No. 3472

Mousse a la Siraudin

Whip a quart of cream till quite firm, lay it on a sieve and when well drained mix into it eight ounces of icing sugar and a salpicon of fruits cut in squares and marinated in kirsch. Fill a high dome-shaped mold with this preparation, pack in ice, freeze an hour for each quart, and unmold on a very cold dish; cover the top with Italian cream, decorating it with fruits; freeze once more and serve.

← No. 3471 Mousse a la Semiramis Ices & Ice Creams No. 3473 Coffee or Chocolate Mousse →

For the Modern Kitchen

A still-frozen mousse rather than a churned ice: the volume comes entirely from whipped cream, so the handling of the cream is the whole recipe.

Whip firm, then drain"Quite firm" here means stiff but not broken; the sieve step drains the thin liquid that weeps out of whipped cream and keeps the frozen mousse from going icy. Use heavy cream at 36 percent fat or above, chilled, and stop the moment it holds a peak. Whipped cream roughly doubles in volume, so a quart of cream should give a generous mold -- enough, at a guess, for eight to ten servings.
Icing sugarConfectioners' sugar, and eight ounces is about two cups by volume. It is used rather than granulated because it dissolves instantly in cold cream; modern confectioners' sugar also carries a little cornstarch, which helps stabilise the mixture, though period icing sugar need not have contained any.
SalpiconA salpicon is simply a mixture of small even dice, here of fruit. Cut candied or fresh firm fruit into quarter-inch cubes; very juicy fruit will bleed and freeze into hard shards, so drain it well after the kirsch soak.
KirschAn unsweetened cherry brandy, not a cherry liqueur. The alcohol depresses the freezing point, so keep the marinade to a few spoonfuls or the mousse will stay slack.
Packing in iceThe original means burying the sealed mold in a tub of crushed ice and coarse salt, which holds it well below freezing. A modern freezer at 0F does the same work more slowly: allow four to six hours for a quart mold, or overnight.
Italian creamThe book gives this as a separate preparation, so the quantity here is left to the cook; a cup or so is enough to mask the dome. The name most likely points to a cream lightened with Italian meringue (whites cooked with hot sugar syrup), but check the book's own entry rather than assuming.
UnmoldingDip the mold in tepid water for a few seconds only, invert onto a plate chilled in the freezer, then return the whole thing to the cold before finishing. A warm dish will slump the base before the decoration is done.

A Little History

The Epicurean (1894) is Charles Ranhofer's record of his years cooking at Delmonico's in New York, and its ices section runs to hundreds of numbered variations distinguished largely by flavouring, mold shape and dedicatee. The name is generally taken to honour Siraudin, the fashionable Paris confectionery house on the rue de la Paix whose bonbons were a byword for luxury in the second half of the nineteenth century, though Ranhofer attaches such names without explanation. What makes the dish a mousse rather than an ice cream is that nothing is churned: the preparation is aerated by whipping and then set solid in a salt-and-ice bath, and it is served in a tall dome mold.