Pineapple Bavarian Cream: or, Self-Supporting whipped Cream

When all else fails, just eat the whipped cream.

Pineapple Bavarian Cream 1 (¼-oz) envelope unflavored gelatin (or 1 tablespoon) ¼ cup cold water 1 (8-oz) can crushed pineapple, undrained ¼ cup sugar 1½ tsp lemon juice 1½ cups cream If you don't have an ice maker, put a large bowl or pot of water in the refrigerator ahead of time and chill until very cold. Sprinkle the gelatin over the cold water, let stand for 5 minutes. Meanwhile, heat the pineapple and sugar until the sugar dissolves. (You can do this in the microwave or on the stove.) Add the lemon juice to the pineapple. After the gelatin has soaked 5 minutes, microwave it until completely melted, about 15-20 seconds. Then add it to the pineapple. Whip the cream and set it aside. Transfer the pineapple mixture to a large bowl. Set it in a pot or large basin of ice water (or the water you refrigerated earlier). Stir until it begins to thicken. Then fold in the whipped cream. Pour into a gelatin mold (I don't know if you're supposed to use cooking spray but I did) and refrigerate overnight. Or if you don't have a gelatin mold, use whatever container is the right size. If it's not a shape you think would look good unmolded, you can easily serve this (as they say in many an old gelatin recipe) "attractively heaped in small bowls." Note: This is halved from the original recipe and still makes plenty. Handwritten notebook, probably 1930s-40s Notebook of Hannah D. O'Neil (née Hanora Frances Dannehy)

Our August electric bill came in a couple of weeks ago, and the air conditioning hit us as much as we expected. I don't want to imagine what the final price would have been if I hadn't avoided the oven. (I think I turned it on four times in the whole month.)

So, since the heat wave shows no sign of giving up, we are continuing our heatless recipes! (Or, mostly heatless. Sometimes you need to put a pot on the stove for a little bit.) This recipe comes from my great-grandmother's book. I've never made a Bavarian cream, pineapple or otherwise. I always thought they were a super-fussy and fiddly undertaking, which is why I didn't exactly rush to make this one. (Her intimidating cursive didn't make the recipe look any easier.) But today, I decided to make a Bavarian and find out what it is.

This recipe starts with unflavored gelatin, which I like to keep on hand anyway. Don't tell anyone with puristic opinions, but I often slip an envelope of it into my custard pies to make very sure they set enough to slice. 

Because I have learned at least a little bit about using gelatin, I popped this into the microwave after it had soaked for a while so it could melt. (I learned this from making the whiskey thing.) Because I looked away for about ten seconds, I cooked it too long and it came out steaming-hot. I've said this before, but hot gelatin smells like boiled rawhide. I can't believe the food industry successfully sold it as the foundation of ladylike desserts.  

Next, we get to our starring ingredient: canned pineapple. I've learned so many ways to use canned pineapple since I started using my great-grandmother's book. Before this, I only knew about pineapple upside-down cake and pineapple on pizza. (While we're briefly on the subject, I'm not particularly wild about the "traditional" "Hawaiian" pizza with pineapple and Canadian bacon. But I do like pineapple, pepperoni, and green bell peppers.)

For reasons only known to gelatin, this got sudsy as it thickened.

I was surprised at how quick this recipe was. For some reason, I thought a "Bavarian cream" was one of those recipes that involves far too much labor for far too little payoff. But after cooling off the pineapple until it was about as thick as a half-finished custard, we were nearly done.

Apparently they really liked pineapple Bavarian cream at my great-grandmother's house. I cut the recipe in half and it nearly filled the gelatin mold, which can contain up to a slightly heaping quart (about a liter for our metric friends) of magnificent salad. This is a lot of Bavarian cream.

I tried a spoonful before refrigerating. My hopes then dropped faster than the elevator descending from the top-floor observation deck at the Hancock Tower.^note* Our magnificent Bavarian was nothing more than whipped cream with occasional interspersions of pineapple. Like, straight whipped cream. Since I had already made the thing, I refrigerated it anyway just to see if it would get any better.

To my surprise (and unlike the last time we used this thing), the mold let go of our gelatinized creation, which rose to a magnificent height. Keep in mind, this is half the recipe. Had I made it in the amounts my great-grandmother wrote down, we would have two of these.

My gelatin molding skills are not yet church-social ready.

I wasn't exactly happy with my pineapple Bavarian cream. It is exactly what you put in the mold: whipped cream with just enough gelatin to keep it together. Aside from a small bit of canned pineapple, this is essentially the same as the secretly gelatin-fortified whipped cream that I put in the trifle last Easter. (The gelatin may unnerve you, but the whipped cream didn't deflate after a night in the fridge and three hours in the car.)

With our stabilized trifle in mind, I almost want to say that perhaps my great-grandmother meant we are supposed to put this in a dessert instead of making it be the dessert. However, she decisively ended the recipe with the words "mould and chill."

I almost want to say this dessert is perfect for the summer because it's light and airy. But it's also (almost) entirely made of heavy cream, which probably isn't appealing in hot weather regardless of how whipped or well-chilled it is. So while I was disappointed, this recipe mostly left me saying "I don't get it."

*Which, technically, my great-grandmother could have gone to see. They (barely) managed to finish the building during her lifetime, and it was only an el train ride away. ↪