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Pineapple Cream
Place in a stewpan with a small quantity of water one ounce of gelatine, and put over the fire until it is quite dissolved. Rub through a fine hair-sieve half a teacupful of pineapple jam, and stir it in with the gelatine, adding four heaped teaspoonfuls of caster-sugar; stir over the fire with a wooden spoon until boiling, and then skim it well and turn it into a basin. A pint of thick cream should now be whisked to stiff snow, and when the pineapple mixture has become nearly cold, stir the two together, beating them well. Rinse a mould out with cold water, and pour the mixture into it, setting it on the ice; when cold and firm, remove from the mould, and place on a glass dish, and serve.
A moulded gelatine cream of the sort that closed a great many nineteenth-century dinners. The method is sound, but the gelatine quantity and the vagueness of "a teacupful" both need translating.
- GelatineOne ounce is roughly four 1/4-oz envelopes of modern powdered gelatine, which sets a pint of cream very firmly indeed — closer to a sliceable jelly than a cream. Two envelopes gives a set that will still unmould but eats softly; use the full ounce only if the mould is tall or elaborate.
- Bloom before dissolvingSprinkle the gelatine over about 1/4 cup cold water and let it stand five minutes before it goes near heat. Dropping dry granules into warm water gives lumps that never fully dissolve and show up as rubbery threads in the finished cream.
- Half a teacupfulA Victorian teacup is usually reckoned at about 5 fluid ounces, though the measure was never standardised, so half a teacupful of jam is roughly 1/3 cup. Sieving it, as directed, removes the fibrous shreds; a short blitz and a press through a fine mesh strainer does the same work as the hair sieve.
- Caster-sugarSuperfine sugar. Ordinary granulated works here since the mixture is boiled, and four heaped teaspoons is roughly 3 tablespoons.
- The hinge: temperature when combining"Nearly cold" is the whole trick. Hot pineapple base will deflate and part-melt the whipped cream; fully cold base will already be setting and will seize into rubbery flecks the moment it hits the cold cream. Aim for a base at cool room temperature that still flows freely, and fold quickly.
- Whisk the cream to soft peaks, not stiffModern chilled heavy cream over-whips quickly, so aim for soft, just-holding peaks rather than the "stiff snow" of the original; they fold in evenly and still carry the set.
- Fresh pineapple will not workJam is used deliberately. Raw pineapple contains bromelain, which digests gelatine and leaves a soupy mould. Cooked jam or canned pineapple is inactive and safe for setting.
- Setting and unmoulding"On the ice" means packing the mould in ice; in a refrigerator allow four to six hours, or overnight. Dip the mould briefly in warm water and invert onto the serving dish; the water rinse before filling helps it release cleanly.
- YieldA mould of about 1 to 1 1/2 quarts, serving six to eight.
Oscar Tschirky, the Swiss-born maitre d'hotel whose name fronted The Cook Book by "Oscar" of the Waldorf (1896), assembled a compendium that ranged from grand hotel service to plain domestic sweets like this one. Moulded creams — cold gelatine set with whipped cream — were among the familiar formal desserts of the period, valued because they could be made in advance, turned out whole, and carried to table looking architectural. The pineapple is the telling detail: canned and preserved pineapple had turned a fruit long treated as a symbol of hospitality and expense into something a kitchen could keep on a shelf year-round. That a Waldorf recipe reaches for pineapple jam rather than fresh fruit reflects both convenience and, as it happens, chemistry, since raw pineapple defeats gelatine.