No. 3492

Duchess Pudding

Pouding a la Duchesse

Cook six very ripe peeled pears in a twelve-degree syrup; drain and rub them through a sieve; put this pulp in a vessel with two gills of syrup at thirty-five degrees, and one gill of lemon juice; strain the whole, bring it to twenty-two degrees and freeze. Cut some candied pineapple and candied cherries (half a pound of each) in quarter-inch pieces, boil them in a little thirty-degree syrup, leave to cool and drain. To the ice add two egg-whites of Italian meringue, and the well-drained fruits. Imbed a two-quart pudding mold in ice; coat the inside with a quarter of an inch layer of maraschino ice cream (No. 3462), and put in the pear ice; place the cover on, pack it well in salted ice, freeze, allowing one hour for each quart, then unmold and dress on a napkin. Accompany this pudding by a sauce prepared as follows: Put one Italian meringue egg-white in a metal bowl; stir it well with the juice of an orange and a few drops of extract of pears and a little champagne.

← No. 3491 Diplomat Pudding Ices & Ice Creams No. 3493 Fleury Pudding →

For the Modern Kitchen Do not make this as written.

Ranhofer writes for a kitchen with a saccharometer, a tub of salted ice and a pastry department already stocked with syrups. Translated, this is a pear sorbet studded with candied fruit, lined with maraschino ice cream and frozen in a mold.

Degrees means BauméDegrees means Baume -- All the "degree" figures are hydrometer readings of sugar density, not temperatures. Roughly: 12 deg Baume is a light poaching syrup (about 22 Brix, near 1 part sugar to 4 parts water by weight); 30 deg is heavy (about 55 Brix); 35 deg is close to saturated (about 65 Brix, near 2 parts sugar to 1 part water). Bringing the mix "to twenty-two degrees" means diluting the pear puree and syrup until it reads about 40 Brix, a density in the usual sorbet range, which freezes soft rather than solid.
GillsA gill is half a cup. Two gills of heavy syrup is one cup; one gill of lemon juice is half a cup, which is a great deal of acid and is what keeps the pear from tasting flat and sweet.
The hinge is the densityEverything else is assembly. If the base is too sweet it will never set in the mold; too lean and it freezes to a brick and shatters the maraschino lining when you unmold. Check with a refractometer or hydrometer rather than guessing.
Italian meringue"Two egg-whites of Italian meringue" means meringue made from two whites, whipped while hot sugar syrup at the firm-ball stage is poured in. Folding it into the sorbet lightens the texture, the nineteenth-century equivalent of overrun in a machine-churned ice.
Candied fruitHalf a pound each of candied pineapple and cherries is a lot of fruit for two quarts; the brief boil in heavy syrup is there to soften them so they do not freeze into gravel. Drain them thoroughly and chill them before folding in, or they will melt channels in the ice.
Freezing without a salt tubChurn the sorbet and the maraschino ice cream in a machine. Chill the mold hard, spread the maraschino ice cream in a quarter-inch layer with the back of a spoon, freeze until firm, then fill with the pear ice and freeze overnight. "One hour for each quart" in salted ice corresponds to several hours in a domestic freezer, which circulates no brine around the mold.
UnmoldingDip the mold in warm water for a few seconds and turn it out; the folded napkin under it in the original is a standard service convention, absorbing melt as well as dressing the dish.
The sauceOne Italian meringue white slackened with orange juice, pear extract and champagne makes a foam, not a pourable sauce, and it will slacken quickly. Make it at the table or immediately before serving. The hot syrup partially cooks the white, but an Italian meringue does not reliably reach pasteurising temperature.
YieldA two-quart mold gives roughly ten to twelve dessert portions.

A Little History

The Epicurean (1894) is Charles Ranhofer's summary of thirty years running the kitchen at Delmonico's in New York, and the ices section is the part that most clearly shows the French pastry system he trained in: a house stock of syrups at fixed Baumé readings, from which any sorbet could be built to a standard density. A pouding glace of this sort is a bombe by another name, a molded ice lined with one flavor and filled with another, and the names attached to them are often said to have been dedications drawn from a repertoire of aristocratic epithets. "A la duchesse" carried no particular duchess; like "a la royale" it seems to have signaled a rich, garnished, formal version of a plain thing, in this case pear ice dressed up with candied fruit, maraschino and champagne. The reliance on candied pineapple and cherries is worth noting: in the 1890s these were expensive confectionery, and their appearance in a dessert was itself part of the display.