MY LORD OF CARLILE'S SACK-POSSET
Take a Pottle of Cream, and boil in it a little whole Cinnamon, and three or four flakes of Mace. To this proportion of Cream put in eighteen yolks of Eggs, and eight of the whites; a pint of Sack; beat your Eggs very well, and then mingle them with your Sack. Put in three quarters of a pound of Sugar into the Wine and Eggs with a Nutmeg grated, and a little beaten Cinnamon; set the basin on the fire with the wine and Eggs, and let it be hot. Then put in the Cream boyling from the fire, pour it on high, but stir it not; cover it with a dish, and when it is settled, strew on the top a little fine Sugar mingled with three grains of Ambergreece, and one grain of Musk, and serve it up.
A SYLLABUB
My Lady Middlesex makes Syllabubs for little Glasses with spouts, thus. Take 3 pints of sweet Cream, one of quick white wine (or Rhenish), and a good wine glassful (better the 1/4 of a pint) of Sack: mingle with them about three quarters of a pound of fine Sugar in Powder. Beat all these together with a whisk, till all appeareth converted into froth. Then pour it into your little Syllabub-glasses, and let them stand all night. The next day the Curd will be thick and firm above, and the drink clear under it. I conceive it may do well, to put into each glass (when you pour the liquor into it) a sprig of Rosemary a little bruised, or a little Limon-peel, or some such thing to quicken the taste; or use Amber-sugar, or spirit of Cinnamon, or of Lignum-Cassiæ; or Nutmegs, or Mace, or Cloves, a very little.
A GOOD DISH OF CREAM
Boil a quart of good Cream with sticks of Cinnamon and quartered Nutmeg and Sugar to your taste. When it is boiled enough to have acquired the taste of the Spice, take the whites of six New laid eggs, and beat them very well with a little Fresh-cream, then pour them to your boyling Cream, and let them boil a walm or two. Then let it run through a boulter, and put a little Orange flower-water to it, and sliced bread; and so serve it up cold.
AN EXCELLENT SPANISH CREAM
Take two quarts (you must not exceed this proportion in one vessel) of perfectly Sweet-cream, that hath not been jogged with carriage; and in a Possnet set it upon a clear lighted Char-coal-fire, not too hot. When it beginneth to boil, cast into it a piece of double refined hard Sugar about as much as two Walnuts, and with a spoon stir the Cream all one way. After two or three rounds, you will perceive a thick Cream rise at the top. Scum it off with your spoon, and lay it in another dish. And always stir it the same way, and more Cream will rise; which as it doth rise, you put it into your dish, one lare upon an other. And thus almost all the Cream will turn into this thick Cream, to within two or three spoonfuls. If you would have it sweeter, you may strew some Sugar upon the top of it. You must be careful not to have the heat too much; for then it will turn to oyl; as also if the Cream have been carried. If you would have it warm, set the dish you lay it in, upon a Chafing-dish of Coals.
ANOTHER CLOUTED CREAM
Milk your Cows in the evening about the ordinary hour, and fill with it a little Kettle about three quarters full, so that there may be happily two or three Gallons of Milk. Let this stand thus five or six hours. About twelve a Clock at night kindle a good fire of Charcoal, and set a large Trivet over it. When the fire is very clear and quick, and free from all smoak, set your Kettle of Milk over it upon the Trivet, and have in a pot by a quart of good Cream ready to put in at the due time; which must be, when you see the Milk begin to boil simpringly. Then pour in the Cream in a little stream and low, upon a place, where you see the milk simper: This will presently deaden the boiling, and then you must pour in no more Cream there, but in a fresh place, where it simpreth and bubbeleth a little. Continue this pouring in, in new places where the milk boileth, till all your Cream is in, watching it carefully to that end. Then let it continue upon the fire to boil, till you see all the Milk rise up together to the top, and not in little parcels here and there, so that it would run over, if it should stay longer upon the fire. Then let two persons take it steadily off, and set it by in a Cool-room to stand unmoved, uncovered; but so as no Motes may fall in, for the rest of that night, and all the next day and night, and more, if you would have it thicker. Then an hour or two before Dinner cut the thick Cream at the top with a Knife into squares as broad as your hand, which will be the thicker the longer it hath stood. Then have a thin slice or skimmer of Latton, and with that raise up the thick Cream, putting your slice under it so nicely, that you take up no milk with it; and have a Ladle or Spoon in the other hand to help the cream upon the slice, which thereby will become mingled: and lay these parcels of Cream in a dish, into which you have first put a little raw Cream, or of that (between Cream and Milk) that is immediately under the Clouts. To take the Clouts the more conveniently, you hold a back of a Ladle or skimming-dish against the further side of the Clout, that it may not slide away when the Latton slice shuffeth it on the other side to get under it, and so the Clout will mingle together or dubble up, which makes it the thicker, and the more graceful. When you have laid a good Laire of Clouts in the dish, put upon it a little more fresh raw or boiled cream, and then fill it up with the rest of the Clouts. And when it is ready to serve in, you may strew a little Sugar upon it, if you will you may sprinkle in a little Sugar between every flake or clout of Cream. If you keep the dish thus laid a day longer before you eat it, the Cream will grow the thicker and firmer. But if you keep it, I think it is best to be without sugar or raw Cream in it, and put them in, when you are to serve it up. There will be a thin Cream swimming upon the milk of the Kettle after the Clouts are taken away, which is very sweet and pleasant to drink. If you should let your clouts lie longer upon the milk, then I have said, before you skim it off, the Milk underneath would grow soure, and spoil the cream above. If you put these clouts into a Churn with other cream, it will make very good butter, so as no sugar have been put with it.