Chantilly Cake - Trifle in a Cake

Chantilly Cake or Trifle Cake, from early 1800, is a trifle within a Savoy Cake.  The top of the tall cake is cut off and the inner part of the cake removed to form a container for the custard, whipped cream and liquors: Port (“Lisbon Wine”), Brandy, and White Wine. 

This delicious dessert makes an interesting twist to a trifle in a glass bowl, or the later Tipsys –Squires, Cakes, and Parsons.

Burnt Custard, by Mary Randolph (1824) was built on Savoy Cake slices, as described in an earlier post, HERE.  The original recipe for Chantilly Cake, by Nutt, (1809) is below.
 

“Bake a sponge cake [Savoy Cake] mixture in a turban-shaped mold, one with a good pattern.”  [King, Charles.  Cakes, Cake Decorations and Desserts.  Phila:  1896]  The mold should be buttered (or clarified butter) and instead of flour, dust with fine sugar.  This will create a hardened sugar crust when the cake is removed from the mold after baking.
 

Hollow out the cake with a spoon or knife, making sure not to create any holes.  Or – “… have an inner mould, about three inches smaller than the outer one. Butter the outside of this inner mould, and form the cake upon it of a sufficient thickness to fill the larger mould. When baked, remove the inner tin, which leaves the space ready for the custard.”  [Copley, Esther.  The Housekeeper's Guide.  London: 1838]

 

Pour Lisbon Wine over the cake, then fill with brandy flavored custard and white wine in the whipped cream.  Blanche almonds, cut lengthwise in quarters and stick around the cake. 

 

Chantilly Cake

Cut a piece out of the top of a Savoy cake, and scoop out all the inside; put it on the dish in which it is to be sent to table, pour Lisbon wine into the cake, and as the wine soaks out pour it over it with a spoon; when it has absorbed as much wine as it can, pour the remainder off the dish, pour custard down the sides, and put some in the middle; whip up some cream, the same as for a trifle, and put it in the middle of the cake: blanch some sweet almonds, cut them in quarters, and stick them round the edges, and on the sides of the cake.

A Trifle

Cut a few slices off a savoy cake, and put them at the bottom of a trifle-dish, (which is something like a salad-dish, in respect to depth); lay a layer of macaroons on them and a layer of ratifees [Almond Cakes/biscuits]; pour a pint of Lisbon over the cakes, leave it long enough to soak all the wine up, and then cover the cakes with

custard, made in the following manner:— put a quart of milk and cream mixed, and a little cinnamon, lemon-peel, and sugar; let it boil for half an hour; take it off the stove, and put it to cool: to this quantity of milk and cream put the yolks of eight eggs, and a spoonful of flour; beat them up in a bason, with a spoon, very well; put the milk in by little at a time, and keep stirring it all the while; then strain it through a hairsieve into a stewpan; put it on a brisk fire, and be sure to keep stirring it until it comes to a boil; then take it off, and put it to cool; when half cold, add a glass of brandy and a few spoonfuls of ratifee [ratifia - almond cakes, or a cordial]; then cover the cakes with it, and lay apricot jam upon the custard ; then put a pint of good

cream [2 cups] into a bason, with the white of an egg, a lump of sugar rubbed to a lemon, and about two glasses of white wine; beat it up with a whisk, and skim the froth with a spoon that has holes in it; lay the froth on the back of the sieve, which should be laid upon a dish, to save the drainings to return into the pan again, for whipping; lay the whipped cream over the trifle; put a few harlequin seeds ["minute coloured comfits...or nonpareils"]  in any form you think proper: garnish the edge of the dish with preserved orange, or dried orange-peel.

Nutt, Frederick.  The Imperial and Royal Cook.  London: 1809

©2012 Patricia Bixler Reber
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