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Velvet Cream
Add four tablespoons of powdered sugar to one pint of thick cream and stir until dissolved. Soak onethird of a box of gelatine for one-half hour in a half cup of cold water, and if not thoroughly dissolved, place over hot water. Flavor with a teaspoon of vanilla. Mix thoroughly, turn into a mold and place on ice to harden. Serve with maple cream sauce. See chapter on Puddings and Pudding Sauces.
A simple cold cream mold, closer to an Italian panna cotta than to a Bavarian, since nothing is whipped and no eggs are involved. Two things need translating: the gelatine measurement and the temperature at which the two mixtures meet.
- One-third of a box of gelatinePeriod boxes of granulated gelatine varied by maker, but were commonly around an ounce, so a third works out at roughly a rounded tablespoon, or between one and one and a half modern envelopes (7-10 g). At the lower end that will set a pint of cream to a soft, spoonable firmness; use the fuller measure if you want a mold that will stand unsupported.
- Thick creamThis means heavy or double cream straight from the pitcher, not whipped cream. Modern heavy cream at 36-40% fat is the right substitute; anything labeled light or whipping-and-cooking cream will set thin and taste watery.
- The hinge: temper the gelatineMelted gelatine poured into cold cream in one go will seize into threads and strings you cannot stir out. Warm the bloomed gelatine over hot water only until clear, then whisk a few spoonfuls of the sweetened cream into it before returning that mixture to the rest.
- Powdered sugarConfectioners' sugar now contains cornstarch, which can leave a faint chalkiness in an uncooked cream. Superfine (caster) sugar dissolves just as readily here and tastes cleaner.
- Chilling"Place on ice to harden" means the refrigerator, not the freezer. Allow at least four hours, and overnight is better; gelatine continues to firm for some hours after it appears set.
- UnmoldingRinse the mold with cold water before filling, and dip the filled mold briefly in warm water to release. A pint-and-a-bit mold is the right size; anything larger and the dessert will be too shallow to turn out cleanly.
- YieldA pint of cream makes four generous or six modest servings. Four tablespoons of sugar to a pint leaves the cream only lightly sweet, so the maple cream sauce is doing real work here rather than serving as a garnish.
Velvet cream belongs to a large family of late nineteenth-century gelatine desserts that arrived once packaged sheet and granulated gelatine made setting a cream a matter of minutes rather than a day spent boiling calves' feet for stock. Before that, a cook wanting a molded cream either bought isinglass or clarified her own gelatine, and such dishes asked considerably more of a kitchen than they later would. The Butterick Cook Book, published by the pattern company for a broad audience of middle-class housekeepers, is full of these cheap-luxury recipes: four ingredients, no oven, and a shape borrowed from far grander confectionery. The name simply describes the texture, and "velvet cream" turns up in American and British books of the period with only small variations, sometimes flavored with sherry rather than vanilla.