No. 3528

Rebecca Sherbet

Sorbet Rebecca

Place in a freezer one quart of orange water ice (No. 3605) and one of lemon water ice (No. 3604); work both together thoroughly, mixing in a gill of kirsch and half a bottleful of champagne. This sherbet is served in small cases representing baskets, and decorated with a rich ribbon bow, or in a little well made of gum paste (No. 3624).

← No. 3527 Paquerette Sherbet Ices & Ice Creams No. 3529 Venetian Sherbet →

For the Modern Kitchen

A blended water ice spiked with spirits and wine, from Ranhofer's Delmonico repertoire. The alcohol is the whole problem and the whole point.

Alcohol and freezingA gill of kirsch plus half a bottle of champagne into two quarts of ice is roughly 16 fl oz of added liquid, part of it alcohol, which depresses the freezing point. Freeze the two water ices hard first, then fold the spirits in cold and briefly; the result will be a slushy sherbet, not a scoopable one, and it will soften fast on the plate.
A gillHalf a cup, 4 fl oz.
"Half a bottleful" of champagneA wine bottle of the period held roughly what the modern 750 ml bottle does, so call it about 12 fl oz. Use a dry (brut) wine; the water ices already carry sugar syrup, and a sweet sparkling wine will push the mixture cloying and further inhibit freezing.
FreezerIn 1894 this means a hand-cranked pail freezer with an inner canister, not an appliance. The instruction to "work both together thoroughly" is the paddle action; a modern churn or vigorous folding in a chilled bowl serves the same purpose.
The two base icesNos. 3604 and 3605 are the book's plain orange and lemon water ices: fruit juice, sugar syrup and water, no dairy and no egg. Any good citrus sorbet will stand in.
KirschAn unsweetened brandy distilled from whole cherries, stones and all; clear and dry, not the sweet red cherry liqueurs sold under similar names. Substituting a sweet liqueur changes both the flavour and the freezing behaviour.
Gum pasteNo. 3624 is a sugar-and-tragacanth modelling paste used for display pieces that were generally not eaten. Small glasses or hollowed citrus shells give the same effect without the joinery.
Yield and serviceTwo quarts of base plus the wine gives roughly 2.5 quarts, or about twenty small servings. Sherbets of this kind were served mid-meal as a palate cleanser, in tiny portions.

A Little History

This comes from Charles Ranhofer's The Epicurean (1894), the enormous record of his years as chef at Delmonico's in New York, where the mid-dinner sorbet was standard practice in any menu built on French service. The sorbet at that point in the meal was not dessert but an interval: a small, sharp, usually alcoholic ice meant to reset the palate before the roast. Ranhofer gives many of them, each a variation on the same two or three water ices with a different spirit and a different name -- Paquerette, Venetian, Rebecca -- names that as a rule say nothing about the contents. The elaborate presentation in gum-paste baskets and ribbon bows belongs to the same tradition of table display as the pieces montees of the period, where a good deal of what reached the table was never meant to be eaten.