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Maple Mousse
1 1/4 cups maple sirup 1/2 cup sugar 5 cups cream 2 tablespoons gelatin 1/4 cup cold water Combine maple sirup, sugar and one cup of cream and bring to a boil, stirring constantly. Add the gelatin softened in water and dissolved over heat. Strain, cool in ice-water until the mixture thickens, then add the remainder of the cream, whipped stiff. Place in a mold, pack in ice and salt and let stand for four hours.
A still-frozen dessert: nothing is churned, so the whipped cream and gelatin do all the work of keeping the texture light. The hinge is the chilling stage before the cream goes in.
- Catch the syrup base at the right momentCool the boiled syrup-and-gelatin mixture over ice-water only until it thickens to the consistency of unbeaten egg white. Fold in the whipped cream while it is still fluid enough to combine; if it sets to a jelly first, the mousse turns streaky and rubbery.
- Gelatin measureTwo tablespoons is roughly 18 g, about two and a half modern quarter-ounce envelopes. That sets this quantity firmly, which is what a mold demands. For a softer, more spoonable mousse use 4 teaspoons.
- Cream"Cream" here means cream rich enough to whip: heavy or whipping cream, roughly 30 to 36 percent butterfat. One cup goes into the hot syrup; the remaining four cups are whipped stiff and folded in. Light cream will not whip.
- SirupAn older spelling of syrup. Use pure maple syrup, not pancake syrup, which is corn syrup with flavoring and will taste thin against this much cream.
- Freezing without ice and saltThe mold packed in a bucket of crushed ice and rock salt -- period directions for packing a mousse generally give something on the order of one part salt to three or four parts ice -- was the household freezer of the day. A modern freezer does the same job: cover the mold tightly with film to prevent ice crystals and freeze four to six hours, or overnight.
- UnmoldingDip the mold in warm water for a few seconds and invert onto a chilled plate. Let the mousse stand ten minutes at room temperature before serving so the gelatin softens slightly.
- YieldSomething over two quarts once the whipped cream is folded in. It serves twelve to sixteen, and the recipe halves cleanly.
By about 1930, "mousse" in an American cookbook meant a frozen dessert set with gelatin or simply with stiff cream, packed in a mold and buried in ice and salt without stirring. That distinguished it from ice-cream proper, which had to be churned in a crank freezer, and from parfait, which was built on a cooked egg base. Still-frozen desserts were the practical choice for a cook who wanted something elaborate but had no hands to spare for cranking. Maple was a natural flavoring for such a book: American maple syrup was regionally abundant and carried an air of homely luxury that pure cream desserts of the period leaned on heavily.