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Lemon Solid
1050. Mix the rind of one lemon grated, and the juice squeezed in, with one pint of cream, half an ounce of isinglass boiled in a little water, and six ounces of sugar boiled with the cream. When the cream and isinglass are almost cold, pour it on the lemon. Another Lemon Solid.-Grate the peel of a large lemon, and put the juice into a basin, with brandy and sugar to the taste. Boil a quart of cream and pour it on the lemon, stirring it till it is cold.
Two versions of the same idea: a set lemon cream, one stiffened with isinglass and one relying on acid alone to thicken hot cream. Both are simple, and both hinge on the temperature at which cream and lemon meet.
- The hinge: when the acid goes inIn the first version the cream must be almost cold before it touches the lemon, or the juice will curdle it into grains rather than setting it smooth. The second version does the opposite on purpose, pouring boiling cream onto juice so the acid thickens it as it cools; stir steadily until cold and it will be smooth.
- IsinglassHalf an ounce of isinglass, a collagen setting agent from sturgeon swim bladders, is not sold in most kitchens now. Powdered or leaf gelatine is the direct substitute; roughly two teaspoons (about 7 g) of powdered gelatine will set a pint of cream to a spoonable solid, and a full tablespoon gives a firm turn-out. Isinglass strength varied considerably, so the original weight is not a reliable guide.
- Pints and quartsThese are imperial: a pint is 20 fl oz (about 570 ml) and a quart 40 fl oz (about 1.1 litres). Scaling by American measures will leave both mixtures short of liquid.
- Which creamUse double or heavy cream, 36 per cent fat or above. The second version in particular will not set at all with single cream or half-and-half, since it depends on fat and acid alone.
- SugarSix ounces is a scant cup, dissolved in the cream as it heats. That is sweet by modern taste for a pint; four ounces is closer to a contemporary lemon posset and still sets.
- Brandy in the second versionTwo to three tablespoons is a reasonable reading of "to the taste". Much more and the extra liquid will loosen the set.
- Setting and servingPour into glasses or a wetted mould and chill at least four hours, overnight for the moulded version. These are rich and should be served in modest portions; note that the second version uses twice the cream of the first and will yield accordingly.
"Solid" was a nineteenth-century dessert name for a cream stiff enough to hold its shape when turned out of a mould, as against the creams, whips and fools that stayed loose. The second version uses the older technique and needs no setting agent: hot cream poured onto lemon juice thickens by itself, the same principle behind lemon posset -- though in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries a posset was more usually a hot spiced milk drink curdled with wine or ale, and set lemon creams of this kind existed alongside it. Isinglass, imported chiefly from Russian sturgeon and later from other fish, had been used for jellies well before the Victorian period, and was gradually displaced by cheaper refined gelatine over the course of the nineteenth century. That both recipes sit side by side, one with a setting agent and one without, is common in compiled cookery books, which often gather variants rather than choosing between them.