Raspberry Cream
INGREDIENTS for quart mould.- pint of milk, pint of cream, 1½ oz. of gelatine, raspberry jelly, sugar to taste, 2 tablespoonfuls of brandy.
AVERAGE COST, 2s. 3d.
Boil the milk, cream and gelatine together for 1/4 hour, or until the latter is melted, and strain it through a hair-sieve into a basin. Let it cool a little; then add to it sufficient raspberry jelly, which, when melted, would make pint, and stir well until the ingredients are thoroughly mixed. If not sufficiently sweet, add a little pounded sugar with the brandy; whisk the mixture well until nearly cold, put it into a well-oiled mould, and set it in a cool RASPBERRY JAM. place till perfectly set. Raspberry jam may be substituted for the jelly; but must be melted, and rubbed through a sieve, to free it from seeds: in summer, the juice of the fresh fruit may be used, by slightly mashing it with a wooden spoon, and sprinkling sugar over it; the juice that flows KAN RASPBERRY-CREAM MOULD. from the fruit should then be used for mixing with the cream. If the colour should not be very good, a few drops of prepared cochineal, or carmine, may be added to improve its appearance.
TIME. -hour to boil the cream and gelatine.
SEASONABLE, with jelly, at any time.
Note. Strawberry cream may be made in precisely the same manner, substituting strawberry jam or jelly for the raspberry.
A Victorian moulded cream, set with gelatine and flavoured with raspberry jelly. It works well today, but the gelatine handling and the quantities both need attention before you start.
- Work back from the mouldThe mould is a quart (about 1.1 litres). The printed quantities are garbled in this copy, and milk and cream are given in equal measure, so scale to the vessel rather than to the figures.
- Do not boil the gelatine for an hourDo not boil the gelatine long -- The printed time is garbled here (a fraction of an hour has dropped out), but prolonged heat costs gelatine strength and dulls the flavour. Soak leaf or powdered gelatine in a little cold liquid until swollen, then stir it into the hot (not boiling) milk and cream for a minute or two until fully dissolved.
- Gelatine quantityVictorian gelatine varied in strength from batch to batch and was not standardised as modern gelatine is. For a quart of liquid, about half an ounce (roughly 4 teaspoons) of powdered gelatine or 6-7 leaves gives a cream that unmoulds cleanly and still melts on the tongue; the 1½ oz. specified would produce something closer to rubber.
- Hair sieveA fine-mesh nylon or stainless sieve does the same job. Straining matters here: it catches any undissolved gelatine, which otherwise sets as gritty threads.
- Raspberry jam instead of jellyWarm the jam gently to loosen it, then push it through the sieve to remove the seeds. Fresh fruit macerated with sugar, as described, gives the best flavour but a thinner colour.
- ColouringPrepared cochineal and carmine are still sold as food colour (E120); beetroot- and anthocyanin-based reds are also available. Add it a drop at a time; overdone, the cream looks synthetic.
- Whisking and settingWhisk only until the mixture is cool and slightly thickened, not aerated to a foam, or it will set in two layers. Oil the mould with a flavourless oil, and allow at least 4-6 hours in the refrigerator, or overnight for a large mould.
- Unmoulding and yieldDip the mould for 3-4 seconds in hot water, then invert onto a chilled plate. A quart mould serves 6 to 8.
Moulded creams of this kind were a fixture of the nineteenth-century supper table, where an elaborate turned-out shape was as much of the point as the flavour; the moulds of the period were made in castles, sheaves and fluted domes precisely so the cream would carry a pattern. The recipe belongs to the long, overlapping period in which commercial sheet gelatine gradually displaced the older, laborious practice of boiling down calves' feet or isinglass for a setting agent, a shift often credited with helping a dish like this move from grand houses into ordinary middle-class kitchens. Raspberry preserves were made in glut and drawn on all winter, and the note that the dish is "seasonable, with jelly, at any time" is the whole argument for preserving in one line. Cochineal, made from dried scale insects and long imported from Central America, was the standard household red before coal-tar dyes took over.