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Gâteau de Riz
Ingredients.
One quart of Milk.
Four ounces of Rice.
Three ounces of Castor Sugar.
Three-quarters of an ounce of Gelatine.
Half a pint of Double Cream.
Boil the milk and stir in the rice, and cook very gently till quite tender; turn this into a basin, and when nearly cold dissolve the gelatine with a gill of milk, then add the sugar, and strain into the rice, add the cream half-whipped, and mix very lightly. Decorate a mould with a little jelly and pistachio nut, set it in ice; pour in the rice and set. Serve with a compôte of fruit in the centre.
A late-Victorian rice cream set in a lined mould — despite its place in the hot puddings chapter, this one is served cold. Read the whole method before starting, because the gelatine has to go into the rice while it is still warm enough to blend but cool enough not to slacken the cream.
- The hinge: temperature of the rice"When nearly cold" means cooled to somewhere near room temperature — still loose enough to blend, not yet stiff. If the rice is hot the half-whipped cream will slacken; if it is fully chilled the gelatine tends to set in strings as it hits the mixture.
- MeasuresThese are imperial: the quart is 40 fl oz (about 1.14 litres), the half pint of cream 10 fl oz (roughly 285 ml), and the gill of milk for the gelatine 5 fl oz (roughly 140 ml). The recipe does not say whether that gill is additional to the quart or reserved from it; either reading works.
- GelatineThree-quarters of an ounce is about 21 g, a generous amount by modern standards; commercial gelatine of the period was not standardised for setting strength as it is now, so quantities in old recipes often run high. With modern powdered or leaf gelatine, 12–14 g will set this volume firmly enough to turn out; use the full amount only if you want a very firm, sliceable mould.
- RiceFour ounces (about 115 g); short-grain pudding rice suits this better than long-grain. Cook it in the milk at a bare simmer, stirring often, until the grains are completely soft — 30 to 40 minutes. Undercooked grains stay chalky and will not disappear into the cream.
- Castor sugar and double creamCastor sugar is superfine (caster) sugar; ordinary granulated dissolves adequately here. Double cream is 48% butterfat; UK whipping cream or US heavy cream is the nearest match. "Half-whipped" means thickened to soft, barely holding peaks — it should still pour.
- Decorating the mouldThe "little jelly" is a thin layer of clear aspic-style sweet jelly poured into a chilled mould and set before the chopped pistachios are arranged on it. A plain metal charlotte or bombe mould works; skip the jelly lining and simply oil the mould lightly if you want a plain finish.
- "Set it in ice"Pack the mould in crushed ice, or in the modern kitchen refrigerate it for at least four hours, preferably overnight. To turn it out, dip the mould briefly in hot water and invert onto a chilled dish.
- Yield and servingServes six to eight. The compôte in the centre assumes a ring mould; with a solid mould, spoon the fruit around the base. Poached apricots, cherries or plums in a light syrup are period-appropriate and cut the richness.
Gâteau de riz — literally "rice cake" — is French kitchen shorthand for a moulded rice pudding turned out and served as a dressed entremets rather than spooned from the dish. Recipes of this type run through the nineteenth-century professional repertoire and reflect two things happening in the period: rice, once an expensive imported grocery, had become cheap enough to serve in quantity, while commercially refined sheet gelatine had replaced the long labour of boiling calves' feet for setting jellies. The result is a dish that reads as thrift dressed in luxury — a penny grain bound with cream, lined with jelly and pistachio, and chilled in an ice cave, which in a large late-Victorian household meant a supply of block ice from the ice trade.