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Bavarian Cream
2 tablespoons granulated gelatine cup cold water 1/4 cup hot cream 2 cups cream ½ cup sugar 1 teaspoon vanilla Soak the gelatine in cold water: dissolve in hot cream; add sugar. Add the whip from one pint of cream when the mixture begins to thicken. Cut and fold in this cream ; do not stir. When nearly stiff enough to drop, mold.
A gelatin-set whipped cream mold, eggless despite the name. The whole recipe turns on catching the gelatin mixture at the right moment.
- The hinge: timing the foldThe gelatin-cream base must be cool and just beginning to thicken to the consistency of raw egg white before the whipped cream goes in. Fold it in warm and the whip collapses into a soupy layer; let it set too far and you get rubbery lumps you cannot fold out.
- A missing measurementThe line reads "cup cold water" with the fraction dropped in printing. Two tablespoons of granulated gelatine is conventionally softened in about 1/4 to 1/2 cup cold water; the original is genuinely ambiguous here, and the smaller amount is the safer guess given how little other liquid the recipe carries.
- Gelatine strength has changedTwo tablespoons is a little over two modern envelopes (roughly 1/2 oz), and modern powdered gelatin is generally more standardised than the granulated product of this period. For a cream this rich, you may prefer to use rather less -- around one and a half envelopes -- for a cleaner, less bouncy set.
- "The whip from one pint of cream"One pint is the recipe's 2 cups. Some cookbooks of the period direct the cook to beat cream over ice, skim the stiff froth from the top and let the unwhipped liquid drain away, which is likely what 'the whip' means here. Whip to soft peaks; whipping to stiff tends to make the mixture grainy once gelatin is folded through.
- Cut and fold, do not stirThe instruction is literal. Use a spatula down the middle and up the side, turning the bowl, so the air stays in. Stirring a gelatin base into whipped cream deflates it in a few strokes.
- Molding and unmoldingRinse the mold in cold water and do not grease it. Chill at least 4 hours, then dip the mold briefly in warm water and invert onto a cold plate.
- YieldAbout a quart, serving six. The cream is very rich; small portions with fruit or a chocolate sauce suit it better than large ones.
Bavarian cream is the English name for the French bavarois, a molded dessert that classically combines a cooked egg custard, gelatin and whipped cream; the connection to Bavaria is traditional and never firmly documented, usually explained as a dish made by French chefs in the service of Bavarian nobility. What is notable in this version from Lowney's Cook Book is that the custard has vanished entirely, leaving gelatin, cream, sugar and vanilla. That simplification was made possible by packaged granulated gelatine, which by the turn of the century was steadily displacing the laborious business of boiling calves' feet for stock and is generally credited with bringing molded desserts within easier reach of the household cook. Lowney's, published by a Boston chocolate manufacturer, is full of such confident shortcuts aimed at exactly that reader.