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Pineapple Bavarian Cream
1/2 box gelatine or 2 tablespoons granulated gelatine ½ cup cold water 1 can grated pineapple 1/2 cup sugar 1 tablespoon lemon juice Whip from 3 cups cream Soak gelatine in cold water. Heat pineapple, add sugar, lemon juice, and soaked gelatine; chill in pan of ice-water, stirring constantly; when it begins to thicken, fold in whip from cream, mould, and chill.
A gelatine set folded with whipped cream, from the era when cooks measured gelatine by the box and cream by what it yielded after whipping. Two of the quantities need translating before you start.
- The hinge: fold at the syrupy stageEverything depends on catching the pineapple mixture when it has thickened to the consistency of raw egg white but is not yet set. Fold too early and the cream sinks into a jellied layer; too late and you get lumps of jelly suspended in cream that will never smooth out.
- "1/2 box gelatine"Half a box corresponds to the recipe's own alternative of 2 tablespoons granulated gelatine, which is the figure to work from; that is about two modern 1/4-oz envelopes.
- The soaking water is ambiguous1 1/2 cup cold water is far more liquid than 2 tablespoons of gelatine needs and more than this quantity of pineapple can carry; other Farmer recipes of the same type soak half a box in about 1/2 cup. Treat the printed figure as suspect and soften the gelatine in roughly 1/2 cup, adding no more.
- "Whip from 3 cups cream"Period recipes call for whipping thin cream and skimming the stiff froth off the top as it rises, so the yield was less than the volume of cream started with. Modern heavy cream whips through entirely, so roughly 1 1/2 cups whipped to soft peaks gives about the volume intended.
- A can of grated pineappleCanned crushed pineapple in juice, about 20 oz, is the nearest thing. Use the juice as well; it is part of the liquid. Do not substitute fresh pineapple, whose bromelain digests gelatine and leaves the cream soupy.
- Heat, then don't boilThe pineapple only needs to be hot enough to dissolve the sugar and the softened gelatine completely. Rub a drop between your fingers to check for undissolved grains before you set the pan in ice water.
- Moulding and unmouldingRinse the mould in cold water rather than oiling it, and chill at least four hours, preferably overnight. Dip the mould briefly in warm water and invert onto a chilled plate.
- YieldAbout 1 1/2 quarts, serving eight to ten. It will hold a day in the refrigerator; after that the cream begins to weep.
Bavarian cream is the English name for the French bavarois, a custard or fruit base set with gelatine and lightened with whipped cream, which nineteenth-century French cooks treated as a standard entry in the cold-sweet repertoire; the connection to Bavaria itself is traditional and has never been firmly documented. What is distinctly American here is the can. Pineapple was a luxury in the 1890s and a staple by the 1910s, as Hawaiian canneries scaled up and grated or crushed pineapple became a cheap pantry item, which is why Farmer's book offers a whole family of these moulded creams flavoured from tins. The reliance on gelatine is of a piece with this: granulated gelatine sold in measured boxes spared the cook the tedious business of boiling down calves' feet.