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Cranberry Sponge
Soak ½ a box of granulated gelatine in ½ of a cupful of cold water. Pick over and wash 1 pint of cranberries, put into a saucepan with ¼ of a cupful of cold water, cover closely and cook until the berries burst, then rub through a sieve.
Measure and add more boiling water, if needed, to make 1 pint of thin pulp. Return to the fire and when almost boiling add sufficient granulated sugar to make very sweet-this will take 2 cupfuls or more, according to the acidity of the fruit. Stir for a moment, add the softened gelatine, stir until thoroughly dissolved then take from the fire and set aside. When cold and beginning to thicken add the whites of 4 eggs whipped to a stiff froth and continue whipping until the mixture is very thick and spongy.
Turn into a wetted mold and stand in a cold place until firm.
A cold cranberry gelatine whipped with egg whites into a foam — the ancestor of the boxed "whip" desserts. Two details govern success: the gelatine quantity and the moment you add the whites.
- Half a box of gelatineA modern box of granulated gelatine holds four ¼-oz envelopes, so read literally half a box is two envelopes, about 4½ teaspoons or 14 g. Period boxes were often larger, however, so the original may have intended more; taken either way it is a firm set for a pint of pulp, which is what allows the whipped foam to hold.
- The water measurementsSoak the gelatine in ½ cup cold water; cook the berries in about ¼ cup. The finished cranberry pulp should measure 1 pint before the sugar goes in — top it up with boiling water if the sieved purée falls short.
- Raw egg whitesThe whites are folded into a cooled mixture and never cooked. Use pasteurised egg whites, sold in cartons, if the dessert will be eaten by children, older people, anyone pregnant or anyone immune-compromised.
- The hinge: catch the gelatine at the right stageAdd the whites when the cranberry mixture is cold and just beginning to thicken to the consistency of raw egg white. Too warm and the foam collapses to liquid; too set and it breaks into lumps you cannot whip smooth.
- WhippingA stand mixer does in three or four minutes what the original expected of a wire whisk and a strong arm. Whip until the mass roughly doubles, holds soft peaks and no longer runs off the beater.
- SugarTwo cupfuls to a pint of pulp is very sweet by modern taste, but sugar is also carrying the structure and the harsh acidity of unsweetened cranberry. Start at 1½ cups, taste warm, and add more; the mixture will taste less sweet once cold and aerated.
- SievingPress the cooked berries through a fine sieve or use a food mill. A blender alone leaves skin fragments that show as flecks and coarsen the texture.
- Mould and timingRinse the mould with cold water and do not oil it. Chill at least 4 hours, better overnight. Makes about 1½ quarts, serving six to eight; unmould onto a cold plate and serve with plain cream or custard.
Gelatine "sponges" and "whips" were the practical dessert of the early twentieth-century economy kitchen: granulated gelatine sold in boxed envelopes from the 1890s onward turned a few cents' worth of fruit and four egg whites into a dish that filled a large mould and looked far more expensive than it was. Cranberries are said to have suited the purpose especially well in American books, coming from the Cape Cod and New Jersey bogs in autumn, reputedly keepable for some time in a cold cellar, and acid enough that even heavily sugared they read as fruit rather than as candy. The technique is the same one behind lemon and prune sponges of the period, and the pale pink colour was part of the appeal at a time when a moulded dessert was expected to be handsome on the table.