No. 3504

Champagne Punch

Punch au Champagne

Procure some imitation silver champagne pails made of cardboard or gum paste (No. 3624). Have tin molds to fit into these and incrust them in ice, filling to the top with water. As soon as this becomes frozen sufficiently thick to cover the sides to one-eighth of an inch empty out the liquid and unmold, lay these ice pails inside the cardboard ones and imitate the bottle in gum paste (No. 3624), having the surrounding ice of white rock candy; these should be laid on the cover. Pour into a small freezer one quart of pineapple water ice (No. 3606), half a gill of fine brandy, half a gill of kirsch and two gills of champagne; mix the whole and add as much Italian meringue (No. 140). When frozen fill the pails, lay on the covers and serve.

← No. 3503 Bouquetiere Punch Ices & Ice Creams No. 3505 Coffee Punch; Granite Punch with Coffee →

For the Modern Kitchen

This is a frozen punch — a spoom, essentially — dressed up as a miniature champagne bucket for the table. The elaborate presentation is optional; the ice itself is straightforward once the measures are decoded.

GillsA gill is 4 fl oz (half a cup). So half a gill of brandy and half a gill of kirsch are 2 fl oz (4 tablespoons) each, and two gills of champagne is 1 cup.
"As much Italian meringue"Ranhofer means an equal quantity, though he does not say whether he means as much as the quart of water ice or as much as the whole mixed base. Either way, the meringue is what turns a water ice into a spoom: light, foamy, barely holding its shape.
The freezing problemWith about a cup and a half of alcohol in two quarts of base, this will never freeze hard. Churn it very cold, fill the moulds, and serve within minutes. Held overnight in a domestic freezer it slumps rather than sets.
"A small freezer"An 1890s hand-cranked bucket churn packed with ice and rock salt. Any modern ice-cream machine does the job, but pre-chill the mixture thoroughly first — the alcohol slows the churn considerably.
The ice pailsThe hollow ice shells are made by setting the tin moulds in ice, filling them to the top with water, and pouring off the still-liquid centre once an eighth-inch wall has frozen against the chilled sides. It works, but it demands a very cold freezer and close watching; silicone moulds and a chest freezer make it far less fussy than it was for Ranhofer's kitchen.
Gum paste and rock candyGum paste is the old sugar-and-tragacanth modelling paste, essentially what is now sold as florist paste or sugar paste for figures. The white rock candy stands in for crushed ice around the imagined bottle — purely scenic, and edible if anyone bothers.
Pineapple water iceHis No. 3606 is a pineapple water ice; its composition is not given on this page. Any well-made pineapple sorbet substitutes without harm; be wary of one made with fresh untreated pineapple juice if you are folding in meringue, as bromelain breaks down protein and can thin the egg foam.
YieldA quart of water ice plus three gills of spirits and wine, with an equal volume of meringue folded in, comes to somewhere over two quarts. Served as a between-course ice, portions are small by design.

A Little History

The Epicurean (1894) is Charles Ranhofer's record of thirty-odd years running the kitchen at Delmonico's in New York, and it is written for a brigade with time and hands to spare — hence cardboard champagne pails, gum-paste bottles and hollow ice shells for what is, at bottom, a scoop of sorbet. Frozen punches of this kind belonged to a fixed slot in the long formal dinner: served before the roast, which was frequently the game course, they were meant to cool the palate and settle the diner for the courses still to come, the same role the better-known Roman punch played on American menus of the period. The alcohol was structural as much as flavouring — spirits keep the mixture soft and spoonable — and the Italian meringue, whipped egg whites cooked with hot sugar syrup, gave the frothy body that distinguishes a punch ice from a plain water ice. The whole conceit of serving an ice disguised as the bottle it was flavoured with is very much of its moment: Gilded Age dining prized the table trick, and Ranhofer's cross-references to numbered sub-recipes show how much of that effect was assembled from parts kept ready in a professional kitchen.