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Spanish Cream
1/4 box gelatine or 1 tablespoon granulated gelatine 3 cups milk whites 3 eggs Yolk 3 eggs 1/2 cup sugar (scant) 1/4 teaspoon salt 1 teaspoon vanilla or 3 tablespoons wine Scald milk with gelatine, add sugar, pour slowly on yolks of eggs slightly beaten. Return to double boiler and cook until thickened, stirring constantly; remove from range, add salt, flavoring, and whites of eggs beaten stiff. Turn into individual moulds, first dipped in cold water, and chill; serve with cream. More gelatine will be required if large moulds are used.
A cooked custard set with gelatine and lightened with beaten whites, from the era when granulated gelatine was still new enough to be given alongside the older sheet-in-a-box measure. It sets soft and, if left undisturbed, settles into two layers.
- The gelatine measuresThe recipe treats 1/4 box as the equivalent of 1 tablespoon of granulated gelatine, which is about one modern envelope, 1/4 oz or 7 g. One envelope to 3 cups milk gives a deliberately soft, spoonable set. For a single large mould that must stand up on a plate, more will be needed, as the recipe's own closing line says.
- Soften before scaldingGranulated gelatine dissolves far more reliably if sprinkled over a few tablespoons of the cold milk and left five minutes before the rest is scalded. Dumped straight into hot milk it tends to clump and leave threads in the finished cream.
- Custard temperature is the hingeScald the milk to about 180F, no more, and cook the yolk mixture in the double boiler only until it coats the back of a spoon, roughly 170-175F. Past that the eggs curdle and no amount of stirring brings the custard back.
- "Remove from range"The range is the stove. Take the pan off the heat, not just off the direct burner, before the whites go in, or the foam collapses into the hot custard.
- The whites stay essentially rawBeaten whites folded into an off-the-heat custard never reach a pasteurising temperature. If serving anyone elderly, pregnant, very young or immune-compromised, use pasteurised whites or carton egg white, which whips adequately for this purpose.
- Wine or vanillaThe 3 tablespoons of wine most likely means a fortified wine, sherry or madeira being the usual choices in books of this period. Add it at the same point as the vanilla, off the heat, so the flavour is not driven off.
- Moulding and turning outRinsing the moulds in cold water rather than greasing them is what the recipe directs and it works well. To release, dip the mould two or three seconds in hot water and invert onto a chilled plate; allow several hours' chilling for a firm turn-out.
- YieldRoughly 6 individual moulds of a half cup each, on the volume of the mixture. The recipe says only "serve with cream", which in this period would ordinarily mean plain cream poured around rather than whipped.
- The two layersLeft to set undisturbed, the mixture separates into a clear jelly at the bottom of the mould and a pale foam on top, so the turned-out cream shows a distinct band. That is the expected result, not a fault.