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Sussex Whips
Mix well together in a basin half a pint of thick cream, half a pint of brandy, a quarter of a pound of powdered sugar, a squeeze of lemon-juice, and a lump of sugar that has been rubbed on the rind of a lemon. When mixed thoroughly whisk the whole in a large basin, and as the froth rises take it off with a spoon, and fill custard cups with it. Probable cost, 2s. 6d.
A syllabub in all but name: cream and brandy whisked together, the froth lifted off as it rises. The technique is the whole recipe, and it depends on fat content and patience.
- The measuresHalf a pint imperial is 10 fl oz, so about 1¼ US cups each of cream and brandy. A quarter pound of powdered sugar is roughly ½ cup of caster or superfine sugar — Victorian "powdered" means finely ground granulated, not modern icing sugar with its cornflour.
- Use the highest-fat cream you can get"Thick cream" here means the richest cream available, unhomogenised and in this period very likely unpasteurised; in modern terms something at or near double cream. UK double cream is the closest match; US heavy cream works, though ultra-pasteurised cartons froth more grudgingly and the foam collapses sooner. Whipping cream at 30-35 per cent will struggle to carry this much spirit.
- The lump of sugar on the lemonRubbing a sugar lump over the rind strips the peel oils into the sugar — the same principle as the oleo-saccharum in punch-making. A teaspoon of finely grated zest muddled into the sugar gives the same aromatic lift.
- Equal cream and brandy is a lot of alcoholSpirit thins cream and works against the foam, which may be why the method skims rather than whips to a mass. If your froth refuses to rise, cut the brandy to half the volume of the cream, or replace part of it with sweet white wine, as many syllabub recipes use wine rather than spirit alone.
- Skim, don't whip throughThe hinge of the recipe: whisk in a wide bowl, and each time a head of foam forms, lift it off with a spoon into the cups and go on whisking the liquid beneath. Whisking straight through can break the mixture into a grainy, butter-flecked liquid instead of building light froth.
- Everything coldChill the cream, the bowl and the whisk. Cold fat holds air; warm cream separates, and the alcohol makes it more fragile still.
- Yield and servingPerhaps six to eight small custard cups or glasses, depending on how much froth the cream gives up. Serve within an hour or two -- the foam gradually weeps a layer of sweet brandied liquid beneath.
- Not for everyone at the tableNothing here is cooked, so the brandy stays at full strength. A single cup carries a substantial measure of spirit.
Whips and syllabubs were the same family of sweet: cream aerated with wine or spirit, either served in a glass or skimmed off as here. The older country method, often described in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century books, was to milk the cow directly into a bowl of spiced wine so the force of the stream made the froth had had replaced the cow by Cassell's day. The attribution to Sussex probably signals richness of cream rather than any documented local origin. The "probable cost, 2s. 6d." appended to the entry is characteristic of Cassell's, which priced almost every dish presumably so a mistress could check her cook's housekeeping book; half a pint of brandy is what makes this one expensive.