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Cold Sweet Mousseline Sauce
Place two egg yolks and two ounces sugar in a copper basin, briskly stir on range five minutes. Remove, lay basin on ice and stir till thoroughly cold. Beat up one and a half gills cream to a stiff froth and add to the eggs with a half teaspoon vanilla essence. Whisk all well for two minutes, then use as required.
A sabayon base folded into whipped cream — essentially a cold vanilla mousseline for puddings, steamed sponges and poached fruit. The whole thing succeeds or fails on how the yolks are heated.
- Heat the yolks over water, not on the burner"Briskly stir on range" assumes a professional copper basin and a cook watching it every second. Set a stainless or glass bowl over barely simmering water and whisk until the mixture is thick, pale and reaches about 160F on an instant-read thermometer — usually 4 to 6 minutes. Direct heat will scramble the yolks in under a minute of inattention.
- The copper basinCopper is called for because it conducts heat evenly and responds fast to being pulled off the range; it also reacts with acid, and it is not something most kitchens have. A stainless bowl gives the same result with a little more whisking.
- GillsOn the American gill of 4 fl oz, one and a half gills is 6 fl oz, roughly 3/4 cup of cream; on the imperial gill of 5 fl oz it would be 7 1/2 fl oz. Whipped, 3/4 cup gives about a cup and a half of froth.
- Two ounces sugarAlmost certainly weight rather than volume: about 56 g, or a generous 4 level tablespoons of granulated sugar.
- Chill the base completelyThe instruction to set the basin on ice and stir until thoroughly cold is not optional. Warm yolks will deflate whipped cream on contact and the sauce will turn to liquid within minutes.
- Fold, do not whisk for two minutesTwo minutes of whisking after the cream goes in will knock the air straight back out. Fold in a third of the cream to slacken the base, then fold in the rest until just uniform.
- Vanilla essenceHalf a teaspoon of extract, added to the cold base. Period essences varied in strength and synthetic vanillin was already on the market, so taste before committing to the full amount.
- Yield and holdingClose to two cups, enough for four to six servings. It holds in the refrigerator for a couple of hours at most before it begins to weep — make it close to service and stir gently if it separates slightly.
In French kitchen usage 'mousseline' marks a sauce lightened with whipped cream; the name is usually linked to the fine muslin cloth of the same name, and the connection to mousse, foam, is a tidy explanation rather than a settled one. The savoury version — hollandaise with cream folded through — is the better known of the pair, and this sweet counterpart works the same way: yolks and sugar whisked over heat, cooled, then lightened with cream. It sits near Italian zabaglione and the German Weinschaumsauce, though both of those are built on wine and this one is not. It appears in The International Cook Book, compiled by Alexander Filippini, whose career was spent in the professional dining rooms of the period.