No. 3486

Plombiere with Chestnuts

Plombiere aux Marrons

Pack a plombiere mold in salted ice; line the bottom and sides with a thin layer of vanilla ice cream (No. 3458) and the center with chestnut cream (No. 3465), having the mold perfectly full; fasten on the cover forcibly, then freeze, allowing one hour for each quart of the plombiere; unmold and range it on a folded napkin; fill the hollow in the mold with chestnuts in juice flavored with maraschino. Stick between the chestnuts lozenge shaped pieces of angelica.

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For the Modern Kitchen

This is an assembly recipe: Ranhofer assumes you already have the vanilla ice cream, the chestnut cream and the syruped chestnuts standing by. The work is in the packing and the hardening, not the mixing.

The hinge: line the mold with firm, not soft, ice creamThe vanilla lining must be stiff enough to hold a thin even wall as you spread it up the sides, or it slumps into the chestnut center and you lose the two-tone cut. Chill the mold hard first, work quickly with a cold offset spatula, and return the lined mold to the freezer before filling the center.
A plombière moldA plombiere mold -- A lidded metal mold with a hollow well in what becomes the top after unmolding, which is what the recipe means by 'the hollow in the mold'. Ranhofer does not describe its shape here. Any lidded metal bombe or charlotte mold substitutes; without a well, simply heap the maraschino chestnuts around the base instead.
"Freeze" here means harden, not churnPacking in salted ice was the period's freezer. A domestic freezer at 0F/-18C will do the same job, though it may well need longer than the one hour per quart Ranhofer allows for a brine bath; go by feel rather than by his timing.
Sealing the mold"Fasten on the cover forcibly" mattered because salt water seeping past the lid ruins the cream. If you are using ice and salt, band the seam with butter or a strip of paraffined paper; in a modern freezer, plastic wrap under the lid is enough to keep out frost.
Chestnuts in juiceMarrons au sirop, whole peeled chestnuts in heavy syrup, sold in jars. Drain them, then toss with maraschino liqueur, not the sweet cocktail-cherry syrup that now carries the name. Marrons glacés are drier and too sweet for the hollow.
AngelicaCandied angelica stem, cut into diamonds, was the standard green garnish of the period. It is still sold by cake-decorating suppliers; candied citron or thin strips of candied green fig are the usual stand-ins.
UnmoldingDip the mold in tepid water for a few seconds, dry it, then invert onto a chilled plate. The folded napkin the recipe calls for was routine service practice for frozen dishes, catching melt and steadying the piece on the platter.
YieldRanhofer gives no yield; a quart mold of so rich a frozen dessert stretches to a number of small portions. Return the unmolded plombiere to the freezer for fifteen minutes if it has softened before you fill and garnish it.

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 reads like an inventory of a professional ice room, with every component cross-referenced to its own number. The name plombière is generally traced to the spa town of Plombières-les-Bains in the Vosges, though the connection is traditional rather than documented; by the nineteenth century the term had settled on a molded ice, classically an almond or vanilla custard, enriched and studded with candied fruit. Chestnuts belong to the same French luxury register: sweetened chestnut purée and syruped marrons were autumn and winter goods, which places this dessert firmly in the cold-weather half of a Delmonico's menu. The elaborate finish, the angelica diamonds, the napkin, the hollow filled at the last moment, reflects a kitchen where a frozen dish had to survive being carried into a dining room and looked at before it was eaten.</history>}}Wait, I must not include stray text. Let me re-emit properly.{