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Solid Clouted Cream
1015. String four blades of mace on a thread; put them to a gill of new milk, and six spoonfuls of rose-water; simmer a few minutes, then, by degrees, stir this liquor strained into the yolks of two new eggs well beaten. Stir the whole into a quart of very good cream, and set it over the fire; stir it till hot, but not boiling hot; pour it into a deep dish, and let it stand twenty-four hours. Serve it in a cream dish, to eat with fruits. Many people prefer it without any flavour but that of the cream; in which case use a quart of new milk and the cream, or do it as the Devonshire scalded cream.- (Economical Housekeeper, p. 47).
A rose-and-mace scented cream custard from the older English tradition, related to but not identical with true Devonshire clotted cream. The method as printed cannot be followed safely today, and the points below explain both the vocabulary and the problem.
- Why it failsTwo raw egg yolks are stirred into cream that is deliberately taken only to "hot, but not boiling hot" — an instruction that gives no temperature and may leave the yolks well short of any level that would deal with Salmonella. The mixture is then held for twenty-four hours, which in a modern kitchen means a day at room temperature in an enriched dairy medium. Use a current recipe for clotted cream or for a cooked custard instead.
- The twenty-four hour standThe original assumes a cool larder or dairy rather than a modern warm kitchen. That context has vanished from ordinary houses, and the instruction cannot simply be transplanted.
- A gillA quarter of a pint, about five fluid ounces in British measure. The proportion here is one gill of milk to a full quart of cream, so the milk is carrying the flavourings rather than thinning the mixture.
- Spoonfuls"Six spoonfuls" of rose-water is genuinely ambiguous in a book of this date -- a spoonful may mean a tablespoon or a dessertspoon depending on the source. Either way the rose-water is assertive.
- Blades of maceMace is the lacy outer covering of the nutmeg seed, dried in flat pieces called blades. Four blades is a light hand. Ground mace is not a straight substitute, since it clouds the cream and cannot be strained out — the thread here exists so the whole bundle can be lifted clear.
- "New" milk and eggsNew milk is fresh, unskimmed milk; new eggs are newly laid. Both point to ingredients used very fresh, before skimming or storage.
- The unflavoured versionThe closing note offers the dish plain, made with a quart of milk and the cream, or "as the Devonshire scalded cream" — that is, by the true clotting method, in which whole milk stands, is heated very gently without stirring, and the crust is skimmed after cooling. That is a different technique altogether, with no eggs in it.
"Clouted" is an older form of clotted; it is usually explained from clout, a patch or piece of cloth, as a reference to the thick sheet of crust that forms on scalded milk and lifts off in one piece, though this derivation is traditional rather than settled. True clotted cream belongs to Devon and Cornwall, where it was made by standing shallow pans of milk in a cool dairy and then heating them slowly until the cream rose and set. The version here is a different animal: a cream enriched with egg yolks and perfumed with mace and rose-water, in the older English taste for floral distilled waters in sweet dishes such as creams and possets. It is credited here to The Economical Housekeeper, p. 47, and such compilations commonly reprinted recipes from earlier books, so a flavour profile of this kind can be considerably older than the compilation carrying it. The author's aside that many people prefer it with no flavour but the cream itself marks a change in taste.