Chocolate Cream
INGREDIENTS for quart mould.-3 oz. of grated chocolate, 1/4 lb. of sugar, 1 pint of milk, 1/2 pint of cream, 1½ oz. of clarified isinglass or gelatine, the yolks of 4 eggs. AVERAGE COST, 2s. Beat the yolks of the eggs well, put them into a basin with the grated chocolate, the sugar, and 1 pint of milk; stir these CREAM-MOULD. ingredients well together, pour them into a jug, and set this jug in a saucepan of boiling water; stir it one way until the mixture thickens, but do not allow it to boil, or it will curdle. Strain the cream through a sieve into a basin; stir in the isinglass or CHOCOLATE CREAMS. gelatine and the 1/2 pint of cream, which should be well whipped; mix all well together, and pour it into a mould which has been previously oiled with the purest salad oil, and, if at hand, set it in ice until wanted for table.
TIME. About 10 minutes to stir the mixture over the fire.
SEASONABLE at any time.
A moulded chocolate custard set with gelatine — the Victorian ancestor of chocolate panna cotta. Two things need translating: the setting agent, which is far stronger now, and the chocolate itself.
- The gelatine is the hinge1½ oz of Victorian isinglass or leaf gelatine was needed because the product was weaker and less consistent than anything sold today. Modern powdered or leaf gelatine at that dose would give a bouncing, rubbery mould; about ½ oz (roughly 4 teaspoons of powder, or 6-7 leaves) is enough to set 1½ pints firmly enough to turn out.
- IsinglassDried sturgeon swim bladder, clarified by simmering and straining. It is still made for brewing, but is not a kitchen item; use gelatine and skip the clarifying entirely.
- Grated chocolateNineteenth-century block chocolate for cooking was dark and coarse, and generally far less sweet than modern eating chocolate, which probably explains why ¼ lb of sugar joins only 3 oz of chocolate. Use a good 60-70% dark chocolate, finely chopped or grated, and consider cutting the sugar to 2-3 oz to taste.
- The custard temperature"Do not allow it to boil" is the whole instruction. In a jug set in simmering water, take the mixture to about 175F/80C on a thermometer — thick enough to coat a spoon and hold a drawn line. Past about 185F the yolks scramble and the sieve will not save it.
- Add gelatine off the heatSoften the gelatine in a little cold water first, then stir it into the strained custard while it is still hot so it dissolves completely. Let the custard cool to barely warm before folding in the whipped cream, or the cream will slacken and the mould will separate into layers.
- Oiling the mouldA neutral oil, wiped on with paper so only the faintest film remains — too much and it beads on the surface of the turned-out cream. To unmould, dip briefly in hot water and invert.
- Setting timeThe recipe treats ice as optional ("if at hand"), since not every kitchen had access to it. Four hours in the refrigerator is the practical minimum; overnight is better.
- Yield and costA quart mould serves 6-8 as a dessert. The 2s. is Mrs Beeton's costing for her own day and has no modern meaning.
Chocolate cream belongs to the great Victorian family of moulded "creams" — flavoured custards stiffened with isinglass or gelatine and turned out of ornamental copper or tinned moulds, a category that also produced coffee cream, ratafia cream and the various blancmanges. The mould mattered: where dinner was still served in the older style, with the dishes of a course set out on the table together, a glossy, sharply moulded cream held its shape and its architecture through the course — though by the 1860s the newer service, with dishes brought round in sequence, was gaining ground as well. Isinglass, the older setting agent, came from fish and was expensive and troublesome to clarify; commercially refined gelatine was displacing it through the second half of the century, and Mrs Beeton offers the two as alternatives without comment. Chocolate at this date was mostly a hard block sold for drinking and cooking rather than for eating out of hand — eating chocolate existed from the late 1840s but was not yet usual — and the generous sugar in the recipe reflects how bitter that block would have been.