, which is why the book says it is better made the day before. Turned out after only an hour or two it is less likely to hold its shape cleanly.
- YieldSomewhat more than the pint of milk it starts from, once the eggs and rice are added; enough for about four as a moulded sweet with fruit or a pouring custard.
Ground-rice creams sit between two older English sweets: the medieval-descended blancmange, thickened with almonds and rice, and the boiled custard. By the time Cassell's Dictionary of Cookery was compiled in the 1870s, cheap imported rice and milled rice flour were readily available, and starch-set moulds were a common middle-class dessert. The "probable cost, 10d." is characteristic of the book, which gives a probable cost for most of its entries; tenpence was a modest sum for a dish of this size. The cross-reference to CREAM, RICE reflects the dictionary's arrangement, in which variations on a dish appear under several headwords.