Another Way
Line jelly molds with strawberries dipped in melted jelly to make them stick, and the molds set in ice water. When set firm fill the lined molds with either of the foregoing Bavarian creams.
This is a finishing technique rather than a standalone recipe: a fruit-lined mold to dress up a Bavarian cream made earlier in the book. The whole thing hinges on temperature control, since warm jelly and cold mold are doing all the work.
- What "jelly" means hereNot jam. In a pastry kitchen of this period "jelly" would normally mean a clear, sweetened fruit jelly — currant or apple were common — melted just to liquid. A firm currant jelly loosened with a little water gives the same effect.
- Melted, not hotThe jelly should be barely fluid. Too hot and it runs off the chilled mold and slackens the berries; too cool and it sets in the bowl before the fruit is placed.
- The ice-water bathThe molds sit in ice water so each berry sets on contact. Fill a bowl with ice and water to just below the rim of the mold and work quickly, one berry at a time, pressing each briefly against the metal until it grips.
- Choose the fruit for the jobSmall, firm, dry strawberries hold their shape and shed less juice. Hull them, halve any large ones, and pat them thoroughly dry — surface water prevents the jelly from adhering.
- Line the mold in stagesBerries on the sloping sides will slip if the mold is filled too soon; the recipe is explicit that the lining must be "set firm" first. A further thin coat of melted jelly over the lining, chilled again, will help lock the fruit in place.
- Filling temperatureThe Bavarian cream must be at the point of setting — thick enough to mound softly on a spoon — before it is poured in. A loose, warm cream will melt the jelly and float the berries out of place.
- UnmoldingDip the mold briefly in warm (not hot) water, wipe it, and invert onto a chilled plate. Longer and the jelly liquefies and the pattern smears.
- YieldThe recipe specifies neither mold size nor yield. The same lining works for individual dariole molds, which are easier to line and faster to chill.
Lined and "decorated" molds were the visible proof of a pastry cook's patience in the late nineteenth century, when the Bavarian cream — a custard set with gelatin and lightened with whipped cream — was a fixture of American hotel and restaurant dessert lists. Comparable lined and layered jellied entremets belong to the French pastry repertoire, and the spread of commercial gelatin over the course of the nineteenth century made clear, reliable jellies easier to obtain than homemade calf's-foot stock. The entry is terse because it assumes the reader already has one of the foregoing Bavarian creams to hand and needs only the trick of making fruit stick to cold metal.