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Savoy Float. Gipsy Pudding
Make a jelly cake composed of two sheets of sponge cake baked with granulated sugar on top to formed a glazed surface, and red currant jelly spread between and when to be used set it floating in two quarts of ice-cold boiled custard flavored with vanilla. May be served whole in a glass bowl or by spoonfuls in saucers with plenty of the custard for sauce.
A dessert assembled rather than cooked: two thin sponge sheets sandwiched with currant jelly, set adrift in a large quantity of chilled stirred custard. The success of it rests entirely on the custard.
- "Boiled custard" must not boilThe period term means a stirred custard cooked over gentle heat or a water bath until it coats a spoon, roughly 175-180F. Actual boiling scrambles the yolks and no amount of straining will bring the texture back.
- Custard quantity and proportionsTwo quarts is 8 cups, and the recipe is generous with it on purpose since it doubles as the sauce. A workable base is 6 egg yolks, 1/2 cup sugar and a pinch of salt per quart of milk, with the vanilla stirred in off the heat so it does not cook away.
- The glazed topGranulated sugar scattered over the sponge batter before baking sets into a thin crackled crust. The recipe calls for it specifically to give a glazed surface.
- Baking the sheetsThe recipe gives no oven temperature or time. Thin sponge sheets are generally baked in a fairly hot oven for a short time; any genoise-style sheet will do.
- Currant jellyRed currant jelly was a common nineteenth-century pantry item and is tart enough to cut the sweet custard. Where it is hard to find, another sharp, firm-set jelly rather than a loose jam will hold the layers together.
- Assemble cold, serve soonThe recipe specifies ice-cold custard, so chill it thoroughly before floating the cake. Left to stand, the sponge will take up custard and sink.
- YieldTwo quarts of custard with a two-layer sheet cake serves 10 to 12 in saucers. The whole-in-a-glass-bowl presentation needs a wide shallow bowl so the cake sits proud of the custard rather than submerged.
Nineteenth-century American and English dessert books are full of "floats" — something light set adrift on a pool of custard or sweetened cream — of which floating island, with its poached meringue, is the best known. Substituting a jelly cake for the meringue makes the dish sturdier. The name "Gipsy Pudding" belongs to a family of Victorian desserts given picturesque or vaguely exotic titles at a time when a novel name sold a dish as effectively as a novel flavour; it carries no reliable connection to Romani cooking. Red currant jelly was a staple preserve of the period pantry, valued for its firm set and its acidity against rich custards and creams.