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Roman Pudding
1 tablespoon gelatine 1 tablespoon cold water + cup boiling water + cup powdered sugar 3 cups cream 1/4 cup Madeira wine 1 teaspoon salt 1 can preserved figs 1 cup beaten cream Soak gelatine in cold water; dissolve in boiling water; add wine and sugar. Stir until mixture thickens. Carefully fold in the whip from cream. Mold, chill, and serve with figs and beaten cream.
A cold gelatine cream in the Bavarian mold family, leaning on Madeira and canned figs rather than eggs or chocolate. It is simple, but the timing of the fold is everything.
- The hinge: fold at the right momentThe gelatine, wine and sugar must be cooled and stirred until they thicken to the consistency of raw egg white before the whipped cream goes in. Fold too early and the mixture separates into a clear jelly layer under a foam cap; too late and it sets into lumps you cannot smooth out.
- "The whip from cream"Period practice was to beat cream in a bowl and skim off the stiff froth as it rose, returning the thin liquid to be beaten again. Modern heavy cream (36 percent or more) whips through in one go, so simply whip the 3 cups to soft peaks and fold in.
- Gelatine strengthA tablespoon of granulated gelatine is roughly one and a quarter envelopes, about 9 g. With this volume of liquid and cream it will set to a soft, spoonable cream; if you want a mold that stands unsupported on a plate, chill it at least six hours.
- Ambiguous quantitiesThe amounts of boiling water and powdered sugar are not legible as fractions in this printing, and the salt is given as a full teaspoon, which is far more than a sweet cream will take. Work from a half cup of boiling water, a half cup of sugar, and a pinch of salt, tasting the liquid before the cream goes in.
- MadeiraUse a medium-dry Sercial or Verdelho rather than a supermarket "Madeira cooking wine," which is salted. The alcohol is never cooked off here, so the wine you choose is what you taste.
- Preserved figsCanned figs in heavy syrup are still sold, usually as Kadota figs. Drain them and reduce a little of the syrup if it is thin; dried figs stewed briefly in sugar syrup and cooled work equally well.
- Molding and unmoldingRinse the mold with cold water and do not oil it. To turn out, dip to the rim in warm water for five seconds only, then invert onto a chilled plate.
- YieldAbout 1.5 quarts of mixture, serving eight, with the extra cup of cream whipped at the last minute for the table.
Lowney's Cook Book was published in 1907 by Maria Willett Howard for the Walter M. Lowney Company, a Boston chocolate manufacturer, and, as was often said of house cookbooks of the era, it ranges well beyond the product it was written to sell. Puddings of this kind, gelatine set with whipped cream and a fortified wine, belong to the same family as Bavarian cream and were a staple of turn-of-the-century American company desserts: they could be made the morning of a dinner, held on ice, and turned out at the table with some ceremony. The name looks decorative rather than descriptive, in the manner of Roman punch and Neapolitan ice; no particular Italian tradition is evident behind it, though the Madeira and the preserved figs gesture southward. Canned figs mattered here, since they gave a Northern household a soft fruit garnish in any month, which fresh figs could not.