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Vanilla Blancmange
1061. Dissolve one ounce of isinglass in a gill of water; boil a vanilla bean in a pint of milk till the flavour is well extracted. Whip a quart of cream to a stiff froth. Beat stiff the whites of four eggs, then the yolks separately, and beat in a quarter of a pound of sifted sugar; mix the cream and vanilla milk, then beat in by degrees the yolk, then the white, and lastly the melted isinglass, beating and stirring them; pour into your moulds, and set to cool; if it will not turn out, just slip the moulds into lukewarm water.
This is a set cream in the older style, stiffened with isinglass rather than gelatine, and it depends on four raw eggs that are never cooked at any stage. The notes below explain the vocabulary and the reason the method cannot be followed today.
- Why it failsThe yolks and whites are beaten into cream and milk that has been taken off the heat, then chilled in moulds. Nothing in the sequence brings the egg to a temperature that would deal with Salmonella, and the mixture then sits for hours at a temperature that favours growth. A current recipe for a cooked custard base, or one using pasteurised egg, should be used instead.
- IsinglassA gelatine obtained from the swim bladders of fish, sold in leaves or shreds and dissolved by long soaking and gentle heat. It has effectively vanished from grocery shelves; where it survives it is a fining agent for beer and wine, not a kitchen staple.
- A gillA quarter of a pint: four fluid ounces by American measure, five by imperial. An ounce of isinglass to a gill of water is a very concentrated solution, and the recipe directs that it be melted and added last.
- The vanilla beanInfusing a whole bean in milk was a common way to flavour a cold sweet before commercial extract became cheap. The recipe says to boil the bean in a pint of milk till the flavour is well extracted; beans were sometimes rinsed, dried and used a second time.
- QuantitiesA quart of whipped cream, a pint of milk and four eggs make a large amount, though the recipe speaks of moulds in the plural rather than a single one. Moulded blancmanges of the period were often turned out whole and served as a centrepiece.
- Turning outThe final instruction about lukewarm water is sound practice for any moulded jelly or cream: a few seconds' contact loosens the surface without melting the interior. Dipping too long gives a slumped, weeping edge.