No. 3439

Bomb a la Constantine

Bombe a la Constantine

Take a special hinged mold, the same as for Fig. 627; it must have a hollow on the top, into which place a double mold filled with cotton and alcohol and set on fire when serving. The inside of the mold must be coated with chocolate ice cream, into which mix half as much whipped cream. Fill the hollow space in the inside with a preparation made as follows: Melt five ounces of sweet chocolate and five ounces of sugar in a quart of hot water; after the chocolate is all dissolved pass the whole through a fine sieve and leave to cool; pour the top off gently an hour later and reduce it to three gills. Break sixteen egg-yolks in a basin, beat with three gills of thirty-two degree syrup and three and a half gills of water and the chocolate: set this on a slow fire and stir steadily until the composition covers the spatula well, then strain through a sieve, return it to the basin, lay on ice and beat, adding half as much well-drained whipped cream (No. 50). Fill the mold quite full with this, close tightly and freeze. A two quart bomb will require two hours' freezing. Unmold and dress on a ring of white chocolate ice cream, the proportions for making it being three and a half gills of clarified sugar at thirty-two degrees, three and a half gills of water, sixteen egg-yolks, and eight ounces of cocoa infused in the syrup with a vanilla bean split lengthwise in two. Decorate around with Africans (No. 3364) and pistachio lady bouchees (No. 3376).

← No. 3438 Iced Biscuits with Vanilla and Strawberry, M Ices & Ice Creams No. 3440 Bomb a la Trobriand and Fifth Avenue →

For the Modern Kitchen

Ranhofer assumes a professional pastry kitchen: a hinged bombe mold, salt-and-ice freezing, and syrup measured on a Baume hydrometer. The parts translate cleanly enough, but the quantities are banquet scale.

Gills and quartsA gill is half a cup (4 fl oz), so three gills is 1 1/2 cups and three and a half gills is 1 3/4 cups. Ranhofer gives the bombe as two quarts, enough for twelve to sixteen at the end of a long dinner.
Syrup at thirty-two degreesThis is degrees Baume, not temperature: a hydrometer reading of syrup density. Clarified sugar at 32 Baume is a heavy syrup of about 1.28 specific gravity, well over half sugar by weight. Any standard heavy simple syrup will stand in.
The custard is the hinge"Stir steadily until the composition covers the spatula well" is the nappe stage, 175-180F. Sixteen yolks over direct heat will scramble at 185F, and Ranhofer's slow fire means the lowest flame you have, with the strainer already set up.
The chocolate infusionMelting chocolate and sugar in a quart of water, cooling, then gently pouring off the liquid leaves the grit and sediment behind. What you pour off is then reduced to 1 1/2 cups, a strong, lean chocolate essence rather than a ganache.
"White chocolate" is not white chocolateThe outer ring is a custard with eight ounces of cocoa infused in the syrup with a split vanilla bean and then strained out, the same trick as white coffee ice cream. Cocoa nibs work better than powder here; powder will not strain clean and the ice cream will not be pale.
Freezing"Close tightly and freeze" means packing the sealed mold in crushed ice and rock salt for two hours. A modern approach is to churn each mixture first, line and fill the chilled mold, then hard-freeze at 0F for four hours or more; a domestic freezer alone will not set two quarts in two.
The flaming topThe cotton soaked in alcohol sits in a separate small mold in the hollow, never touching the ice cream. Light it away from the table, keep the bottle well clear, and remember that burning alcohol shows almost no flame in a bright room.
The garnishesAfricans (No. 3364) and pistachio lady bouchees (No. 3376) are small petits fours from elsewhere in the book. Any crisp chocolate or pistachio petit four serves the same purpose.

A Little History

The Epicurean (1894) is Charles Ranhofer's record of thirty-odd years as chef at Delmonico's in New York, and its ice chapter is a detailed picture of what a great American restaurant did with frozen desserts in a kitchen that froze with ice and salt. A bombe is a mold lined with one ice and filled with another, and by Ranhofer's time nearly every one carried a name: a diplomat, a patron, an opera, a street. Whom or what Constantine honors is not recorded in the book, which is typical; the names appear to have been house currency. The flaming top belongs to the same theatrical impulse that produced the flambeed and spun-sugar centerpieces of the period. The doubled richness here, sixteen yolks in each of two custards, each lightened with half its volume of whipped cream, is the mark of a kitchen churning by hand in salt and ice, where fat and air were what kept the texture from turning to a solid block.