18th Century Raspberry Cream

Serves	4
Prep time	1 hour
Allergy	Milk
Dietary	Vegetarian
Meal type	Dessert, Lunch
Misc	Child Friendly, Pre-preparable, Serve Cold
Occasion	Birthday Party, Casual Party, Formal Party
Region	British
By author	Karen S Booth

One of my favourite hobbies is researching traditional old recipes, especially British and French ~ I have a bulging file full of such receipts, as they used to be called, along with local and regional stories relating to most of them. One such recipe is this wonderful Raspberry Cream, which dates back to the 18th Century and is British ~ a sort of a fool type dessert which was originally made with fresh whole milk, literally straight from the pail, and then whipped with cream and sugar; it remains a firm favourite of mine and I served it over the weekend to my friends who came for dinner on Saturday. Berries and fruit were often added to milk and cream in order to make desserts ~ fool, whim wham, syllabub and flummery to name but just a few, and of course let’s not forget fruit trifle too.

Ingredients

250g (9ozs) fresh Raspberries
225g (8ozs) Tub of half-fat crème fraîche (or double cream that has been whipped)
150g (6ozs) whipping cream
50g (2oz) caster sugar
Palmier biscuits or biscuits/cookies of your choice
whole raspberries for decoration

Note

This Raspberry Cream recipe dates back to the 18th Century and is British ~ a sort of a fool type dessert which was originally made with fresh whole milk, literally straight from the pail, and then whipped with cream and sugar; it remains a firm favourite of mine and I served it over the weekend to my friends who came for dinner on Saturday. Berries and fruit were often added to milk and cream in order to make desserts ~ fool, whim wham, syllabub and flummery to name but just a few, and of course let’s not forget fruit trifle too.

Directions

Step 1	Place the raspberries in a small bowl and sprinkle in some caster sugar (to taste), crushing the raspberries slightly, but not totally.
Step 2	In a separate bowl, whip the cream until it has soft peaks then fold in the crème fraîche (or whipped double cream) and some of the remaining sugar (again to taste).
Step 3	Lightly mix half of the crushed raspberries and sugar with the cream mixture until it is a pretty shade of pink; then pile half of the mixture into 4 glasses, then swirl through the remaining crushed raspberries and top with more raspberry cream mixture ~ chill until needed ~ then add a swirl of cream on top and scatter a few whole raspberries over the top; serve with biscuits or cookies of your choice.