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Pineapple Bavarian Cream (Box gelatine or tablespoons)
1/2 box gelatine or 2 tablespoons granulated gelatine 1/2 cup cold water 1 can grated pineapple 1/2 cup sugar 1 tablespoon lemon juice Whip from 3 cups cream Soak gelatine in cold water. Heat pineapple, add sugar, lemon juice, and soaked gelatine; chill in pan of ice-water, stirring constantly; when it begins to thicken, fold in whip from cream, mould, and chill.
A cold gelatine dessert of the sort that filled the chilled-mould pages of American cookbooks between 1900 and 1930. Two details in the original carry real weight: the pineapple must be cooked, and the cream must be folded in at exactly the right moment.
- Cooked pineapple is not optionalFresh pineapple contains bromelain, a protease that digests gelatine and leaves the cream a soupy mess. Canned pineapple has been heat-treated at the cannery, and heating it again here is belt and braces. If you substitute fresh fruit without boiling it first, the dessert will not set.
- Gelatine quantitiesPeriod boxes varied; this book's equivalence of half a box to 2 tablespoons implies a whole box of a little over an ounce. Follow the tablespoons rather than guessing at the box: 2 tablespoons is roughly two and a half to three modern 1/4-oz envelopes. Sprinkle it over the 1/2 cup cold water and leave it 5 to 10 minutes until spongy before it goes into the hot fruit.
- "Whip from 3 cups cream"This means the froth skimmed off cream as it was beaten, an older dairy practice that yielded a light, dry foam. There is no exact modern equivalent; whipping about 1 1/2 cups of heavy cream to soft peaks gives a workable substitute.
- Canned pineapple sizeThe recipe assumes one standard can, which today means a 20-oz can of crushed pineapple. Do not drain it; the juice is part of the liquid the gelatine needs.
- The folding pointChill over ice-water and stir until the mixture has the body of raw egg white and mounds slightly on the spoon. Fold too early and the cream separates into a jelly layer with foam on top; too late and the set gelatine breaks into lumps you cannot smooth out.
- Moulding and unmouldingRinse the mould with cold water rather than oiling it. Give it at least 4 hours in the refrigerator, ideally overnight, then dip the outside briefly in warm water and invert onto a chilled plate.
- YieldMakes about 1 1/2 quarts, serving 6 to 8.
Bavarian cream, or bavarois, is a custard or fruit puree set with gelatine and lightened with whipped cream; the name is generally traced to French professional kitchens of the early nineteenth century, though its connection to Bavaria itself has never been convincingly explained. By the time this book was written the dish had become thoroughly domestic in America, thanks to two industrial products: granulated gelatine sold in boxes, which removed the labour of boiling calves' feet, and canned pineapple, which the Hawaiian canneries were shipping to the mainland in quantity from the 1900s onward. That the recipe offers a choice between "box" and "tablespoons" catches the moment when packaged gelatine was standard enough to measure but not yet standard enough that every kitchen used the same package.