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Almond Cream (Beat four ounces of sweet)
1012. Beat four ounces of sweet and a few bitter almonds in a mortar, with a tea-spoonful of water to prevent oiling, both having been blanched. Put the paste to a quart of cream, and add the juice of three lemons sweetened; beat it up with a whisk to a froth, which take off on the shallow part of a sieve; fill glasses with some of the liquor and the froth.
A whisked, unbaked cream of the sort served in glasses at Victorian suppers. The flavouring makes it unmakeable today.
- Bitter almonds are the problemBitter almonds contain amygdalin, which releases hydrogen cyanide when the kernel is crushed and wetted — precisely what pounding them in a mortar with water does. There is no way to judge a safe dose from "a few", and raw bitter almonds are not sold as food in the UK or US for this reason.
- No heat stepNothing here is cooked. Some of the volatile compounds in bitter almond are driven off by boiling; in a cold whisked cream they are not, so the paste goes into the glass as made.
- Not the same as almond extractModern almond essence and extract are formulated to deliver the flavour without the toxic component. Substituting them is not a repair of this recipe — the proportions of everything else were built around a pounded nut paste, so use a current recipe for almond cream instead.
- Quart of creamAn imperial quart is 40 fl oz, about 1.14 litres, not the 32 fl oz US quart. The book is British and the larger measure is meant.
- "Oiling"Almonds pounded dry in a mortar release their oil and turn greasy rather than smooth; the teaspoon of water is there to keep the paste emulsified. The same logic applies to any nut ground by hand.
- "The shallow part of a sieve"The froth was lifted off the surface and left to drain on a sieve, most likely the reverse, shallower side of a hair sieve, so the liquid ran away and only the stiff foam remained. A fine mesh strainer inverted over a bowl does the same job.
- How it was servedLiquor first, froth heaped on top, in small stemmed glasses; the recipe gives no number of glasses, and a quart of cream plus its froth would fill a good many.