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Nesselrode Pudding
1/2 lb. almond paste 30 French chestnuts 1 pint cream Pint can of pineapple 10 egg yolks 1/2 lb. candied fruit 1 tablespoon vanilla extract 4 tablespoons wine 2 cups water 1 cup sugar 1/4 teaspoon salt Blanch the chestnuts and pound to a paste; rub almond paste smooth. Boil sugar, water and pineapple juice twenty minutes. Beat egg yolks, stir them into the syrup, cook over boiling water, beating the mixture until it thickens. Place in a pan of cold water and beat ten minutes; mix almonds and chestnuts with the cream, add the candied fruit, the pineapple cut fine, mix this with the cooked mixture. Freeze as ice cream, pack in a chimney mould. In serving fill the hole with preserved chestnuts, garnish with whipped cream and preserved cherries.
A frozen chestnut-and-almond custard from the era when "pudding" could mean an iced moulded dessert. The technique is a cooked yolk base rather than a stirred crème anglaise, so the two things to watch are the syrup and the mould.
- The hinge: temper and hold the yolksTen yolks and hot syrup will curdle if combined too fast. The recipe stirs the beaten yolks into the syrup; do it in a thin stream, beating hard, then set the bowl over simmering water and beat constantly until the mixture thickens enough to coat a spoon. The cold-water bath and ten minutes of beating that follow are what give the base its volume; do not skip them.
- French chestnutsThese are sweet chestnuts (Castanea sativa), not water chestnuts or horse chestnuts. Thirty nuts is roughly 1 lb in the shell, or about 10-12 oz peeled. Vacuum-packed or jarred cooked chestnuts work directly and save the scoring, roasting and peeling; "blanch" here means loosening and removing both the shell and the bitter inner skin.
- Almond paste, not marzipanAlmond paste of the period was typically far less sweet than modern marzipan, often something like equal parts almonds and sugar or two parts almond to one of sugar. Modern marzipan will throw the balance; buy something labelled almond paste and work it smooth, as the recipe directs, before combining.
- Pineapple juice and the syrupA "pint can" is 16 oz; drain it and use the juice with the sugar and water. Twenty minutes of boiling reduces this to a heavy syrup, which is deliberate — the sugar concentration is what keeps the finished pudding scoopable in a home freezer.
- The wineThe recipe specifies only 'wine'; a fortified wine such as Madeira or sherry suits it, and maraschino is often associated with Nesselrode mixtures though it is a liqueur rather than a wine. Alcohol lowers the freezing point, so resist adding more than the recipe calls for or the pudding will not set firm.
- Cream and freezingA pint of cream here means heavy cream, mixed unwhipped with the almond and chestnut pastes as the recipe directs; whipped cream appears only as the garnish. 'Freeze as ice cream' assumed a hand-cranked churn packed with ice and rock salt; a modern machine works, then pack into the mould.
- Chimney mouldA tall tube mould with a central column, so the turned-out pudding has a well in the middle for the preserved chestnuts. A metal ring or bundt pan substitutes; line it with plastic wrap, pack firmly to avoid air pockets, and freeze at least six hours before unmoulding.
- YieldRoughly 2 quarts of frozen mixture — 10 to 12 servings. Let it stand 10 minutes at room temperature before slicing.
Nesselrode pudding is generally traced to the kitchen of Count Karl Robert von Nesselrode, the Russian foreign minister of the first half of the nineteenth century, and is usually credited to his chef, Mouy, who is said to have built the dessert around a purée of fruit — corrected below.