No. 3198

Peaches a la Louvoisienne

Peches a la Louvoisienne

Fill a border mold (Fig. 139) with raspberry jelly (No. 3183) tinted with a little carmine, having it rather firmer than usual. After the jelly is well set unmold the border on a cold dish and place a pad of biscuit three-quarters of an inch thick in the center. On this dress a dome of fine halved peaches and cover these with a layer of cold cream rice with vanilla (No. 160). Dress a circle of greengages around the rice and decorate the top with quartered peaches, some cherries (demi-sucre) and lozenges of angelica; surround the base with a row of croutons made of blanc-mange (No. 3138) and red jelly alternated, each being a quarter of an inch thick.

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For the Modern Kitchen

This is an assembly piece rather than a cooked dish: five component recipes from elsewhere in The Epicurean are built into one molded dessert. Read it as a diagram, and make the parts a day ahead so everything is cold and firm before you begin.

The hinge: a firmer jellyRanhofer says the raspberry jelly should be "rather firmer than usual"; he does not say why, but it has to be unmolded as a free-standing ring on a cold dish. Use rather more gelatin than for a spoonable jelly and chill it thoroughly; a soft border will slump on the serving dish.
Border moldA ring mold, plain or fluted; the recipe points to Fig. 139 but gives no size. Dip it in warm water for three or four seconds only and invert onto a chilled platter; longer and the surface melts to a dull skin.
CarmineCochineal-based red coloring, sold in the period as a liquid or powder. It is still available as carmine or cochineal extract, though many cooks now use beet or a modern red. The recipe calls for only "a little."
"A pad of biscuit"Biscuit here is sponge cake, not a quickbread — a disc of genoise or ladyfinger sponge cut to fit inside the ring, three-quarters of an inch thick. Its job is to lift the peaches and absorb syrup, so a slightly stale, dryish cake works better than a fresh moist one.
Cold cream rice with vanillaNo. 160, a sweet rice cooked soft in milk and served cold. Work it while it is still soft enough to spread over the fruit dome without dragging the peaches out of place.
Greengages and cherries demi-sucreGreengages are a small green-gold plum, in season only briefly in late summer; good canned or bottled ones are an honest substitute. Demi-sucre cherries are only half-candied — softer and less glassy than glace cherries.
AngelicaCandied angelica stem, cut into diamond lozenges, was the standard green garnish of the period. It is now specialty stock; candied citron peel or thin strips of candied lime peel read similarly on the plate.
Blanc-mange croutonsNot fried bread — croutons here means small geometric cut-outs. Set the blanc-mange (No. 3138, an almond milk cream) and a sheet of red jelly each a quarter inch thick in shallow pans, then cut with a small square or diamond cutter and alternate them around the base.
Yield and serviceA shared cold entremets, cut down through the border so each portion gets jelly, sponge, rice and fruit. Assemble shortly before serving and keep it cold; the recipe gives no number of servings.

A Little History

Charles Ranhofer ran the kitchen at Delmonico's in New York and published The Epicurean in 1894 as a complete record of that house's repertoire — some 3,500 numbered recipes designed to be cross-referenced rather than read straight through, which is why this one is mostly instructions to fetch other pages. Dishes of this kind, a molded jelly border filled with fruit and a cream, belonged to the grand nineteenth-century service of cold entremets, where the dessert course was expected to arrive as architecture. Names ending in a la plus a French place or family were applied freely by chefs of the period; Louvois is a French name associated with the war minister of Louis XIV and with a Paris square and theater bearing it, but as with most such titles the connection is decorative rather than documented. One might read the entry as a glimpse of how a large brigade worked — the jelly, sponge, rice cream and blanc-mange assembled from components made elsewhere in the book — though that is inference rather than anything the recipe states.