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Frozen Compotes of Pears and Oranges
For the same purposes as the apples preceding, can be prepared in the same way. The object of stewing the fruit in thick syrup is to prevent it from breaking out of shape. The syrup can then be diluted as desired. The quantities in all these receipts are calculated for the average or probable orders of 50 persons having a varied bill of fare to choose from. When two ices are to be served in combination the quantities of each of course are reduced in proportion. A liberal rule is to provide a quart before freezing for every 10 persons, and the freezing process should increase its volume considerably.
This is a scaling and method note rather than a full receipt — it sends you back to the frozen apple compote that precedes it and then explains the proportions a hotel pastry department would work to. What it does tell you is the part that matters most: the syrup does the structural work.
- The hinge: stew in heavy syrup firstFruit simmered in a thin syrup or plain water draws water out of the syrup and collapses. A dense syrup (roughly equal weights sugar and water, or heavier) keeps the pear quarters and orange segments intact by keeping the osmotic pressure on the outside. Poach at a bare shiver, never a rolling boil.
- "Dilute as desired" is not optionalThe stewing syrup is far too sweet to freeze well as it stands — high sugar depresses the freezing point and you get slush that never sets. Thin the finished syrup with water or fruit juice before it goes into the freezer; a syrup that tastes just slightly sweeter than you want the finished ice to taste is the working guide.
- "Compote" hereCompote in this sense is fruit held whole or in neat pieces in syrup, in the French manner — not the loose stewed jam the word usually means now, and not a baked dish. The page itself does not define the term.
- Yield and portionA quart before freezing per 10 people works out to a little over 3 fl oz a head, which is right for a small ice served among other sweets. For the stated 50 covers that is 5 quarts of liquid going into the machine.
- "Should increase its volume considerably"That is overrun — air beaten in during churning. A hand-cranked tub freezer with a dasher picks up a useful amount of air, though how much varies with the mix and the cranking; a domestic countertop machine generally gives less, so if you are scaling for a crowd do not count on a large increase.
- Pears and oranges specificallyUse firm pears — Bosc or underripe Anjou — since a ripe Bartlett will disintegrate whatever the syrup density. Oranges want the segments cut free of all membrane before they go into the syrup; the pith turns bitter and the membrane turns leathery when frozen.
- Combination serviceThe note about two ices served in combination means only that where two are offered together each is made in a smaller quantity; the page does not say how they were presented. If you do serve two, freeze them separately and combine at service or the two will bleed.
The American Pastry Cook belongs to the run of late nineteenth-century American trade manuals written for hotel and restaurant kitchens rather than households, which is why the arithmetic here is done in covers rather than cups: fifty persons choosing from a varied bill of fare, with the pastry cook expected to guess how many of them will call for the ice. Frozen compotes sat in a middle ground between a water ice and a dessert of poached fruit, and they suited the period's long table d'h"ote menus, where a light iced sweet was wanted between heavier courses. The technique of holding fruit in a heavy syrup so it keeps its shape is older than the book and is generally traced to French confectionery practice, where compote and fruits confits shade into one another; by this date ice-harvesting and the hand-cranked tub freezer had made iced desserts a good deal easier to put on the table.