No. 3136

Bavarois with Chestnuts

Bavarois aux Marrons

Suppress the shells from one pound of good, fresh chestnuts; put them with some water into a saucepan and let cook on a slow fire for two hours, being careful to replace the black liquid by clean boiling water. After the chestnuts are tender, drain, skin and pound them in a mortar with half a pint of syrup at twenty-five degrees, to reduce them to a fine paste, and press this paste through a sieve into a tin basin. Put four egg-yolks into a bowl and beat them up with four ounces of sugar; dilute with a pint of boiling milk into which has been added half a vanilla bean; pour this into a saucepan and place it on the fire, beating it with a whip until it begins to thicken; then remove at once and add an ounce and a half of gelatine, softened in cold water; when this is dissolved, pass the preparation through a fine wire sieve and add it to the chestnuts in the basin, putting it on pounded ice and beating well till cold. As soon as it begins to thicken incorporate into it a quart and a half of firmly whipped and drained cream; then pour it into a channeled cylindrical mold (Fig. 148) incrusted in ice. Let it harden for an hour and a half. Just when serving dip the mold quickly into hot water and invert the cream on a cold dish, surrounding the base with fine glazed chestnuts.

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For the Modern Kitchen

A Delmonico's-scale Bavarian cream: chestnut purée, a stirred custard set with gelatine, and a great deal of whipped cream. Two things decide whether it works — the custard must thicken without curdling, and the gelatine quantity needs translating for modern products.

The custard is the hingeRanhofer says beat with a whip until it begins to thicken, then remove at once. That is roughly 180F/82C on a thermometer; a boil scrambles the yolks and no sieving will rescue the texture. Off the heat immediately, then stir in the softened gelatine so the residual heat dissolves it.
Gelatine, then and nowNineteenth-century sheet gelatine was less consistently graded than modern products, though its strength relative to today's is hard to pin down (the Bloom test dates only from the 1920s). With modern powdered gelatine, about 1 oz (four 1/4-oz envelopes) will set this volume softly; the full ounce and a half gives the firm, sliceable set wanted for turning out of a mold. Soften in cold water first, as written.
Syrup at twenty-five degreesA density reading on the Baumé scale, not a temperature. Twenty-five degrees Baumé is close to equal weights of sugar and water boiled together until clear — about 1 lb sugar to 1 lb (2 cups) water, cooled. Half a pint is 1 cup.
VolumesAmerican measures throughout: a pint is 2 cups, a quart 4 cups. A quart and a half of cream means 6 cups measured before whipping, which is a very large batch.
The chestnutsRanhofer shells them first, then simmers for two hours in repeatedly changed water to draw off the dark tannic liquid; that treatment belongs to raw chestnuts. Vacuum-packed or jarred peeled cooked chestnuts need only a short simmer in fresh water to soften enough to puree. If starting from raw, score the shells and peel while hot -- the inner skin will not come away once cold.
Pounding and sievingA food processor replaces the mortar, but the sieving is not optional: chestnut purée carries gritty skin fragments that ruin an otherwise smooth cream. Push it through a fine sieve or pass it through a food mill.
Chilling and unmolding"Incrusted in ice" means the mold packed round with crushed ice; salt is added to the ice only when something is meant to freeze, which is not wanted here. A refrigerator does the same work in about 4 hours, or overnight for a large mold. The quick dip in hot water should be a few seconds only, or the outer surface slumps.
Glazed chestnutsThe garnish is marrons glacés — candied chestnuts, sold in jars and worth buying rather than making for a single dish.
YieldA very large quantity, on the order of 3 to 4 quarts of finished cream. Figure at least 16 to 20 servings; the recipe halves cleanly.

A Little History

The Epicurean (1894) is Charles Ranhofer's record of thirty-odd years as chef at Delmonico's in New York, and the numbered entremets sections read as a working catalogue rather than a book for home cooks — hence the quart and a half of cream and the reference to a specific numbered mold. A bavarois, or Bavarian cream, is a custard set with gelatine and lightened with whipped cream; the name is generally traced to French chefs of the early nineteenth century working in or for German courts, and Carême's writings helped fix it in the professional repertoire. Chestnuts were a standard confectioner's ingredient in that repertoire, turned into purées, marrons glacés and the sweetened chestnut paste that later became familiar as crème de marrons. That this appears within a series of bavarois recipes says something about how a nineteenth-century grand restaurant worked: one base preparation, endlessly varied, molded and turned out in the dining room.