No. 3153

Tutti-Frutti Cream

Creme Tutti-Frutti

Cut a fine salpicon of preserved fruits in three-sixteenths of an inch dice pieces, such as peaches, apricots, pears, almonds, a little angelica, and whole candied cherries (demi-sucre), if small (if large cut in two). Sprinkle a little maraschino over, and leave to marinate for one hour. Have the volume of two quarts of whipped cream, add to it a gill of strawberry pulp, into which has been mixed a little melted gelatine, place it on ice and as soon as it begins to thicken add the fruits; stir them in very slowly, and pour the whole into a cylindrical timbale mold; cover it hermetically, cement the joints well with paste, and set it on lightly salted ice, leaving it to freeze for an hour and a half. When ready dip the mold quickly into hot water, and invert the cream on a cold dish; surround the base with a circle of brandied greengages and lozenges of angelica.

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For the Modern Kitchen

Ranhofer's tutti-frutti is a frozen mousse rather than a churned ice cream: whipped cream lightly set with gelatine, studded with diced candied fruit, and frozen in a sealed mould buried in salted ice. Everything about it translates to a modern freezer except the packing.

The hinge: fold the fruit in coldThe cream must be chilled until it just begins to thicken before the fruit goes in. Added to loose cream, the heavy candied dice sink and you get a plain frozen cream with a fruit layer at what becomes the top of the turned-out mould.
A gillHalf a cup, four fluid ounces. Strawberry pulp here means sieved raw or lightly cooked berries, not syrup or jam.
"The volume of two quarts of whipped cream"Measured after whipping, not before. That is roughly a quart of heavy cream whipped to soft peaks, which will roughly double.
GelatineSheet or leaf gelatine would be the likely form in a kitchen of this kind, softened and melted, with no quantity given. Something in the region of a teaspoon of powdered gelatine bloomed and dissolved is enough for this volume; more makes the thawed edges rubbery rather than creamy. Melt it warm, not hot, and whisk it into the strawberry pulp before that goes into the cream, or it will set in strings.
Salpicon and demi-sucreA salpicon is simply a small uniform dice, here three-sixteenths of an inch, near enough to a scant quarter inch. Demi-sucre cherries are candied to half strength, moister and less glassy than fully crystallised fruit; drained maraschino or amarena cherries stand in well.
AngelicaThe candied stem of Angelica archangelica, bright green and faintly resinous, still sold by confectioners and cake-decorating suppliers. Candied citron or green candied papaya is the usual substitute, though neither has the flavour.
Freezing without a salt bathThe sealed mould set in salted ice is a pre-electric deep freeze. Line a loaf tin or charlotte mould with cling film, press the mixture in, cover tightly and freeze. It needs three to four hours rather than the hour and a half a brine bath achieves, and the cement of paste around the joints is no longer needed since nothing wet is pressed against the mould.
Unmoulding and servingA brief dip in hot water and a cold serving dish, exactly as written. Let the turned-out cream stand five minutes before cutting; straight from the freezer it slices clean but tastes of nothing. Serves ten to twelve.
The garnishBrandied greengages are a preserve you will most likely have to make ahead or replace with any brandied stone fruit. The lozenges are simply diamonds cut from a sheet of angelica.

A Little History

Charles Ranhofer ran the kitchen at Delmonico's in New York for some thirty years and published The Epicurean in 1894 as a full record of that restaurant's repertoire, over 3,000 numbered recipes deep. Tutti frutti is Italian for "all fruits," and by the later nineteenth century it named a whole family of confections and frozen sweets built on mixed candied fruit steeped in liqueur; the term crossed into American ice-cream parlours and, eventually, into chewing gum and boiled sweets, where it survives as a flavour name with no particular fruit attached. What dates this version is the machinery rather than the idea: the sealed timbale mould, the joints luted with paste, and the pack of ice and salt are the standard apparatus of the pre-refrigeration glacier, the pastry department's ice-work specialist, who spent his day building moulded bombes and biscuits glac he the ice cellar to the dining room.