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Jellied Caramel Cream
Few grains salt 1/4 teaspoon vanilla 1 pint heavy cream 1½ cups Karo, Orange Label 4 egg yolks 2 tablespoons granulated gelatine Heat Soften the gelatine five minutes in cold water to cover. the Karo in a double boiler, add the salt and pour into the egg yolks beaten light. Return to the double boiler and cook, stirring constantly two minutes. Add the gelatine and vanilla, chill and fold in the cream whipped stiff. Pour into a mould rinsed with cold water and let stand several hours to become firm. Serve with a garnish of nuts and whipped cream. "Frozen Pudding," Bavarian Style 1¾ cups Karo, Red Label 3 egg yolks 1/4 cup each chopped dates, raisins and figs 2 tablespoons gelatine 1/4 cup almonds or pistachio nuts 1/2 teaspoon each lemon, almond and vanilla extracts 1 pint heavy cream 2 tablespoons each chopped, candied cherries and orange peel Soak gelatine five minutes in two tablespoons cold water. Bring Karo to boiling point, pour into egg yolks beaten light. Karo to boiling point, pour into egg yolks beaten light.
Place over hot water and cook, beating hard for two minutes, add gelatine. Chill , add flavoring, the cream whipped, and the fruits and nuts, and transfer to a mould dipped in cold water.
Chill until firmunmould and garnish with whipped cream.
A gelatine-set caramel cream built on corn syrup rather than sugar, from one of the promotional cookbooks issued by the makers of Karo. It relies on a hot-syrup-over-yolks method, so the order of operations matters more than the timings.
- QuantitiesThe syrup measures print as 1 1/2 cups for the caramel cream and 1 3/4 cups for the frozen pudding. A pint of heavy cream is 2 cups, which whips to roughly a quart.
- GelatineTwo tablespoons of granulated gelatine is about two and a half standard envelopes, roughly 18 g. That is a firm, sliceable set suited to unmoulding. Softening in "cold water to cover" means just enough to hydrate the grains, an ounce or two; drain nothing away, it all goes into the hot mixture.
- The hingePour the hot syrup into the beaten yolks in a thin stream while whisking, not the reverse, or the yolks scramble. The two minutes over hot water is thickening time and it needs constant beating; the mixture should thicken enough to coat a spoon.
- Chill before folding"Chill" here means cool the custard to room temperature or slightly below, until it is thick but not yet set. Fold whipped cream into a warm base and it deflates; fold it into a set base and you get lumps.
- UnmouldingRinsing or dipping the mould in cold water gives a film of moisture that releases the set cream. A brief dip of the filled mould in warm water and a plate inverted over the top does the rest. The original asks only for 'several hours' in the first recipe and 'chill until firm' in the second.
- "Frozen Pudding"The quotation marks in the original are doing real work: this second dish is not frozen at all but chilled and gelatine-set, in imitation of a frozen bombe. Do not put it in the freezer.
- YieldEach makes roughly a quart and a half of set cream, serving eight to ten.
This comes from a corn-syrup manufacturer's recipe booklet, a genre that flourished in the first decades of the twentieth century when brands sold their product by teaching cooks new uses for it. Corn syrup was cheap, kept indefinitely, and did not crystallise, which made it attractive for chilled and frozen desserts where sugar syrups could go grainy. The two dishes here are variations on the Bavarian cream, a custard lightened with whipped cream and set with gelatine, generally traced to French practice of the early nineteenth century and long a fixture of formal dinners. Granulated gelatine in packets, sold from the 1890s onward, is what put such desserts within reach of a household without a stockpot of calf's foot, and by the 1920s the moulded, unmoulded cream seems to have been common company fare.