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Bavarian Cream
This cream is served cold, or it is sometimes used to fill a charlotte russe. To one pint of thick cream add sufficient sugar to sweeten it and flavor with vanilla or lemon. Whisk the cream to a froth, which should be removed as rapidly as it appears, and put in a glass dish. Take one and one-half tablespoonfuls of gelatine, and after it has thoroughly dissolved add it to the forth, and mix for fifteen minutes. Place it on ice, or in a very cool place for a few hours, when it will be ready for use.
An unusually spare Bavarian cream — no custard base, just sweetened whipped cream set with gelatine. The whole thing turns on the temperature of the gelatine when it meets the cold cream.
- The hinge: warm gelatine, cold creamDissolved gelatine that is too hot will melt and deflate the whipped cream; too cool and it seizes into rubbery threads that never disperse. Bring it to just barely lukewarm, then trickle it in a thin stream while folding steadily.
- "One and one-half tablespoonfuls of gelatine"Measured by volume, as period shredded or granulated gelatine was. In modern granulated terms this works out to roughly two 7 g envelopes, softened in about 1/4 cup cold water and then melted over hot water or in short bursts of gentle heat.
- Removing the froth as it appearsThis is the old method of skimming whipped froth off the top of cream with the whisk, leaving the unwhipped cream below to be worked again. With a modern mixer and pasteurised heavy cream you can simply whip the pint to soft peaks in one go.
- "Mix for fifteen minutes"Far too long. Fifteen minutes of stirring will knock the air out of the cream and, once the gelatine begins to take, produce a dense set block. Fold for under a minute, just until no streaks remain, then pour at once.
- SugarNo quantity is given. For a pint of cream, 3 to 4 tablespoons of sifted confectioners' sugar is about right; granulated sugar dissolves less readily in cold cream and can leave a slight grittiness.
- "Place it on ice"The refrigerator does this work. Three to four hours will set it; overnight is better if you plan to unmould it, and a mould needs a brief dip in warm water to release.
- YieldA pint of cream, whipped, gives about six small servings in glasses, or enough to fill one charlotte russe mould lined with ladyfingers.
Bavarian cream — bavarois in French kitchens — is generally traced to the early nineteenth-century professional repertoire, where Carême and his contemporaries codified it as a cooked egg custard lightened with whipped cream and set with isinglass or gelatine. This version dispenses with the eggs entirely, which makes it less a true bavarois than a moulded whipped-cream jelly. The reference to filling a charlotte russe is telling: the same base mixture was expected to do double duty, serving as a dessert in its own right or as the filling for a ladyfinger-lined mould. Gelatine sold in leaf or shredded form was still a fussy ingredient at the time, which is why the recipe insists it be "thoroughly dissolved" before it goes anywhere near the cream.