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Ivory Cream
3/4 tablespoon granulated gelatine 1 tablespoon cold water 2 tablespoons boiling water 3 cups cream 4 tablespoons powdered sugar 3 tablespoons Madeira wine Soak gelatine in cold water, dissolve in boiling water, and add sugar and wine. Strain into a bowl, set in pan of ice-water, and beat until mixture thickens slightly. Add to mixture whip from cream, and beat until mixture is thick enough to hold its shape. Mould and chill. Garnish with Sauterne Jelly. Pudding a l'Adrea 2 cups thin cream 1 1/2 tablespoons granulated gelatine 2 tablespoons cold water 3/4 cup sugar Whites 4 eggs 3 tablespoons Sherry 1 1/2 tablespoons Sauterne Sauterne jelly mixture Make one-half recipe for Sauterne Jelly (see p. 420), allowing one and one-half tablespoons granulated gelatine. Color one-half green and one-half red. Fill sections of a fancy mould alternately with green and red jelly. In the green jelly mould pistachio nuts cut in quarters; in red jelly glaced cherries cut in quarters.
Scald cream, add gelatine soaked in cold water, and sugar. When mixture begins to thicken add whites of eggs beaten until stiff. Set in pan of ice-water, and stir occasionally until mixture thickens; then add flavoring and turn into mould. Chill thoroughly and remove from mould.
A wine-flavored whipped-cream mold of the sort that filled the chilled-dessert chapters of American cookbooks around 1900. Nothing here is difficult, but the gelatine measure and the phrase "whip from cream" both need translating.
- The gelatine measureThree-quarters of a tablespoon of granulated gelatine is a scant 2 1/4 teaspoons, which is about one standard 1/4-oz envelope. Period gelatine was probably less consistent in strength than today's, so if in doubt err on the low side or the cream sets rubbery rather than spoonable.
- "Whip from cream"In this period cream was whipped in a bowl and the stiff froth skimmed off as it rose, leaving unwhipped cream behind; the froth is the "whip." With heavy cream and a mixer, simply beat the 3 cups to soft-to-medium peaks and fold the whole of it in.
- The hinge: temperature matchingThe gelatine-wine base must be beaten over ice only until it thickens slightly, like unbeaten egg white. Too warm and it slackens the whipped cream; a moment too cold and it sets into lumps that will not disperse.
- Cream to useCream sold for whipping in this period was broadly comparable in richness to modern whipping cream, so today's heavy or whipping cream works directly. Avoid ultra-pasteurized if you can, as it whips to a looser foam.
- The wineThe recipe specifies only 'Madeira'; a medium rather than bone-dry style suits a sweetened cream, though the book does not say which. 'Powdered sugar' in books of this period usually means a finely ground sugar rather than precisely what is now sold as confectioners' sugar; either dissolves readily in a cold mixture.
- Moulding and unmouldingRinse the mould with cold water before filling, and give the dessert at least four hours in the refrigerator. Dip the mould briefly in warm water and invert onto a chilled plate.
- The garnishSauterne Jelly is a separate wine-gelatine recipe from elsewhere in the book (the companion pudding on this page cites p. 420). The recipe says only 'garnish'; any clear sweet-wine jelly, cut into cubes, serves the same purpose.
- YieldThree cups of cream whipped makes considerable bulk, well over a quart once the base is folded in, so allow a mould of about a quart and a half; enough for eight small servings. It is rich; small portions are correct.
- A note on the companion puddingThe molded pudding that follows folds stiffly beaten egg whites into a cooling scalded-cream mixture, so they are not brought to a safe temperature. Use pasteurized whites if serving anyone pregnant, elderly, very young or immune-compromised.
Chilled gelatine creams were show desserts of the American middle-class table roughly between 1880 and 1920, helped by two developments arriving together: granulated gelatine sold in packets, which spared the long labor of boiling calves' feet, and household ice delivery that made a pan of ice-water everyday equipment. The name appears to describe the color, the pale off-white that cream, sugar and a tawny wine produce together; cookbooks of the period also offered coffee creams, chocolate creams and pistachio creams by the same method. Madeira and Sauterne appear often in these dessert chapters. The instruction to garnish one gelatine dessert with another, tinted and cut, points to the same taste for architectural color at table that produced the sectioned red-and-green moulds elsewhere in this section.