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Venetian Cream
1038. Dissolve half an ounce of isinglass in a pint of cream (if much wasted, add a little more cream); pour the cream on three ounces of TRIFLE. ratafias and macaroons mixed, sweeten with raspberry jelly (or lemon and sugar), whisk it ten or fifteen minutes; put it in a mould, and it will turn out next day.
A whisked, isinglass-set cream in the blancmange family, thickened with crushed almond biscuits. The hinge is the whisking: the mixture must be aerated while it is still fluid but on the point of setting, or it will either collapse or seize into a solid block.
- Isinglass to gelatineIsinglass is dried sturgeon swim bladder, sold in leaf or shred and variable in strength; it is not a like-for-like swap. For a pint of cream a modern cook would use roughly 2 teaspoons of powdered gelatine or three leaves, but the half-ounce given here cannot be converted exactly.
- "If much wasted"Isinglass was dissolved by long, gentle heating in liquid, which drove off some of the cream. The instruction simply means top the pint back up if it has reduced in the pan.
- Pint sizeAn imperial pint is 20 fl oz, so about 2 1/2 US cups. Using a 16 oz US pint will give a noticeably firmer set.
- Ratafias and macaroonsBoth are small dry almond biscuits, the ratafia flavoured with bitter almond or fruit kernel. Amaretti or crisp almond macaroons are the nearest thing; modern coconut macaroons are a different sweet entirely and will not do.
- Raspberry jellyA clear, strained, well-set raspberry preserve, used here for sweetness and colour at once. A seedless raspberry jam works; if you take the lemon-and-sugar option instead, the cream stays pale rather than pink.
- The whiskingTen to fifteen minutes by hand aerates the cream as the isinglass cools toward setting. Whisk over a bowl of cold water, watch for the mixture to hold soft ribbons, and pour into the mould at once rather than whisking on into a set.
- Turning outRinse the mould with cold water or oil it very lightly before filling. Next day, dip the base briefly in warm water and invert.
- YieldThe whisking increases the volume, so expect appreciably more than the pint of cream you started with; the exact quantity depends on how much air is beaten in.
Nineteenth-century English cookery books are full of moulded creams named for cities and countries with little regard for provenance, and Venetian cream is one of them: the label may nod to the almond-and-ratafia flavouring that English cooks associated with Italian confectionery. What sets it apart from a plain blancmange is the whisking, which turns a firm jelly into something closer to a mousse. Ratafia biscuits, then a standard grocer's line, are generally said to take their name from the almond- and kernel-flavoured cordial ratafia. Commercial powdered gelatine gradually displaced isinglass in domestic kitchens over the following decades.