No. 3211

Valois Pudding

Pouding a la Valois

Make a Neapolitan cake paste (No. 3250), and roll it out with a rolling pin to the thickness of an eighth of an inch; cut from this sixty rounds, each an inch in diameter; lay them on a baking sheet and cook in a brisk oven. Also have prepared at the same time a salpicon of preserved fruits composed of greengages, dates and pineapple, the whole cut in dice, and some cherries (demisucre). Prepare also an English cream (No. 42) with twelve egg-yolks, twelve ounces of sugar, a pint of cream and a pint of milk. As soon as finished add to it three gelatine leaves previously softened in cold water and stir the preparation until the gelatine is thoroughly dissolved. Then add to it six ounces of roasted hazel-nuts pounded with a gill of milk; pass the whole through a fine sieve into a tinned basin, and leave it on ice to cool partly. Incrust a timbale mold in chopped ice, pour on the bottom a layer of the preparation, leave it to set, and on it scatter the fruits; over this pour another layer of the cream, then on top arrange a bed of the round cakes, afterward more cream, and then more fruits, continuing the process until the mold is entirely full. Leave the pudding on ice for an hour and a half. Serve with a cold English vanilla cream sauce (No. 42).

← No. 3210 Renaissance Pudding Cold Entremets — Creams, Jellies & Charlottes No. 3212 Pyramid of Meringues →

For the Modern Kitchen

A moulded, gelatine-set crème anglaise layered with candied fruit and small baked biscuits — Ranhofer's construction rather than a batter pudding. The hinge is the custard: cook it to 180F and no further, or the yolks curdle and no amount of sieving will save the texture.

Read the cross-references firstNo. 3250 (Neapolitan cake paste) is a rich sweet paste of the almond-shortbread type, so a firm almond shortbread dough behaves much the same way. No. 42 is plain crème anglaise, used here twice — once set with gelatine for the pudding, once loose and chilled as the sauce.
Brisk ovenRoughly 400–425F for the biscuit rounds. At an eighth of an inch and an inch across they colour in a few minutes, so watch them; sugar-rich paste goes from pale to burnt quickly.
A gillHalf a cup, here of milk for pounding the hazelnuts. A blender or food processor does in a minute what a mortar did in twenty; sieve afterwards as directed to remove skin fragments.
Gelatine leaves are ambiguousNineteenth-century leaves varied in size and strength and are not equivalent to modern sheets. Three modern 2 g sheets in four cups of liquid will not hold a moulded pudding — the original relied on twelve yolks doing much of the work and on constant ice. Judge the set by chilling a spoonful before committing the batch.
Demisucre cherriesHalf-candied cherries, drained of syrup but not dried hard — glacé cherries rinsed of excess syrup are the closest thing. Blot all the preserved fruit dry or the wet syrup will streak the custard layers.
SalpiconSimply the fruit cut in even small dice. Cut it about the size of the biscuit rounds' thickness so each layer stays flat and the pudding slices cleanly.
Incrust the mold in chopped iceA period substitute for refrigeration: the mould is buried in ice so each layer sets before the next is poured. A plain metal charlotte or timbale mould in the freezer for a few minutes between layers achieves the same, then the assembled pudding chills in the refrigerator rather than for the stated hour and a half on ice.
Yield and servingRoughly a quart and a half of finished pudding, serving 8–10. Dip the mould briefly in warm water to unmould, and pour the cold vanilla custard sauce around the base rather than over the top.

A Little History

The Epicurean (1894) is Charles Ranhofer's record of what came out of the Delmonico's kitchens in New York, and its cold entremets section runs to dozens of moulded creams distinguished less by technique than by name — Renaissance immediately before this one, a pyramid of meringues immediately after. "À la Valois" invokes the French royal house that preceded the Bourbons, part of a long kitchen habit of dressing an assembly of custard, candied fruit and biscuit in dynastic or courtly livery; the name signals grandeur rather than any documented connection to the sixteenth century. What the recipe genuinely records is the economics of ice. Packing a mould in chopped ice, setting one thin layer at a time, and holding the finished pudding for ninety minutes was routine in a restaurant with an ice-house and a brigade to tend it, and considerably harder to manage in a domestic kitchen of the same decade.