The Bellmore
Put a ladleful of vanilla ice cream in a sundae glass. Cover with orange syrup and whipped cream. Decorate with pieces of orange.
A fountain formula rather than a cook's recipe: three components assembled to order. Everything depends on the syrup, since there is nothing else to carry the flavor.
- Orange syrup means fountain syrupNot marmalade and not plain orange juice. A fountain syrup is a heavy sugar syrup flavored with juice and zest, thick enough to sit on the ice cream rather than run to the bottom of the glass. Bottled orange fountain syrup, or a homemade sugar-and-juice syrup cooked down with a strip of peel, will both serve; unthickened juice tends to run straight through.
- A ladlefulA single serving scoop of ice cream. One glass serves one person.
- The sundae glassA footed tulip or thistle glass of 6 to 8 ounces, narrow enough that the syrup pools around the ice cream rather than spreading. A small stemmed dessert glass or a coupe is the nearest modern equivalent.
- Pieces of orangeThe recipe specifies only pieces. Segments cut free of membrane and pith look best; canned mandarin segments are the fastest modern route to the same effect.
- Whipped creamBarely sweetened, whipped to soft peaks and used immediately. The syrup is already sugar-heavy, and stiffly beaten cream sits on the glass like a lid instead of folding into the syrup as you eat.
- Order of assemblyIce cream, then syrup, then cream, then fruit, and serve at once, before the syrup stiffens and the cream slumps.
Helen Watkeys Moore's collection appeared in 1919, as national Prohibition was arriving, and its title is a joke about climbing aboard "Uncle Sam's water wagon" " hree-part sundaeu2014 going dry. The book collects drinks and fountain sweets of the kind served where a bar had been, which is why a plain three-part sundae earns a place in print. Soda fountains had been building this business since the 1890s, and named sundaes of exactly this pattern — ice cream, a fruit syrup, whipped cream, a garnish echoing the syrup — were the standard commercial unit, differing chiefly in the syrup and the name on the card. Such names were commonly borrowed from hotels and restaurants of the day, and "the Bellmore" was the name of a New York restaurant of the era.