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Chocolate Bavarian Cream
1/4 package gelatine, or 1 tablespoon granulated gelatine, Whip from 3 cups cream, 1/4 cup cold water, 1 1/2 ounces Walter Baker & Co.'s Premium No. 1 Chocolate, 2 tablespoons hot water, 1/2 cup sugar, Few grains salt. Soak gelatine in cold water twenty minutes. Melt chocolate, add sugar and hot water. Combine mixtures, and add one-third cup scalded cream which has drained from whip, and salt. As soon as gelatine has dissolved, set bowl containing mixture in pan of ice-water, and stir constantly until mixture begins to thicken, scraping from bottom and sides of bowl that it may not become lumpy. Stir in one-half the whip, and, when well-mixed, fold in remaining whip. Turn into a three-pint mould, sparingly greased with olive oil, spread evenly, and chill. By using the oil the cream may be easily removed from the mould. Heavy cream diluted with milk may be used in place of thin cream.
A gelatin-set whipped cream dessert from one of Walter Baker's promotional booklets. It reads oddly today mainly because of the old whipping technique and a chocolate product that no longer exists under that name.
- "Whip from 3 cups cream"Thin cream whipped at 1900 temperatures threw a froth that was skimmed off with a spatula into a strainer set over a bowl, and the unwhipped liquid drained back down to be beaten again. That drained liquid is the "one-third cup scalded cream" the recipe calls for later. With modern heavy cream you can simply whip 3 cups, and set aside 1/3 cup of cream separately to scald.
- Thin creamThin or light cream was roughly 18-20 percent fat, against about 36 percent for modern heavy cream. The recipe's closing note is the one to follow: heavy cream let down with milk in place of thin cream.
- Premium No. 1 ChocolateBaker's Premium No. 1 was plain unsweetened chocolate liquor, with no added sugar. Use 1 1/2 ounces of unsweetened baking chocolate, not bittersweet, or the 1/2 cup of sugar will make the cream cloying.
- Gelatine quantityA quarter of a standard package equals the tablespoon given, which is about one modern 1/4-ounce envelope, 7 grams. Sheet gelatin is not interchangeable by volume; weigh it.
- The hinge: the ice-water stageEverything depends on catching the gelatin mixture at the moment it just begins to thicken to the consistency of unbeaten egg white. Fold the whip in while the base is still warm and the dessert separates into a clear jelly layer under a cream layer; wait too long and it sets into lumps that will not smooth out. Stir constantly and scrape the bowl, as instructed.
- Dissolving the gelatineThe hot chocolate mixture and the scalded cream together are what melt the bloomed gelatine, so both should be genuinely hot when combined. If the mixture cools before the granules dissolve, warm it gently over hot water rather than pushing on.
- The mouldThree pints is 6 cups. Any 6-cup mould, loaf pan or bowl works. Olive oil in this quantity leaves no flavor, but a neutral oil is safer if the mould is elaborate.
- Chilling and yieldNo time is given: allow at least 4 hours, and overnight is better for a shaped mould. It serves 8 generously.
Walter Baker & Co. of Dorchester, Massachusetts, traced its chocolate mills back to the 1760s and by the turn of the twentieth century was issuing small recipe booklets to persuade American cooks to use chocolate in more than beverages. The booklets leaned on the authority of well-known cookery teachers of the day, and the phrasing here, with its scalded cream, ice-water bath and precise folding, has the flavour of the cooking-school manuals of the period. Bavarian cream, from the French crème bavaroise, is properly a custard set with gelatin and lightened with whipped cream; the name's connection to Bavaria is traditional rather than documented. This version dispenses with the egg custard entirely, which makes it a simpler cold set than the classic.