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Biscuit Tortoni
Put the yolks of 6 eggs into a copper basin, add the following: 2 ounces of powdered sugar, a wineglassful of maraschino, and 1 tablespoonful of kirsch. Beat all well together. Place on stove, stir briskly for five minutes. Remove basin into a pan of cracked ice or ice water, and stir briskly for a few minutes more. Add 1 part of whipped cream flavored with vanilla. Let mixture stand for ten minutes; pour into paper cases, cover with powdered macaroni crumbs, and freeze, but putting a grating or pan in tub filled with ice and salt--if the regular glace freezing-box is not obtainable. Time, one and a half hours.
A frozen zabaglione: cooked egg-yolk custard flavoured with maraschino and kirsch, lightened with cream and frozen in individual paper cases. Nearly all the risk sits in the first stage, where the yolks must thicken without scrambling.
- Cook the yolks over water, not over direct heat"Place on stove" assumes a copper basin and a cook watching it constantly. Set the bowl over barely simmering water and whisk until the mixture is thick, foamy and reaches 165-170F; direct flame in a modern thin-bottomed pan will curdle the yolks in seconds.
- WineglassfulIn American books of this period a wineglass is about 2 fluid ounces, a quarter cup. With the tablespoon of kirsch that is roughly 2.5 oz of spirit to six yolks.
- Copper basinUnlined copper was the professional standard because it conducts heat evenly (the reaction between copper and egg protein that stabilises foams is documented for whites rather than yolks). Any heatproof bowl works; stainless or glass is fine, and unlined copper is best kept away from acidic mixtures.
- "1 part of whipped cream"The original gives no absolute measure. Read it as a volume equal to the cooked custard, which for six yolks is about 1 cup of cream whipped to soft peaks, folded in once the base is cold.
- Macaroon crumbsThe text as printed reads "powdered macaroni crumbs," almost certainly an error for macaroon: the crumb topping in a tortoni is crushed dry almond macaroons. Grind them fine and dust the tops before freezing, not after.
- Paper cases and freezingSmall pleated paper souffle cups or foil cases set in a muffin tin work. In a domestic freezer set as cold as it goes, allow 3-4 hours rather than the ice-and-salt tub's hour and a half; the alcohol keeps the mixture softer than a plain ice, though a modern freezer will still firm it considerably.
- Alcohol and textureThe maraschino and kirsch are what give tortoni its spoonable, semi-frozen body. Reducing them will produce a much harder, icier result.
- YieldSix yolks with a cup of cream fills eight to ten small cases. Serve straight from the freezer, in the paper.