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Cream Baskets
Line cups with macaroons and place half a preserved peach in the bottom.
Fill with Mock Bavarian Cream; chill on ice; turn out on two dishes and use strips of citron for handles. Serve with plain cream in individual portions.
An assembly dessert rather than a cooked one: the work is in the mould-lining and the unmoulding, and the recipe assumes you have already made the cream it refers to.
- Mock Bavarian CreamA cross-reference to another page in the book. "Mock" Bavarian in this period generally denotes a cornstarch- or gelatin-set milk pudding lightened with whipped cream, standing in for the true Bavarian built on egg custard. Any gelatin-set cream stiff enough to unmould will work; it must be firm, not pourable, or the baskets collapse.
- "Cups"Teacups or custard cups used here as moulds; the book gives no size. Rinse them with cold water or brush very lightly with a neutral oil before lining so the finished shape releases cleanly.
- Lining with macaroonsMost likely almond macaroons — crisp, meringue-based rounds — rather than the coconut sort, though the recipe does not say; in any case not French sandwich macarons. Split or trim them and press them against the sides; they soften against the cream and set into a shell.
- Preserved peachesPeach halves put up in heavy syrup. Canned peaches in syrup are the closest thing on a shelf today; drain them well and blot dry, since syrup running into the cream will keep it from setting against the fruit.
- CitronCandied citron peel, the same product sold for fruitcake, cut into thin strips and bent over the top as a handle. Cut the strips while the peel is at room temperature so they flex without cracking.
- "Chill on ice"An icebox instruction. Three to four hours in the refrigerator, or until the cream is set right through; overnight is better and makes unmoulding far more reliable.
- Turning outDip the cup briefly in warm water, then invert onto the plate. "Turn out on two dishes" is ambiguous in the original — it may mean two to a serving dish, or dividing the batch between two dishes; either way the recipe gives no quantity at all.
- Yield and servingCount on one basket per person and figure the amount of Mock Bavarian Cream accordingly; the recipe gives no quantity. The "plain cream" poured alongside is unwhipped and unsweetened.
Cream baskets belong to a family of moulded desserts that dressed a plain milk pudding in something ornamental — here macaroons for walls, candied citron for a handle, a preserved peach at the bottom as a surprise. The Butterick Cook Book (1911) came from the pattern-and-magazine publisher, and its cold-dessert chapter favours individual portions over one grand mould. The "mock" in Mock Bavarian Cream is the period's honest label for economy: real Bavarian cream needs a yolk custard and good gelatin, while the mock version leans on cornstarch and milk, and the decoration does the rest of the work. Preserved peaches and candied citron are the kind of keeping ingredients this dessert is built from.