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Ginger Bavarian
Use rule for Banana Bavarian, substituting one cup preserved ginger; and adding one quarter cup sherry wine. 2 cups milk 3 egg yolks 1/4 cup sugar
This is a variation entry, not a standalone recipe: the milk, yolks and sugar listed are the custard base, but the gelatin and cream come from the Banana Bavarian rule it points back to. Read that recipe first, or work from a standard Bavarian ratio.
- What is missingA Bavarian cream needs gelatin and whipped cream, neither of which appears in the fragment above. For 2 cups milk and 3 yolks, figure on about 1 tablespoon (roughly one envelope) powdered gelatin softened in cold water, and 1 cup heavy cream whipped soft and folded in at the end.
- "Rule"Period cookbooks use "rule" to mean recipe or formula. Cross-references of this kind, sending the cook back to a base recipe, were common in such books.
- Preserved gingerThis means stem ginger in heavy syrup, sold in jars or crocks, not crystallised ginger and certainly not ground. Drain it, chop it fine, and account for the sweetness of the clinging syrup by holding back a little of the quarter cup of sugar.
- The custard is the hingeCook the milk, yolks and sugar over low heat or a water bath only until it coats a spoon, around 170-175F. Past that the yolks scramble and no amount of straining will bring back the texture.
- When to add the sherryStir the sherry in after the custard is off the heat and the gelatin dissolved, while the mixture is still warm but no longer cooking. Adding it to hot milk early drives off most of what it was added for.
- Folding and settingChill the custard until it mounds slightly on a spoon before folding in the whipped cream and ginger, or the fruit sinks and the cream deflates. Then pour into a mould and refrigerate at least 4 hours.
- YieldRoughly a quart or a little more, serving about six. A plain ring or charlotte mould unmoulds most cleanly after a brief dip in warm water.
Bavarian cream, or bavarois, is a nineteenth-century restaurant standard: a cooked egg custard set with gelatin and lightened with whipped cream, capable of taking on almost any flavouring, which is exactly why cookbooks of this period listed it once and then ran variations off it. Lowney's book was published by the Walter M. Lowney Company, a Boston chocolate manufacturer, and it promoted the firm's cocoa while filling out the rest with the standard American dessert repertoire of the day. Preserved ginger belonged to that repertoire more firmly than it does now; jars of ginger in syrup, with Canton a well-known source, were a common pantry item and a common gift, and it turns up in period ice creams, puddings and cakes as a ready-made sweet flavouring. The sherry here does the same work it does in a trifle, cutting the richness of a set cream that is otherwise mostly egg and dairy.