HFF 5.13: Party Food

The Challenge: Party Food

The Recipe: Lemon Cream from Mrs. Beeton's Book of Household Management

Fancy mould = party food.

 

This dish appears in the menu suggestions for dinners of 6 or 12 people in December, but not in the "plain family dinner" list, which makes it a party food in my opinion. [The December dinner party suggestions include orange jelly, lemon jelly, orange cream, and vanilla cream, so this fits the theme. Also, I have lemons to use up.]

The Date/Year and Region: 1861, London

How Did You Make It:  Per the instructions, I simmered together 1 pint of cream, 4 oz of white sugar, the peel of 1 large lemon, and 1/2 oz gelatin (substituting for 1 oz of isinglass) for ~10 min. I strained the cream into a ceramic jug, then added the two beaten egg yokes, and stirred it in a water bath ~10 min. I then added the juice of the lemon, stirred it well, and poured it into an oiled mould to set. After it cooled a bit, I put the mould in the refrigerator overnight; the cream had solidified nicely by the next evening.

Total Time: Half an hour to make, then let it set overnight

Total Cost: About $3.50

How Successful Was It?: Fairly. It solidified, and it came out of the mould neatly. The texture is smooth and consistent. The taste is a bit tart (you can tell it's flavored with lemon juice and not extract), but I didn't find it overwhelmingly sour. It fits my expectation of 'Victorian sweet'--sweet, but not as sweet as I'd expect a similar modern dessert to be. I didn't want to eat a lot of it at once, but it's pretty good in small servings. 

I probably won't make this for my own use, but I could see it working very nicely as part of a larger spread--maybe a third course remove where it's accompanying both sweet and savory dishes. The receipt was also straightforward and easy to remember, so I will add this to my cream repertoire alongside the chocolate and raspberry creams (which I like better, but which are trickier to make).

How Accurate Is It?: I used the modern conveniences (stove, gelatin powder), but I weighed out the sugar properly. And peeling/juicing a lemon is the sort of satisfying hands-on work that makes it feel like an authentic cooking experience...

 

Lemon cream.

My sophisticated cooking set-up.