The Stamford
Put a ladleful of vanilla ice cream into a sundae glass and pour over apricot syrup. Add marshmallow cream and chopped nuts.
A fountain formula rather than a kitchen recipe: three components, assembled to order, with the proportions left to the person behind the counter. A few of the terms mean something specific.
- A ladlefulAt a fountain, one scoop of ice cream from the cabinet, enough to fill the glass and leave room for the topping. Neither the size of the scoop nor the size of the glass is specified.
- Apricot syrupA sweetened fruit syrup rather than jam thinned with water. Apricot preserves let down with a little hot water and strained gives a workable consistency; allow about 2 tablespoons per glass.
- Marshmallow creamMarshmallow crème, the soft spreadable kind, which the trade sold by the pail. It stiffens badly against ice cream straight from the freezer, so slacken a spoonful with a teaspoon of hot water or warm it briefly before it goes on.
- Order of assemblySyrup first over the ice cream, marshmallow second, nuts last. Reversing the last two buries the nuts and they lose their point, which is the contrast against two soft sweet layers.
- The nutsSalted nuts were common at the fountain, chopped coarse. Unsalted raw nuts leave the glass tasting flat, since nothing else in it carries salt.
- YieldOne glass. Scale by the number of eaters rather than by batch, and assemble each one immediately before serving.
Sundaes belong to the American soda fountain, and this one carries a place name in the manner of the trade, where houses gave standard combinations local titles the way bartenders named cocktails. Books of fountain formulas were numerous from the 1890s onward, and titles and rituals travelled with them. The apricot-marshmallow-nut combination is a fountain staple built entirely from shelf-stable goods a counter would already stock in tins and pails. The origin of the sundae itself is disputed, with Two Rivers, Wisconsin, and Ithaca, New York, both traditionally claiming it, and the spelling generally explained as a dodge around Sunday sales restrictions on soda water.