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Banana Cantaloupe
2 tablespoons granulated gelatine ½ cup cold water Whites 2 eggs ½ cup powdered sugar ¾ cup scalded cream 2/3 cup sugar 4 bananas, mashed pulp 1 tablespoon lemon juice Whip from 3½ cups cream 12 lady fingers Soak gelatine in cold water, beat whites of eggs slightly, add powdered sugar, and gradually hot cream, cook over hot water until it thickens; add soaked gelatine and remaining sugar, strain into a pan set in ice-water, add bananas and lemon juice, stir until it begins to thicken, then fold in • whip from cream. Line a melon mould with lady fingers trimmed to just fit sections of mould, turn in the mixture, spread evenly, and chill. ¼ box gelatine or
A gelatine-set banana Bavarian cream moulded in a melon mould lined with lady fingers, from the era when a chilled moulded dessert was the showpiece of a summer table. The name refers to the shape, not to any melon in the dish.
- The hingeThe custard base must be cooled over ice-water and stirred only until it begins to thicken before the whipped cream goes in. Fold too early and the cream sinks into a layer; too late and the gelatine sets in lumps that will not smooth out.
- Granulated gelatineTwo tablespoons of granulated gelatine is roughly two modern envelopes (about ½ oz). Bloom it in the ½ cup cold water for 5 minutes, then let the hot custard dissolve it completely; undissolved grains show as gritty threads.
- Cream quantitiesThe scalded cream reads ¾ cup, as printed. The whipped cream is the whip from 3½ cups of cream, which makes a large quantity of mixture, in keeping with the two tablespoons of gelatine.
- Cooking the custard"Over hot water" means a double boiler, water below the boil. Take it off when it coats a spoon, around 170-175F. Direct heat will scramble a white-and-cream custard very quickly.
- Powdered sugarPeriod powdered sugar was a fine granulated sugar, not the cornstarch-blended confectioners' sugar sold now. Superfine or caster sugar is the closer match here.
- BananasMash to a smooth pulp and add the lemon juice promptly; it is there to stop browning as much as for flavour. Very ripe fruit gives the best flavour but a looser set.
- Melon mould and lady fingersMelon moulds were made in various sizes. Any mould, bowl or loaf pan of comparable capacity will do, lined with plastic wrap for turning out. Trim the lady fingers to stand upright against the sides, rounded faces out.
- Chilling and yield"Chill" means at least 4 hours, better overnight, for a clean unmoulding. Dip the mould briefly in warm water and invert.
Moulded creams set with gelatine were a prestige dessert of the American cooking-school era: Bavarian creams, charlottes, and ribbon jellies, built on packaged gelatine that spared cooks the long labour of boiling calves' feet. The name here appears to come from the melon mould rather than from any melon in the dish. Bananas were still a comparative novelty in northern American kitchens in this period, arriving in quantity as the Central American fruit trade and improved steamship transport of the 1880s and 1890s made them cheaper and more dependable, and cookbooks of the time were eager to show them doing something more elegant than being eaten out of the skin.