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Ginger Cream
Ingredients.
Yolks of three Eggs.
One ounce of Castor Sugar.
One gill of Milk.
Half a gill of Ginger Syrup.
Half a pint of Cream.
Two ounces of Ginger.
Three-quarters of an ounce of Gelatine.
Make a custard of the eggs, milk, and sugar; when cool, add to this the syrup of ginger, the ginger cut into small pieces, and the gelatine melted, last of all the cream whipped; mix all well together; pour into a mould to set.
A gelatine-set bavarois, and the only real difficulty is the setting agent: three-quarters of an ounce of modern gelatine in a pint of liquid would give you rubber. Scale it down and the rest is straightforward.
- Gelatine, reducedVictorian leaf and shredded gelatine was less consistently refined than what is sold now, and its setting strength varied from batch to batch. For the roughly 17 1/2 fl oz of liquid here, use about 1/4 oz (7 g, one standard sachet) of powdered gelatine or three sheets of platinum-grade leaf. Bloom it in a little cold water, then dissolve gently without boiling.
- Gills and pintsA gill is a quarter of an imperial pint, 5 fl oz. So the milk is 5 fl oz, the ginger syrup 2 1/2 fl oz, and the cream 10 fl oz. Use double or heavy cream; single cream will not whip.
- The ginger"Two ounces of Ginger" almost certainly means preserved stem ginger in syrup rather than fresh root or ground, since the recipe also calls for ginger syrup, which would be the jar liquid. If your jar syrup is very thick, thin it slightly with water so it folds in evenly.
- The custardThree yolks with only an ounce of sugar and 5 fl oz of milk gives a thin custard. Cook it over a bain-marie, stirring, to around 175F, when it coats the back of a spoon. Push much past that and the yolks begin to scramble, and whisking will not fully recover it.
- Temperature at foldingThe hinge of the recipe. The custard must be cool but not set, and the melted gelatine warm but not hot, or the whipped cream deflates and the gelatine seizes into threads. Whip the cream only to soft peaks so it still folds.
- Suspending the gingerChopped ginger sinks in a loose mixture. Let the base thicken to the consistency of unbeaten cream over a bowl of iced water before folding in the pieces, then mould at once.
- Moulding and turning outRinse the mould with cold water rather than oiling it; the cream releases cleanly with a brief dip in warm water. Allow at least four hours in the refrigerator, or overnight.
- YieldMakes about a pint and a quarter, filling a 1 1/2 pint mould. Serves four to six as written.
Preserved ginger in heavy syrup, shipped from Canton in stoneware jars, was a staple of the well-stocked late Victorian and Edwardian storecupboard, and cookery writers of the period used it freely in ices, souffles and moulded creams. The dish itself is a bavarois: an egg custard lightened with whipped cream and set with gelatine, a French pattern that had been thoroughly absorbed into British high-class cookery by the 1880s and appears in dozens of flavours in books of this type. The generous gelatine may reflect the weakness of contemporary gelatine, and a cream of this kind had to turn out with sharp edges from an elaborate mould. Sets like this one were the cold-sweet workhorses of a service where the kitchen prepared much of the dessert course hours ahead.