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Grapes in Cream
Procure one and a half pounds of ripe, sweet grapes. Detach the grapes from the stems, thoroughly wash in cold water and drain well on a cloth. Place them on a compotier. Dredge an ounce powdered sugar over them. Mix well. Beat up one and one-half gills cream until thick, but not frothy, add one ounce sugar, mix well, pour over the grapes and serve.
A four-line dessert whose only technical demand is the state of the cream. Everything else is shopping and timing.
- GillsA gill is half a cup, so one and a half gills is 3/4 cup (about 180 ml) of cream. Whipped to the stage described, that is roughly a cup and a half of finished cream, enough to coat but not drown the fruit.
- Sugar by weightAn ounce of powdered sugar is about 1/4 cup loosely spooned, or 2 tablespoons if you are using granulated. The recipe uses an ounce twice, once on the fruit and once in the cream.
- "Thick, but not frothy"This is the hinge. Stop at soft, droopy peaks that still pour heavily off the whisk. Whipped stiff, the cream sits on the grapes in lumps rather than settling around them; a modest overbeat also turns grainy once the sugar goes in.
- CompotierA footed glass or porcelain dish for fruit. Any shallow bowl works, though something with a little depth keeps the cream from running to the edges.
- GrapesTable grapes of the period would usually have been seeded; the recipe gives no instruction either way. Modern seedless varieties are easier, and small ones such as Champagne or muscat-type grapes suit the dish.
- Dry the fruit properlyWater clinging to the skins will thin the cream on contact and slide it off. Drain on a cloth as instructed, then let the grapes sit uncovered a few minutes before sugaring.
- TimingSugar dredged over the fruit will eventually draw out juice, so dress and serve close together. Cold grapes and cold cream both help; chill the bowl if the kitchen is warm.
- YieldA pound and a half of grapes with 3/4 cup of cream serves four generously, six as a light course after a heavy meal.
Fruit under sweetened cream is one of the oldest dessert forms in European cookery, and a dish of this kind needed neither the oven nor any elaborate finishing. The compotier named here is a French serving vessel, and the construction follows a French pattern: fruit briefly sugared, cream beaten only to the pouring stage, no gelatine, no cooking. Before year-round import, grapes were chiefly a late summer and autumn fruit, and the instruction to procure ripe, sweet ones is doing real work, since sour grapes could not be rescued by an ounce of sugar. The recipe belongs to a class of dishes that survive in books of this period precisely because they demand nothing of the cook except good ingredients and the judgment to stop whisking at the right moment.