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To Whip Fruit Creams
1005. Rub a lump or two of sugar on the peel of a lemon, then sprinkle the juice of half a lemon on the sugar, and leave it for a time to melt (a table-spoonful of sugar is enough if the preserve is very sweet). Then mix the jam or jelly with the above; and lastly, add a pint of good cream by degrees to the whole, and whip it steadily till thick; sometimes this will be in five or ten minutes. Cease whipping as soon as it is thick enough. Some cooks add a spoonful of brandy. Another Plan.-Put a little sifted sugar in some thick cream, and whip it very fast; when it is quite thick, put in some rough pieces in a glass dish, then put strawberries or raspberries about, or very nice gooseberries, putting more and more till you have a handsome dish full, taking care to place them with taste on the outside; or, flavour the cream with syrup of quinces, and put bits of preserved quinces in; and cream flavoured with lemon, or any fruit syrup, and whipped in this way, and put in glasses, gives you a nice sweet in a few minutes.
Two methods for a fruit fool-cum-whipped cream, given in the loose Victorian style that assumes the cook can judge quantities by eye. The only real technique here is the whipping, and the only real risk is going past the point where cream turns grainy.
- Rubbing sugar on the peelDragging a sugar lump over a lemon until it is stained yellow draws the oil out of the zest; this is the preparation now generally called oleo-saccharum. Fine zest grated straight into caster sugar and left ten minutes does the job faster.
- The pint of creamThis is an imperial pint, 20 fl oz, or about 2 1/2 US cups. It needs to be double or heavy cream at 36 per cent fat or above; whipping cream at around 30 per cent will thicken more slowly and hold less well, and single or light cream at about 18 per cent will not whip at all.
- Unstated quantity of jamThe recipe never says how much preserve to use, only that a tablespoon of sugar suffices if the jam is very sweet. Around 4-6 tablespoons of jam or jelly to a pint of cream gives colour and flavour without slackening the mixture.
- Whip cold, and stop earlyCream, bowl and whisk should all be cold. Five to ten minutes is right for a hand whisk; an electric beater on medium will get there in two to three, and the instruction to cease whipping as soon as it is thick enough matters more with a machine. Soft peaks are the target, since folding in the jam will stiffen it further.
- Acid and the fruitLemon juice and acidic jam will thicken cream noticeably, and if the cream is already at stiff peaks they can push it to a curdled, buttery texture. Whip to soft peaks first, then fold the sweetened lemon and preserve through by hand.
- "Rough pieces" in the second methodThe phrase is ambiguous, but most likely means spooning the whipped cream into the dish in irregular craggy mounds rather than smoothing it, so the fruit sits in the hollows. On that reading it is a serving instruction, not a further step of preparation.
- Syrup of quincesA thick sweetened quince syrup, once a standard preserve-cupboard item. Quince paste or membrillo loosened with a little water, or the syrup drained from a jar of quinces in syrup, stands in for it.
- Yield and timingA pint of cream whipped with fruit serves six to eight in glasses. Make it no more than two or three hours ahead and keep it refrigerated; the fruit acid will slowly weep liquid out of the cream if it stands overnight.