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Ginger Cream
Put three-quarters of an ounce of gelatine in a teacupful of boiling milk and let it soak. Take an ounce and a half of preserved ginger and cut it up very small. Put a half-pint of double cream in a basin, whip it until it is stiff, add two ounces of powdered sugar, a little at a time, then a tablespoonful of syrup of ginger, and half a teaspoonful of essence of ginger. Mix thoroughly and then add the milk and gelatine, and lastly the preserved ginger. When cool, put it into a rock-shaped mould on the ice to set.
A late-Victorian moulded cream that stands or falls on the temperature of the gelatine when it meets the whipped cream. Everything else is straightforward.
- The hinge: gelatine temperatureThe milk-and-gelatine mixture must be fully dissolved, then cooled to barely warm but still fluid, before it goes into the cream. Pour it in hot and the cream slackens; pour it in cold and it sets into rubbery threads that will not fold out.
- Gelatine quantityThree-quarters of an ounce is roughly three 1/4-oz envelopes of modern granulated gelatine, which for about two cups of liquid gives a very firm, sliceable set. Period gelatine was less consistent and often weaker; anyone wanting a spoonable cream rather than a carveable one should scale back and test.
- TeacupfulA teacup in this era is about 6 fl oz, not the 8-oz measuring cup. Use it as written to keep the gelatine ratio sane.
- Double creamBritish double cream runs about 48% butterfat. American heavy or whipping cream at 36% will whip and hold, but the result is lighter; do not use anything labelled light cream.
- Preserved ginger and its syrupStem ginger in syrup, sold in jars, is the direct equivalent. The tablespoon of "syrup of ginger" may be the officinal chemist's syrup, but the syrup from the jar serves as the practical substitute.
- Essence of gingerA concentrated alcoholic tincture from the chemist, much stronger than modern ginger extract or flavouring. Start with a few drops of what you have and taste, rather than measuring out half a teaspoon.
- Powdered sugarIn 1896 this usually meant finely ground granulated sugar, not the cornstarch-cut confectioners' sugar of today. Superfine or caster sugar is closer to the original.
- Setting"On the ice" is the refrigerator. A metal mould of about a quart wants four hours minimum, overnight for a clean turn-out; dip briefly in warm water to unmould.
- YieldAbout a quart of finished cream, serving six as a dessert course.
Oscar Tschirky's book belongs to the high period of the moulded cream, when gelatine had become reliable enough to buy in sheets or granules and a hotel kitchen might well turn out a nightly parade of shapes on ice. The flavouring here points east: preserved ginger came chiefly, by most accounts, from Canton, shipped in glazed stoneware jars that were themselves a fixture of the Victorian larder, and the accompanying syrup and the chemist's ginger essence let a cook layer three different intensities of the same spice into one dish. The instruction to use a "rock-shaped mould" is a reminder that the visual conceit mattered as much as the flavour at the Waldorf table — a cream was expected to arrive looking like something other than a cream.