No. 3536

Spongade a la Medicis

Cut up finely the peel of a citron and an orange; have also some pistachios and cherries divided in four, and pour kirsch over. Take four gills of cold syrup at thirty-five degrees, the juice of five oranges, the peel of two, the same of one lemon, one gill of vanilla syrup and two gills of egg-whites. Infuse together for half an hour, and bring the preparation to twenty-two degrees; pass it through a fine sieve. Freeze the composition by working it with a spatula to incorporate as much air as possible so as to obtain a very light ice, and then mix in the above fruits. Coat a two-quart spongade mold with raspberry ice cream (No. 3451) or water ice; fill with the preparation, press down the cover and freeze for one hour; unmold, dress on a folded napkin and surround the spongade with small cakes.

← No. 3535 Palmyra Souffle Ices & Ice Creams No. 3537 Cream Spongade a la Parepa →

For the Modern Kitchen Do not make this as written.

A late-nineteenth-century spongade is a water ice lightened with a large quantity of raw egg white, churned by hand to hold air. The reading below explains the notation and why the formula as printed is not one to reproduce.

Raw egg white, never cookedTwo gills is a full cup of unpasteurized egg white, infused cold and then frozen. Nothing in the method brings the whites above about 40F, and freezing does not kill Salmonella; it merely suspends it. This is the reason the recipe should not be made as written — a current recipe using a cooked Italian meringue or pasteurized whites should be used instead.
The degrees are Baume, not FahrenheitRanhofer's "cold syrup at thirty-five degrees" and "bring the preparation to twenty-two degrees" are readings from a saccharometer, a hydrometer floated in the syrup to gauge sugar density. Thirty-five degrees Baume is a heavy stock syrup; twenty-two is the diluted working strength for a water ice. Read as oven or freezer temperatures they make no sense at all.
GillsA gill is half a cup, so four gills of syrup is two cups, and one gill of vanilla syrup is half a cup. Once aerated, a batch of this size would plausibly fill the two-quart mold called for.
Spongade moldA lidded metal mold, filled with the already-churned mixture and packed in ice and salt to set. The nearest modern equivalent is a metal pudding basin or terrine lined with plastic film and set in a domestic freezer.
"Freeze by working it with a spatula"Hand-churning, presumably in a sorbetiere: the paddle is worked constantly against the chilled wall to whip air in as the mixture stiffens. The airiness comes from that labour and from the egg white, not from any stabilizer.
Cross-referencesNo. 3451 is Ranhofer's raspberry ice cream, named in the recipe as a lining coat inside the mold. The recipe specifies only 'small cakes' to surround the unmolded dessert.

A Little History

The Epicurean (1894) is Charles Ranhofer's record of thirty-odd years as chef at Delmonico's in New York, and its frozen-dessert chapter is a substantial one: everything in it assumes a supply of block ice, coarse salt, and a kitchen boy to turn a paddle. A spongade sits between a water ice and a sorbet — sweetened fruit juice lightened with beaten white until it eats like frozen foam. The name a la Medicis is one of the period's honorific tags rather than a historical claim; Catherine de' Medici's marriage into the French court in 1533 was traditionally, and largely fancifully, credited with bringing Italian confectionery and ices to France, and nineteenth-century menu writers attached her name to iced dishes for the association. The citron peel, pistachios and kirsch point in the same direction: an Italianate garnish for a dish flattering an Italian legend.