No. 3507

Elizabeth Punch

Punch Elisabeth

Have in a freezer one quart of strawberry (No. 3451) or currant ice cream (No. 3451), moisten it with kirsch, brandy and champagne, two gills and a half in all; whip in a quarter as much Italian meringue (No. 140) and serve this punch in imitation flower pots (Fig. 643), made in three parts, the saucer, the pot and a top. Stick two wires into the top to fasten on a small bunch of natural flowers or else a single one.

← No. 3506 Dolgorouski Punch Ices & Ice Creams No. 3508 Favorite Punch →

For the Modern Kitchen

A frozen punch in the French service tradition: fruit ice cream let down with spirits and lightened with meringue, presented as a table conceit. The technical problem is that alcohol will not freeze, so the whole thing hinges on temperature control.

The hinge: keep it brutally coldA quart of ice cream slackened with a cup and a quarter of spirits will not refreeze to a scoopable state — alcohol depresses the freezing point sharply. Freeze the base rock-hard first, work the liquor and meringue in fast in a chilled bowl, then return it to the coldest part of the freezer and serve within the hour. It is meant to be soft, like a spoonable sorbet, not solid.
Two gills and a halfA gill is half a cup, so this is 1¼ cups (about 300 ml) of kirsch, brandy and champagne combined. Ranhofer gives no ratio; roughly equal parts of the two spirits with a slightly larger measure of champagne keeps the fruit forward. Less will only improve the texture.
"A quarter as much" meringueA quarter of the quart of ice cream, so about a cup of Italian meringue by volume, folded in at the end. It is there for lightness and to carry the alcohol, not for sweetness.
Italian meringue (No. 140)Egg whites whipped while a hot sugar syrup boiled to roughly the soft-ball stage (about 240°F) is poured in. In a frozen preparation this style holds up better than a raw French meringue, though Ranhofer gives no reason for the choice. Fold it in cold.
The ice creams (No. 3451)Strawberry or currant, a fruit-based ice cream. A good modern strawberry ice cream works; red currants give a sharpness that sits well against the kirsch. Avoid anything with stabilizers and gums, which fight the added liquor and turn gluey.
KirschNot cherry liqueur but clear, dry, unsweetened cherry eau-de-vie. Sweetened "cherry brandy" will make the punch cloying against an already sweet ice cream.
The flower potsThe three-part imitation pots of Fig. 643 (saucer, pot and top) are long gone from general trade. Small glazed terracotta pots, chilled hard, or plain coupe glasses do the job; the flowers should be edible or at least food-safe and unsprayed, and set in place only at the moment of service.
YieldA quart of base plus liquor and meringue gives roughly six to eight small servings. This is a between-courses or end-of-meal punch, not a dessert portion.

A Little History

Charles Ranhofer, chef at Delmonico's in New York, published The Epicurean in 1894 as an encyclopedic record of the restaurant's repertoire, and its punch section reflects a habit of the long formal dinner: a frozen, spirited punch served midway through the meal as a coup de milieu, meant to refresh the palate before the roast. Ranhofer named dozens of them after royalty, nobility and patrons — Dolgorouski precedes this one, Favorite follows — and "Elisabeth" sits in that pattern, though the book does not say which Elisabeth was intended. The Empress Elisabeth of Austria is one candidate, and it is often said that dishes of the era were christened for such figures without any connection to them, though that is supposition here. What the recipe really documents is the theatricality of Gilded Age service: the punch itself is a few minutes' work, while the imitation flower pot, made in three parts with wires to hold a fresh bloom, is the point of the exercise.