Home › Creams, Jellies and Cold Sweets › Velvet Cream
Velvet Cream
Ingredients.
Three-quarters of an ounce of Gelatine.
Two ounces of Castor Sugar.
One glass of Sherry.
The rind of one Lemon.
Half a pint of Double Cream.
One gill of Water.
Melt the gelatine in one gill of water, then add the sugar, sherry, grated rind of one lemon, and the cream whipped to a stiff froth; pour into a mould to set. Do not add the cream until the melted gelatine is cool.
A late-Victorian moulded cream, essentially a sherry-flavoured whipped-cream jelly. It is simple, but the gelatine handling is where it succeeds or fails.
- The hinge: temperature of the gelatineThe instruction at the end matters more than anything else. Gelatine added hot will deflate and partly melt the whipped cream, and adding cold cream to hot gelatine can set it in threads. Let the dissolved gelatine cool to barely warm — fluid but no longer hot to the fingertip — then fold it into the cream in a steady stream while whisking.
- Gill and pintThis is an imperial British book: a gill is 5 fl oz (about 150 ml) and half a pint is 10 fl oz (about 300 ml).
- Gelatine strengthThree-quarters of an ounce is about 21 g, a generous amount for 10 fl oz of cream by modern standards; period gelatine was weaker and less consistently graded. Today's powdered gelatine at around 225 bloom will set the same volume firmly at roughly half that weight, and 21 g will give a distinctly rubbery cream.
- Castor sugarSuperfine (caster) sugar. Granulated will work if it is dissolved into the warm gelatine and water rather than added to the cream.
- One glass of sherryGenuinely imprecise. A Victorian wine glass was commonly reckoned at about 2 fl oz (60 ml), and that quantity suits the amount of cream here; more will thin the mixture and slow the set. A medium or sweet sherry — amontillado or oloroso — matches the intent better than a dry fino.
- Double creamAbout 48 per cent butterfat. US heavy cream at 36 per cent is the nearest substitute and will whip, but to a softer froth; whip it to soft-firm peaks only, since folding will stiffen it further.
- The lemon rindGrate only the yellow zest and add it to the warm gelatine mixture rather than the cream, so the oils disperse. Some cooks steep the pared rind in the water instead and strain it out, which gives perfume without specks.
- Moulding and turning outA mould rinsed with cold water and not greased. Chill at least four hours. To unmould, dip briefly to the rim in hot water, then invert onto a wetted plate so the cream can be slid into position.
- YieldServes six in a mould, or four to six in individual glasses if you would rather not turn it out.
Moulded creams of this kind — cream stiffened with isinglass or gelatine, flavoured with wine, citrus or almonds, and set in a shaped tin — were a staple of the British dessert course from the eighteenth century onward, descendants of the older flummeries and blancmanges. What changed by the time this book was written was the gelatine itself: commercially refined, packeted gelatine had displaced the laborious business of boiling calves' feet or clarifying isinglass, which put a set cream within reach of any cook with a mould and an ice box. "Velvet cream" belongs to a family of Victorian titles — Spanish cream, Bavarian cream, Swiss cream — that distinguished otherwise similar preparations by their flavouring and their use of egg.