No. 3494

Imperial Rice Pudding

Pouding de Riz a l'Imperiale

Coat a two-quart pudding mold with almond ice cream (No. 3461). Have some vanilla ice cream (No. 3458) and mix into it half as much well-drained whipped cream. In the bottom of the mold inside the coating range a layer of this vanilla cream and on it one of paradise rice (No. 3456); place over this some biscuits and macaroons steeped in maraschino, and cover with more vanilla cream, then more rice and a salpicon of fruits, finishing with vanilla cream, so that the mold be entirely full and the cover packed on tight. Imbed and freeze one hour and a half; unmold and dress on a napkin, and serve with a sauce made of apricot marmalade (No. 3675) dissolved in maraschino, stirring in some thoroughly drained whipped cream (No. 50).

← No. 3493 Fleury Pudding Ices & Ice Creams No. 3495 Nesselrode Pudding with Candied Chestnuts →

For the Modern Kitchen

This is a bombe: a lined mold filled in layers, frozen solid, then turned out. Ranhofer writes in cross-references, so the work is in assembling the components before anything touches the mold.

Everything must be soft-frozen, not hardThe lining and the vanilla-and-whipped-cream mixture have to spread, and each layer must bond to the next. Work with ice cream at the texture of thick frosting, and return the mold to the freezer between layers if it starts to slump. A hard-frozen layer will shear away from its neighbors when the pudding is cut.
Paradise rice (No. 3456)Short-grain rice cooked soft in sweetened vanilla milk and cooled; Ranhofer's version is generally lightened with whipped cream and may include candied fruit. It is a cold rice cream, not a baked pudding, and it should be loose enough to spoon into the mold.
Salpicon of fruitsA salpicon here means candied and preserved fruits cut into small even dice, often steeped in liqueur and then drained. Drain them well; syrup carried into the mold will freeze into hard wet streaks.
MaraschinoThe dry, clear cherry liqueur, not the pink syrup from a jar of cocktail cherries. Use it sparingly in the steeping and the sauce: alcohol depresses the freezing point, and a heavily soaked interior will stay slushy while the shell sets.
"Imbed and freeze"The original means packing the sealed mold in a tub of cracked ice and coarse salt, which chills far faster and harder than air. In a home freezer allow at least 6 hours, and overnight is safer for a two-quart mold.
Biscuits and macaroonsMost likely ladyfingers or similar sponge biscuits and small almond macaroons, dipped briefly rather than soaked to collapse. Sponge takes liquid instantly; a one-second dip on each side is enough.
UnmoldingWipe the mold with a cloth wrung out in hot water, or dip it for a few seconds, then invert onto a chilled platter. The napkin Ranhofer dresses it on is a period service convention that also absorbs meltwater.
The sauceWarm apricot marmalade only enough to loosen it, slacken with maraschino, cool completely, then fold in the drained whipped cream. Adding cream to warm preserve will thin it to a puddle.
YieldA two-quart bombe serves 12 to 16. Cut in wedges with a knife dipped in hot water and wiped between slices.

A Little History

The Epicurean (1894) is Charles Ranhofer's record of what came out of the kitchens of Delmonico's in New York, and the frozen-pudding chapter shows the French repertoire of the period at full stretch: a molded bombe lined with one ice, filled with another, layered with liqueur-soaked cake, rice cream and candied fruit. Dishes styled à l'impériale generally signaled the most lavish version of a formula, in this case a rice pudding elaborated past recognition. The technique depended on the nineteenth-century ice trade, which put cheap harvested lake ice and rock salt in the hands of city kitchens and made large, hard-frozen molded desserts practical long before mechanical refrigeration. Its close relative on the next page, the Nesselrode pudding, is often traced to the chef of the Russian diplomat Count Nesselrode and stayed on American menus well into the twentieth century, while this one did not.