No. 3534

Favart Souffles

Souffles Glaces a la Favart

Have ready a burnt almond ice cream preparation (No. 3455); when frozen mix into it as much whipped cream and with this partly fill some crimped paper cases; on top lay slices of hazelnut biscuit (No. 3241) soaked in maraschino, and strawberries in their juice macerated in kirsch; cover and shape to resemble baked souffles; besprinkle with powdered macaroons and icing sugar; color briskly in a quick oven, then stand them on the shelves of a tin freezing box; freeze for one hour and serve.

← No. 3533 Alcazar Souffles—Iced Ices & Ice Creams No. 3535 Palmyra Souffle →

For the Modern Kitchen

This is a composed frozen dessert built on Ranhofer's cross-referenced components, and the whole trick is heat management: the cases go into a fierce oven only long enough to catch color on the sugar crust, then straight back into deep cold. Anything slower and you are serving soup in a paper cup.

The hinge: color fast, freeze hardThe soufflés should go into the oven frozen solid and stay in only as long as it takes to catch color; Ranhofer says merely "color briskly". A modern broiler or a blowtorch does the job more reliably than a full oven, since the browning is only of the macaroon and sugar dusting. The hour in hard cold comes after the browning, as the recipe directs.
"Quick oven"Ranhofer gives no temperatures; in nineteenth-century usage a quick oven is conventionally understood as a hot one, somewhere in the region of 400-450F. Preheat it fully and open it as little as possible; the goal is radiant surface heat, not baking.
The cross-referenced partsNo. 3455 is a burnt-almond ice cream, meaning almonds caramelized in sugar (praline) ground and infused into a custard base; a good praline or almond-brittle ice cream substitutes directly. No. 3241 is a hazelnut biscuit, a nut sponge cake, used here cut into slices.
"Powdered macaroons"Nineteenth-century macaroons are almond meringue cookies, not coconut haystacks. Crushed amaretti or Italian almond macaroons are the right thing, and their slight bitterness is deliberate against the maraschino.
Whipped cream, unmeasured"As much whipped cream" is ambiguous: it most likely means an equal quantity, though it can also be read as "as much as needed". Either way, fold softly whipped, lightly sweetened cream into the churned ice cream by feel until the mixture pipes and holds a shape.
Crimped paper casesRanhofer means stiff fluted paper cases, filled and mounded above the rim so that the finished dessert imitates a risen baked soufflé. Modern soufflé cups or straight-sided ramekins work; the recipe's own instruction is to cover and shape the mixture to resemble a baked soufflé.
"Tin freezing box"This was a lidded metal box set in a cabinet packed with cracked ice and rock salt, well below freezing. A home freezer at 0F or below is the equivalent; the hour of freezing after browning is what the recipe explicitly calls for, and it is what resets the dessert.
LiqueursMaraschino here is the Dalmatian liqueur distilled from marasca cherries and their stones, sweetened but nothing like the syrup from a jar of cocktail cherries. Kirsch is unsweetened cherry brandy. Both are used sparingly: alcohol lowers the freezing point and too much will keep the dessert slack.
Yield and serviceFigure one case per person, four to eight from a quart of ice cream depending on the size of the cases. Serve immediately on a chilled plate or napkin, while the crust is still crisp.

A Little History

Charles Ranhofer's The Epicurean (1894) records the repertoire he cooked at Delmonico's in New York, and this entry belongs to a whole genre of nineteenth-century soufflés glacés: iced creams packed into paper cases and mounded high so that they arrived at the table looking like the hot soufflés then fashionable in French service. The illusion was the point, and the brief pass through a hot oven to gild the sugared top is the same conjuring trick carried out on a grander scale in baked Alaska, which belonged to the Delmonico's repertoire in these same decades. The Favart name is attached to the Opéra-Comique's Salle Favart, and the dish's name is often said to nod to it, though the connection is not documented. What the recipe really demonstrates is how much cold a well-run 1890s restaurant commanded: natural ice and salt, a freezing cabinet, and enough labor to assemble, brown and refreeze a dessert to order.