Home › Ices, Ice Creams, Etc › Biscuit Tortoni in Boxes
Biscuit Tortoni in Boxes
1 cup dried macaroons, finely crushed 2 cups thin cream ½ cup sugar 1/3 cup sherry 1 pint heavy cream Soak macaroons in thin cream one hour, add sugar, wine, and freeze to a mush; then add heavy cream beaten stiff. Mould, pack in salt and ice, and let stand two hours. Trim lady fingers, arrange on plate in form of box.
Keep in place with ribbon one-half inch wide, and fasten at one corner by tying ribbon in a bow. Garnish opposite corner with flowers of same color as ribbon. Remove ice cream from brick, cut a slice three-fourths inch thick, and place it in box.
Frozen Soufflé Glacé 1 tablespoon lemon juice ½ cup Madeira wine Few grains salt 2/3 cup heavy cream 4 eggs Grated rind 1 lemon 2/3 cup sugar Beat yolks of eggs slightly; add lemon juice, grated rind, wine, sugar, and salt; cook until mixture thickens, stirring constantly. Add whites of eggs beaten stiff, and when well mixed, set in a pan of ice-water to cool, stirring occasionally. Beat cream until stiff, and add. Fill small paper cases with mixture, cover with macaroon dust, and set in a tin mould with tight-fitting cover. Pack mould in salt and ice, and let stand two hours. 2 cups milk 1 cup sugar Yolks 6 eggs
Two frozen desserts from the same page, both built on the old salt-and-ice method rather than a machine, plus a stray ingredient list that belongs to the recipe printed next. A few of the terms and one measurement need attention before you start.
- Thin cream and heavy cream"Thin cream" is light or single cream, roughly 18-20% butterfat; light cream is the nearest supermarket equivalent, with half-and-half (about 12%) a thinner stand-in. "Heavy cream" means the whipping grade, 36% or more, and the recipe directs that it be beaten stiff before it is folded in.
- Dried macaroonsThese are crisp almond macaroons, close to Italian amaretti, not the coconut kind. If yours are soft, dry them in a 250F oven until they snap, then crush fine; damp crumbs turn to paste in the cream.
- Freeze to a mushThis is a churning instruction. In an ice cream maker, run the sherry mixture until it is thick and slushy but not set, then fold in the whipped cream and transfer to the mould. Without a machine, freeze in a shallow pan and beat well every 30 minutes.
- Pack in salt and iceThe recipe says only to pack the sealed mould in salt and ice; the proportions usually given in books of this period run to about one part rock salt to three or four of ice, which holds the mixture below freezing while it ripens. A home freezer will serve instead, though the timing may not match exactly; cover the mould so it does not take on freezer smells.
- The brickA brick mould is a rectangular tin with a lid, sized to be turned out and cut in slices. A small loaf pan lined with plastic wrap gives the same slices for the lady-finger boxes.
- The Madeira quantity"1½ cup Madeira wine" against four eggs and 2/3 cup cream is out of proportion, and almost certainly a broken fraction for ½ cup. Treat it as ambiguous rather than measuring a cup and a half; too much alcohol will keep the souffle from freezing at all.
- Raw whites in the souffle glaceThe yolk mixture is cooked, but the beaten whites go in afterwards and are never heated. Use pasteurized whites if the dessert is going to children, the elderly, or anyone pregnant.
- The trailing ingredients"2 cups milk, 1 cup sugar, yolks 6 eggs" at the end belongs to the next recipe in the chapter, a plain custard base. It has no place in either dish above.
- YieldThe tortoni makes about a quart and a half, enough for eight to ten slices in lady-finger boxes. The souffle glace fills roughly eight small paper cases.
Biscuit tortoni is generally traced to Tortoni, the Neapolitan proprietor of a celebrated ice café on the Boulevard des Italiens in Paris in the early nineteenth century, and the name attached itself to almost any rich frozen cream stiffened with crushed macaroon. By the time Fannie Farmer's book reached American kitchens the dish had become a standard of the catered dinner, valued as much for its presentation as its flavour: the lady-finger box tied with ribbon and garnished with matching flowers is pure late-Victorian table dressing, of a piece with the chapter's moulded bombes and fancy ices. Both recipes here assume the household still owned a packing bucket and a supply of rock salt, since mechanical refrigeration was decades away from the domestic kitchen, and the two-hour ripening in salt and ice was simply how any moulded ice was finished.