As I’ve been reading about food in Jane Austen’s time, I’m amazed at the thought of how a middle class household was fed. Most food items were produced on the estate, and only special items that couldn’t be produced locally (like sugar and tea) were purchased. Unlike my trips to Trader Joe’s, Safeway, and the farmer’s market every few days, they had to live off the land…or make do with whatever they had locked up in the cupboard. Can you imagine locking up sugar and tea? (“Aunt Jane, please please please let me have some sugar!!” “Back away, beeyotch…if you please.”) I, on the other hand, go through many pounds of sugar a year. In fact, I’m downright annoyed when I’m at Trader Joe’s and they only have two-pound bags of sugar. I need at least a five- or ten-pounder with all the baking I like to do.
After much mocking of the odd assortment of foods cooked in Regency times, we’ve arrived at the beginning of my Jane Austen Cooking Odyssey. Naturally, I’ve started with dessert. And what better dessert than something that sounds utterly ridiculous? Syllabub it is! Syllabub was typically served in a half liquid/half froth format (liquid in the bottom of the cup with cream on top) or an entirely frothy format known as “everlasting” syllabub. How romantic! I’ll go with the everlasting…
Syllabub
(Adapted from The Jane Austen Cookbook by Maggie Black and Deirdre Le Faye)
Ingredients
1-3/4 cups heavy cream
1 cup caster (superfine) sugar
1 cup medium-dry white wine
pinch of dry mustard powder
zest and juice of 1 lemon
1 Tbsp granulated sugar
Instructions
1. Mix the tablespoon of granulated sugar with half of the lemon zest and set aside.
2. In a deep bowl, mix the heavy cream, caster sugar, wine, mustard powder, lemon juice, and the rest of the lemon zest.
3. Beat the mixture with a electric beater until it is thick and peaks form.
4. Arrange the mixture in dessert glasses and chill overnight. Sprinkle some of the sugar/zest mixture on each serving.
Serves 6.
Gentle readers, this stuff is awesome! It’s sweet but not overly sweet (though you might need to get a second opinion on that, as you must have realized by now that I’m a sugar hound). And the wine gives a delightful warmth to the dish. Syllabub is fairly light, so you may want to serve with cookies, fresh berries, or possibly even a simple cake.
Some notes about this particular recipe: I’m not entirely sure what the mustard powder does. (The cookbook states that it “gives body” and that the taste shouldn’t be noticeable. Is that sort of like using cream of tartar used when whipping egg whites?) I doubt it would make much of a difference if you left the mustard out. Also, feel free to serve without chilling. I ate mine right away. Though I’m chilling the leftovers, and I’ll compare the flavor texture tomorrow. Next time I’d like to try using cider (the alcoholic kind of the dry rather than sweet variety) instead of wine.
I also tried this Old English Syllabub recipe from cooks.com, which called for sherry and brandy instead of white wine. Fail. I couldn’t get it to stiffen up properly (that’s what’s in the glass at the top of the photo), and I found the flavor of the sherry and brandy to be a bit too strong. However, if you’re looking for something a little more exotic, you might try Nigella’s Amaretto Syllabub or Turkish Delight Syllabub. (Note to the ladies: I have it on good authority that your husband or significant other would certainly appreciate it if you pretend to be Nigella for an evening. Wear a low-cut v-neck sweater, and talk in a deep, sexy voice about how rich and delicious your cooking is.) In any case, get whipping and delight your closest friends and family or woo a potential suitor with a creamy syllabub!
Tagged: cider, Jane Austen, Jane Austen Cooking Odyssey, mustard powder, Nigella Lawson, Regency Cooking, sugar, syllabub, The Jane Austen Cookbook on Thursday, April 29, 2010 · 7 Comments »
Sounds delish! Can’t wait to try it! Re the mustard powder: The little Alton Brown in my head is telling me that mustard is an emulsifier that helps bond oil and water. So it may be what is helping your very wet whipped cream stay whipped.
Whip it!
You know, Mrs F, if you’re in the neighborhood, I have leftovers of both syllabubs.
Wow! It looks and sounds delicious! I have to be honest, I never thought of wanting taste a syllabub until now. It doesn’t look too hard,which is good for me. Thank you for sharing!
That sounds marvelous! Wonder if it can be modified to be made with Splenda?
It’s so much better for wooing than Mr. Collins complimenting the boiled potatoes!
Meredith, it really was easy and quick to make, and I plan to make it some time when I have guests. The ingredient list is also really short, which make it simple. The only items I had to buy were the heavy cream and the superfine sugar. (Some other recipes call for just regular sugar or powdered sugar, so I think it’ll be fine without buying anything special.)
Sandra, I haven’t cooked much with Splenda, but my mom makes apple pie with baking Splenda and it tastes fine. You could try a little bit of Splenda and a sweeter wine (though, theoretically, a sweeter wine would have more sugars in it than a dry wine) and get the same effect. I’ll have to give it a try. My dad is diabetic, so if I could manage a less sugary version, I could serve it without my mom lecturing my dad about eating poorly!
Mrs. Porter, you’re quite right!
Note to all: THIS IS AN IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT! Superfine sugar can be made in the food processor by pulsing white sugar 10 times or so. (You have to pulse b/c of fluid mechanics – go figure.) That is all. Please resume your normal daily lives.