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Bavarian Cream
1/4 ounce gelatin 3/4 cup milk 1/2 cup sugar 2 egg yolks 1 cup heavy cream, whipped 1 teaspoon vanilla A few grains salt Heat the milk and half of the sugar in a double boiler. Beat the two egg yolks with the remainder of the sugar and the salt. Add some of the hot milk to the yolks, then add the yolks to the hot milk, and cook till it coats a spoon dipped into it.
Have gelatin soaked and drained three times. After draining the last time, dissolve it in a double boiler without the addition of any water. Strain it into the custard mixture, and set aside to cool a little. When warm, fold into it the cream and vanilla. Pour into molds wet with cold water. When cold, unmold and serve with strawberry sauce or raspberry sauce or the crushed fresh fruit sweetened.
Strawberry Bavarian cream 1 cup fresh strawberries, rubbed through a colander 1/4 cup sugar 1/4 ounce gelatin, dissolved in a double boiler after the preliminary soaking and draining 1/4 teaspoon salt 1 cup heavy cream Strain the dissolved gelatin into the strawberries. Add sugar and salt and mix. Whip the cream, and fold it into the strawberry mixture. Put into molds wet with cold water. Serve with crushed and sweetened fresh strawberries.
A classic bavarois: stirred custard set with gelatin and lightened with whipped cream. The whole dish turns on temperature control at the moment the gelatin, custard and cream come together.
- The hinge: fold at the right momentThe custard must be cool enough that it will not deflate the whipped cream, but not so cool that the gelatin has begun to set, or the mixture seizes into lumps. Aim for body like unbeaten egg white, roughly room temperature; if it stiffens too soon, warm the bowl briefly over hot water and stir smooth before folding.
- Gelatin, soaked and drained three timesThe recipe does not say which form of gelatin is meant; the repeated soaking and draining is usually explained as a way of rinsing off-flavour from the coarser gelatins of the period, though the recipe itself gives no reason. Modern powdered gelatin needs no rinsing: 1/4 ounce is one standard envelope, about 2 1/4 teaspoons or 7 g, bloomed in a few tablespoons of cold liquid, then dissolved over hot water. Using leaf, 1/4 ounce is roughly four sheets.
- Cooking the custard"Coats a spoon" means 170-175F on a thermometer. Past 180F the yolks curdle. A double boiler makes this forgiving, but the water beneath should stay at a bare simmer and not touch the bowl.
- Strain twiceThe recipe strains the gelatin into the custard; also strain the finished custard before cooling. Any bit of set gelatin or coagulated yolk will read as a rubbery speck in the finished cream.
- Molds and unmoldingThe recipe calls for molds wet with cold water, which works. Chill at least four hours, six for a large mold. To turn out, dip the mold in warm water for five to ten seconds and invert onto a cold plate.
- The strawberry version is uncookedIt contains no custard at all, only fruit puree, sugar, gelatin and cream. Rubbing berries through a colander is what a blender and a fine sieve now do; keep the puree cold and add the dissolved gelatin in a thin stream while stirring, or it will set in threads on contact.
- YieldEach version makes about a quart of finished cream, enough for six small molds or six to eight servings from a single large one.