No. 3521

American Sherbet

Sorbet a l'Americaine

Prepare some glasses of ice, using molds as shown herewith (Fig. 653), they being made in two pieces which, when unmolded, are joined together. Fill them just when ready to serve with this preparation. Have ready a water ice of one quart of water, one pound of sugar, the peel of two oranges and of one lemon, the juice of eight oranges and of six lemons; boil to attain sixteen degrees, pass through a fine sieve, then freeze, incorporating into the ice when about serving a quarter of a bottleful of American champagne mixed with two gills of kirsch and one of prunelle.

← No. 3520 Tremiere Punch Ices & Ice Creams No. 3522 Andalusian Sherbet →

For the Modern Kitchen

Ranhofer's sorbet is a citrus water ice spiked with champagne and two liqueurs at the last moment. The alcohol is the whole difficulty: added too early it prevents freezing altogether, which is why he holds it back until service.

"Boil to attain sixteen degrees"This is a density reading on the Baume saccharometer, not a temperature. Sixteen degrees Baume is a syrup of roughly 29 Brix, about 1.12-1.13 specific gravity. A refractometer or a syrup hydrometer will get you there if you want to match him exactly.
GillsA gill is half a cup. Two gills of kirsch is one cup, one gill of prunelle is half a cup. A quarter of a bottle of champagne is about 6 fl oz.
That much alcohol will not freezeRoughly a cup and a half of spirits plus the wine, in a base of this size, is far past the point where an ice will set. That is why the mixture is folded in "when about serving" -- into an already frozen ice, immediately before it goes to table. Add it to the machine at the start and you get citrus slush.
PrunelleA sloe-flavored French liqueur, sweet and almond-scented from the crushed stones. Prunelle de Bourgogne is still made; sloe gin is the nearest common substitute and is drier, so taste before committing the full half cup.
American champagneIn the 1890s this meant domestic sparkling wine, from the Finger Lakes, Ohio or California, often sweeter than French champagne. Any dry-to-off-dry sparkling wine works; the sugar in the syrup is already doing the sweetening.
The two-piece moldsFig. 653 shows molds in two separate pieces, set in salt and ice, then unmolded and the halves joined. Modern practice: freeze the base hard in a shallow pan or churn it, then scoop into chilled glasses and spoon the spirit mixture over. Silicone hemisphere molds will reproduce the joined effect if you want it.
PeelsSteep the pared zest of two oranges and one lemon in the hot syrup off the heat until it cools, then strain. Boiling zest hard turns the oils bitter.
Yield and serviceAbout two quarts before the spirits go in, enough for ten to twelve small glasses. Sorbets of this kind were served in tiny portions between courses, not as dessert -- treat the quantity accordingly.

A Little History

Charles Ranhofer ran the kitchen at Delmonico's in New York for over thirty years, and The Epicurean (1894) is his encyclopedic record of that cooking. Spirituous sorbets like this belonged to the punch-and-sorbet slot of the long service a la russe menu, a cold, sharp, faintly alcoholic pause meant to reset the palate -- the same function performed by the punch entered one number earlier in the book, No. 3520, "Tremiere Punch."