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Strawberry Bavarian Cream
1 quart of strawberries 1 cup of sugar 1½ box of gelatine 1 pint of cream 1/2 cup of cold water Cover the gelatine with the water, and soak a half hour. Mash the berries and press them through a sieve fine enough to remove the seeds; add the sugar, and stir until dissolved. Stand the gelatine over boiling water and, when melted, strain it into the strawberry juice; mix, turn into a tin basin, and finish the same as Raspberry Bavarian Cream.
A fruit bavarois with no custard base: strawberry purée set with gelatine and lightened with whipped cream. The original leans on the raspberry version a few pages earlier, so the method has to be reconstructed.
- The missing method"Finish the same as Raspberry Bavarian Cream" means: set the basin in ice water and stir until the mixture thickens to the consistency of raw egg white, then fold in the cream, whipped to soft peaks. Fold too early and the cream floats to the top in a separate layer; fold too late and the gelatine has set in lumps.
- How much gelatineBox sizes varied by maker and sources disagree on how much one held. If a box was about half an ounce, 1½ boxes is roughly ¾ oz, or about three ¼-oz envelopes (21 g); if a box was an ounce, it is twice that. That is a firm, sliceable set meant for unmolding; for a spooned dessert two envelopes is closer to modern taste. The measure is not certain, so err on the side of less if you are unsure.
- Soaking and meltingHalf an hour in cold water is still correct — gelatine must bloom before it will dissolve cleanly. Melting it over boiling water rather than direct heat matters: gelatine loses setting power if it is boiled.
- Straining into the fruitStrain the melted gelatine into the sweetened purée and stir at once. If the purée is refrigerator-cold the gelatine will seize into threads on contact; have the fruit at room temperature.
- SugarA cup of sugar to a quart of berries is sweet by modern standards; taste the purée and start with two-thirds of a cup, adding more if the berries are sharp.
- Tin basin, and iceMetal chills fast in an ice bath. A metal bowl set in a larger bowl of ice and water does the same job; a stint in the freezer, stirred often, is the modern shortcut.
- The creamA pint of cream means heavy cream, whipped. Whip it cold and stop at soft peaks — stiffly whipped cream will not fold smoothly into a setting gelatine mixture.
- Setting and unmoldingFour to six hours in the refrigerator, or overnight. To turn it out, dip the mold in warm water for a few seconds and invert onto a chilled plate.
- YieldAbout 1½ quarts, serving eight.
Bavarian cream is the English name for the French crème bavaroise, a nineteenth-century dessert usually built on an egg custard set with isinglass or gelatine and lightened with whipped cream; the connection to Bavaria itself is traditional rather than documented, often attributed to French chefs who had worked for Bavarian households. What is notable here is the omission: no eggs, no cooked custard, just fruit purée, gelatine and cream. It also depended on commercial ice, which by the later nineteenth century was delivered to city households cheaply enough that a home cook could count on packing a mold. Granulated gelatine sold in boxes, rather than calf's-foot jelly boiled down at home, is the other quiet modernity in the recipe; it turned a two-day project into an afternoon one.