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Whipped Red Currant Cream
Place in a saucepan one ounce of gelatine with half a pint of water, set it on the fire until boiling and dissolved, and mix with it one breakfast cupful of red currant juice and the juice of a large lemon, or two small ones. Sweeten the mixture to taste, stir over the fire until boiling again, strain through a fine hair-sieve and leave until cool. Then sweeten one pint of sweet cream with four tablespoonfuls of caster-sugar, whisk it to a stiff snow or froth, add it to the currant-juice, and whisk the whole together. When the mixture is very thick, turn it into a mould packed with ice. When set, dip the mould in warm water, wipe, and turn the cream out onto a fancy dish.
A Victorian-style moulded cream that depends on temperature control more than on technique: the gelatine base must be cool but still fluid when the whipped cream goes in.
- The hinge: temperature of the baseCool the strained currant jelly base until it is at room temperature and just beginning to thicken to the consistency of raw egg white. Warmer and it will melt the cream to soup; colder and it sets into rubbery threads that will not whisk smooth.
- GelatineOne ounce is roughly four 1/4-oz envelopes of modern powdered gelatine, though the strength of period gelatine was not standardised the way the modern product is. That much modern gelatine in about 1 pint of liquid plus 1 pint of cream gives a firm, sliceable set suited to unmoulding; if you want a softer cream, use less. Bloom powdered gelatine in the cold water first rather than putting it straight on the heat.
- Boiling gelatineThe instruction to bring it to a boil twice is period practice. Prolonged boiling degrades gelatine's setting strength; heat only until fully dissolved and clear.
- Breakfast cupfulA breakfast cup is larger than a teacup, generally taken as 8 to 10 fluid ounces. Use a generous cup of unsweetened red currant juice; bottled currant nectar is usually pre-sweetened, so cut back the sugar accordingly.
- Caster sugarSuperfine sugar, sold as such in the United States. Ordinary granulated works, though it dissolves less readily in cold cream; a whirl in a food processor makes your own.
- Sweet creamMeans fresh, unsoured cream, as opposed to the cultured cream also kept in period kitchens. Use heavy or whipping cream and whip only to soft-to-medium peaks, since folding into the base stiffens it further.
- Hair sieveA sieve of woven horsehair, the standard fine strainer before cheap woven wire mesh, and one that would not react with acid fruit. Any fine nylon or stainless mesh strainer does the job now.
- Mould packed with iceSubstitute the refrigerator: 4 to 6 hours, or overnight. Rinse the mould with cold water before filling and it will release more cleanly; the warm-water dip should be brief, a few seconds only.
- YieldAbout 1 1/2 quarts of mixture, serving eight to ten.
Red currants were a fixture of American and British kitchen gardens into the early twentieth century, valued less for eating out of hand than for their high pectin and sharp acidity, which made them a standard jelly fruit. This recipe belongs to the family of moulded creams and Bavarians that were staples of the dessert course in grand hotel dining rooms of the period, when a kitchen's reputation rested partly on turning out something tall and glossy that held its shape on the way to the table. Ice, not mechanical refrigeration, did the setting. American currant growing declined sharply after the early 1900s, when many states banned or restricted Ribes plantings because the bushes host white pine blister rust, which is one reason a fruit once taken for granted in recipes like this became hard to find.