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Vienna Glace Biscuit, or Ice Cake
1 pound of sugar. 1 small cup of water--nearly 1/2 pint. 8 yolks of eggs. 1 pint of double cream. 2 tablespoonfuls of vanilla extract. Make a boiling syrup of the sugar and water. Beat the yolks light in a deep bowl, pour the boiling syrup to them and continue beating, with the bowl set in ice water, till the mixture is cold and very light. Whip the cream to froth and lightly mix it with the other, and add the flavoring. Sift powdered macaroon over the rice paper cases, nearly fill them with the preparation, powder over the tops and set the biscuits in the freezing case for 2 or 3 hours.
The practice so common in Italian and French cookery of using syrups of varying density instead of sugar in making numerous other articles, as well as their especial varieties of cakes, is a remnant of ancient times, for the Italians and the French were fine cooks long before the art of making dry crystalized sugar was known. They used syrups and honey, and the handicraft transmitted from father to son has not been wholly revolutionized by the newer product.
This is a pâte à bombe frozen without churning — what a French kitchen would call a biscuit glacé and a modern one a semifreddo. The whole thing hinges on the syrup: too cool and the yolks never thicken, too hot and you get caramel and scrambled egg.
- Bring the syrup to soft ballBring the syrup to the boil and cook it down -- the recipe specifies nothing beyond "a boiling syrup," but modern practice for this kind of yolk-and-syrup base is the soft-ball stage, around 238-240F on a thermometer. Pour it into the yolks in a thin stream at the side of the bowl while beating hard, and keep beating until the mass is cool, pale and greatly increased in bulk -- that is the structure of the dessert, and there is no second chance at it.
- The measurementsA pound of sugar is about 2 1/4 cups; "1 small cup of water--nearly 1/2 pint" is roughly 7 fl oz. If the syrup is boiled to a set temperature the exact water amount matters little, since the excess evaporates; the recipe itself names no target.
- Double creamEnglish double cream runs about 48% fat. American heavy or whipping cream (36-40%) works; whip only to soft peaks, as the recipe's "froth" implies, so it folds in without breaking.
- VanillaTwo tablespoons of extract is heavy-handed by current standards and will read as alcoholic in an unbaked, unchurned mixture. One tablespoon, or the seeds of a vanilla bean plus a teaspoon of extract, is closer to what modern palates expect.
- Powdered macaroonDry almond macaroons hard in a low oven and crush them to a coarse powder. Amaretti or plain almond macaroons both do the job; commercial coconut macaroons do not.
- Rice paper cases and the freezing caseRice paper here is edible wafer paper, sold for cake decorating. Paper souffle cups, small ramekins or a loaf pan lined with parchment all serve. The "freezing case" was the ice-and-salt compartment of an ice cream cabinet; in a home freezer, allow longer than the 2 or 3 hours given if the cases are deep, and judge by firmness.
- Serving and yieldRoughly 1 1/2 quarts by the look of the quantities, or something like ten to twelve individual cases. Because of the sugar and fat, it should stay sliceable straight from the freezer and not need the tempering a churned ice cream does.
- Raw-egg noteThe hot syrup brings the yolks well up in temperature and is the standard professional method, but it is not a guaranteed pasteurization. If serving anyone pregnant, elderly or immune-compromised, use pasteurized yolks.
Biscuit glacé is often said to take its name from the shape and from the way the frozen block is sliced like a cake rather than scooped, though the explanation is traditional rather than documented; certainly the "biscuit" is not baked. Vienna's pastry trade is generally described as the prestige reference for American hotel confectioners in the 1890s, and the recipe is usually attributed to Jessup Whitehead, who collected this among the fashionable iced desserts of the period. The closing paragraph on syrups is Whitehead in essayist mode, and the point is sound even where the history is loose: sugar boiled to a measured density behaves differently from dry sugar, and confectioners worked with a whole vocabulary of stages (thread, soft ball, hard crack). Rice paper cases were a commonplace of the late-Victorian pastry counter, letting a soft frozen cream be served without a mold or a plate.