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Zabajone
This is a kind of syllabub, made with Marsala or maraschino, or Marsala and yellow Chartreuse. Reckon the quantities as follows. For each person take the yolks of three eggs, a tea-spoonful of castor sugar to each egg, and a wine-glassful of wine and liqueur mixed. Whip up the yolks of the eggs with the sugar, then gradually add the wine, etc. Put this in a bain-marie, and stir until it has thickened to the consistency of a custard. Take care, however, that it does not boil. Serve hot in custard glasses, and hand sponge fingers round with it.
A late-Victorian English take on zabaglione, scaled per person rather than by fixed quantity. The whole thing turns on heat control: the mixture must thicken without ever reaching a simmer.
- The hinge: keep it below a simmerSet the bowl over water that is barely trembling, not boiling, and whisk continuously so no part of the mixture sits still against the hot bowl. Yolks begin to scramble around 160-170F; pull it off the heat the moment it holds a ribbon and mounds softly on the whisk.
- A wine-glassfulIn Cassell's period this means roughly 2 fl oz (about 60 ml), not a modern 6 oz wine glass. Three yolks to 2 oz of liquid gives a thick, foamy custard; more liquid than that and it will take much longer to set and may never hold.
- Three yolks per person is richThat is a Victorian dessert-course portion in a small glass. Two yolks per person is nearer modern appetite, and the ratio of one teaspoon of sugar per yolk holds at any scale.
- Castor sugarSuperfine or caster sugar. Granulated will work but takes longer to dissolve into the yolks; whisk the sugar and yolks until pale before any liquid goes in.
- Bain-marieA heatproof bowl over a pan of hot water, the base clear of the water itself. A copper zabaglione pan is traditional but any wide bowl that lets you whisk freely will do.
- The liquorsMarsala is the usual base and still widely sold; both dry and sweet styles are used for zabaglione, and the recipe does not specify. Maraschino is a clear cherry liqueur made with the stones, much sweeter, and yellow Chartreuse is herbal and sweet; if using either alongside Marsala, keep them to a minority of the total or reduce the sugar.
- Sponge fingersSavoiardi, sold as ladyfingers. The point is a dry, crisp biscuit to dip; a soft sponge collapses in the hot custard.
- Serve at onceIt is a foam held up by heat and air and begins to slacken within a few minutes. Warm the glasses, have the biscuits already on the table, and take it straight from pan to glass.
Zabaglione (zabaione in standard Italian, zabajone in the older spelling Cassell's uses) is a whisked wine custard long associated with Piedmont and Venice; its origin is traditionally credited to a Turin friar, and the name is often traced to the Neapolitan zapillare, to foam up, though neither account is documented with any certainty. Marsala, the fortified Sicilian wine that became its usual base, was developed for the British export trade in the late eighteenth century, which is part of why the dish travelled so easily into English kitchens. Cassell's introduces it here as "a kind of syllabub" because that was the nearest thing an English reader already knew: a frothed dessert of wine and dairy, popular since the sixteenth century and by the time of Cassell's distinctly old-fashioned. The comparison also explains the per-person arithmetic, which suits a dish beaten to order at the end of dinner rather than made in advance.