No. 3176

Garnishings for Cold Desserts

Garnitures Pour Entremets Froids

These are composed of compoted fruit, small cakes or frequently of cold croutons made with blanc mange, jelly or fruit "pain" preparation. These croutons are sometimes plain and sometimes ribboned. To make them proceed as follows: Prepare some very clear jelly and pour it on a tin sheet in an even layer three-quarters of an inch thick; place this perfectly straight in the ice-box to have the jelly harden: when quite so, dip the sheet into very hot water, and turn the jelly over on a cloth. Triangle-shaped or cube-shaped croutons can be made by first dividing the jelly into long bands, then cutting the croutons into any desired form. Should they be needed round or in crescents, then cut them with a pastry cutter or tin tube. To have them ribboned, pour first a layer of clear or whipped jelly on the sheet, and when hard pour a second one over, either of colored jelly tinted with carmine or a shaded "pain" preparation; as soon as this is set turn it over on a cloth and cut the same as for the above. Pretty croutons can also be made as follows: have twelve No. 2 or 3 mousseline molds (Fig. 138); fill six of them with carmine-tinted jelly, and leave till very cold, then invert them on a cloth and cut perpendicularly in two even parts; lay each of these in one of the twelve molds, and fill the empty space with blanc-mange preparation, and leave to harden. When this is very firm empty out the center of the timbale with a tin tube, and fill the hollow space with chocolate bavaroise (No. 3131); after the timbales become quite cold unmold and cut them perpendicularly in two. When dressing put the rounded side of the timbale turned toward the entremets.

← No. 3175 Pear and Apple Flawn Cold Entremets — Creams, Jellies & Charlottes No. 3177 Gooseberries with Cream →

For the Modern Kitchen

Ranhofer is describing a garnish kit rather than a single dish: sheets of set jelly and blanc mange cut into shapes to ring a cold cream or charlotte. The whole thing hinges on the jelly being firm enough to cut cleanly, so err on the stiff side of your usual set.

Set it firmer than you would eatA jelly meant to be cut into cubes and crescents and handled with a palette knife needs a noticeably stiffer set than a spooned jelly — think sliceable, not wobbling. If your first sheet slumps at the cut edge, remelt and add more gelatin rather than trying to work faster.
"Tin sheet" and depthUse a small rimmed sheet pan or a shallow tray, and check with a ruler that it is dead level in the refrigerator; three-quarters of an inch of jelly at one end and half an inch at the other will show badly once cut. A quarter sheet pan is ample for garnishing several desserts.
Turning outThe hot-water dip is a second or two only — long enough to release the film against the metal, not to melt the surface. Wring the cloth out in cold water first so the jelly does not stick to it, or turn out onto a lightly oiled marble slab or a silicone mat, which is easier to cut on.
"Pain" preparationA pain in this book is a fruit purée bound with gelatin, set in a mold and turned out — closer to a firm fruit preparation than to bread. Any thick sieved fruit purée set with gelatin will behave the same way in a ribboned sheet.
CarmineCarmine is cochineal, the red dye from scale insects, still sold as a food colour and still not vegetarian. Ordinary red food colouring gives the same effect; add it to the warm jelly, not the cold, or it will streak.
Mousseline moldsRanhofer specifies his own sizes No. 2 or 3 (Fig. 138). Any small metal dariole or timbale mold of similar size will serve, and metal helps here, since the shapes are turned out by inverting the chilled mold.
Cutting for clean edgesDip the knife or cutter in hot water and wipe it between cuts. Cut the sheet into long bands first, as directed, then cross-cut; freehand cubes cut all at once will drift out of square.
Chocolate bavaroiseThe filling for the hollowed timbales is Ranhofer's No. 3131, a chocolate Bavarian cream — custard and melted chocolate set with gelatin and lightened with whipped cream. It must be cool and just beginning to thicken when piped in, or it will melt the surrounding jelly.
Yield and holdingOne quarter-sheet of jelly gives more croutons than a single dessert needs; cut only what you will use and keep the rest of the sheet covered and refrigerated. Cut croutons hold a day at most before the edges dull and weep, so make them the morning they are served.

A Little History

Charles Ranhofer spent some thirty years as chef at Delmonico's in New York, and The Epicurean (1894) is the record of that kitchen — an encyclopedia of French grande cuisine written for men who plated for a dining room, not for a family table. Entries like this one exist because a nineteenth-century cold entremets was judged as much on its border as on its substance: a blanc mange or a bavarois arrived on a footed dish ringed with cut jelly, poached fruit and small cakes, all of it built from the same set of gelatin techniques that produced savory aspic work in the same kitchen. The vocabulary is untranslated on purpose — croutons here means small cut shapes, not toast, and pain means a molded fruit cream — because Ranhofer assumed a reader who had served an apprenticeship in French. That such garnishes were practical at all depended on the commercial sheet gelatin and the reliable ice-box of the period; a generation earlier the same effects meant boiling down calves' feet and hoping for a cold night.