No. 3235

Chamounix Cake

Gateau Chamounix

Bake in a slack oven a small Genoese preparation (No. 3239) placed in a border mold, it having a round-shaped bottom buttered and bestrewn with chopped almonds. After it is taken from the oven, cold and pared, brush the surface over with apricot marmalade (No. 3675) and lay it on a pastry grate, then cover entirely with kirsch icing (No. 102), and when this is dry dress on a dish. Suppress the shells from about a hundred chestnuts, without touching the skins; boil them slowly in plenty of water in a covered vessel, then drain off the water, leaving them covered with a hot cloth; now quickly remove the skins; pound and rub the chestnuts through a sieve into a saucepan with three-quarters of their weight of powdered sugar added, also a small bit of vanilla; stir this well over a moderate fire until it detaches from the bottom and leave it till nearly cold, then dilute with a little light syrup and kirsch; incorporate into the mixture a few spoonfuls of well-drained whipped cream, but without weakening it, keeping it quite consistent, then stir on ice for ten minutes to harden, adding a salpicon of vari-colored fruits after it is removed. With this preparation fill up the hollow of the cake and smooth it to a dome-shape, then decorate through a cornet with whipped cream slightly sweetened and flavored with vanilla.

← No. 3234 Large Brioche with Head—Large Cakes for Entremets No. 3236 Compiegne Cake →

For the Modern Kitchen

A ring of génoise, glazed and filled with sweetened chestnut purée — essentially a Mont Blanc built into a cake. Nearly all the work is in the chestnuts, and the purée is the part that decides whether the dessert holds up.

Slack ovenA slack oven is a cool one; period sources place it somewhere in the region of 250–325°F, and Ranhofer himself gives no numbers. Génoise baked in a ring mold at that heat will take perhaps 30–40 minutes depending on the depth of the band; it is done when it springs back and pulls slightly from the sides.
Border moldA ring or savarin mold, buttered and lined with chopped almonds so they adhere to the crust. A modern 9-inch ring or tube pan works; the almonds must go onto cold butter or they slide.
A hundred chestnutsAbout 2 to 2½ lb in the shell, yielding roughly 1¼ to 1½ lb of peeled meat. Vacuum-packed cooked chestnuts are an honest substitute and remove the whole peeling ordeal; you need about 1¼ lb of them.
Why the hot clothThe inner skin only lifts while the nut is hot and damp. Ranhofer scores nothing here — he removes the outer shell first, boils, then strips the pellicle under cover, working fast. Chestnuts allowed to cool will not give up their skins.
Three-quarters their weight in sugarThat is very sweet by current taste — around 15 oz of sugar to 1¼ lb of chestnut, and the purée is then thinned further with syrup and kirsch. Halving the sugar gives a less sweet result, and the drying-out step over moderate heat still works.
Kirsch icingNo. 102 is Ranhofer's kirsch-flavored icing, thin enough to pour and coat rather than a buttercream. A simple glacé icing of confectioners' sugar, a little water and kirsch gives the same thin, setting shell; let it dry fully on the rack before moving the cake.
Apricot marmaladeStrained apricot jam warmed to brushing consistency, used as a sealing glaze under the icing. It keeps the crumb from drinking the fondant and greying it.
Salpicon of vari-colored fruitsCandied fruits cut in small even dice — cherry, angelica, citron, apricot. Fold them in after the purée has chilled, or the color bleeds into the chestnut.
Keeping it consistentThe hinge of the dish: the whipped cream goes in by spoonfuls only, enough to lighten without slackening. A purée that softens will slump out of the dome and cannot be rescued. Chill over ice, as directed, before it goes into the ring.
Yield and holdingServes 10 to 12. Filled and piped with cream, it is a same-day dessert and should be refrigerated until it goes to table.

A Little History

The name points to Chamonix, the valley beneath Mont Blanc, and the dish belongs to the same family as the Mont Blanc aux marrons — sweetened chestnut purée heaped into a snowy peak and finished with whipped cream. Chestnuts were the staple starch of much of upland France and Italy long before they became a confectioner's ingredient, and the nineteenth-century vogue for marrons glacés and chestnut purées gave Parisian pastry cooks a luxury use for them. Charles Ranhofer, chef at Delmonico's in New York, collected this among the large cakes for entremets in The Epicurean (1894), a book that documents what a first-rank American restaurant kitchen served when it was working in the French manner. The construction — a génoise ring glazed with fondant, its center filled at the last moment — is typical of the period's preference for desserts that could be assembled in parts and finished quickly before service.