No. 3552

Frascati Ice Cream

Glace Frascati

Fill a round shallow tin mold, having flaring sides with a depression in the center, the dimensions being three inches in diameter and one inch deep, with light vanilla ice cream preparation (No. 3458); pack in ice and freeze for half an hour, unmold and put in the center some flori di latte with kirsch (No. 3469); lay them in the freezing box to freeze, then on top of each set a macaroon soaked in maraschino; push through a pocket some very firm iced biscuit preparation, turning it around to form into a pyramid; decorate the top with candied fruits; freeze for three-quarters of an hour before serving.

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For the Modern Kitchen

This is an assembly recipe from Charles Ranhofer's The Epicurean, and like most of its neighbors it is a set of instructions for combining three other preparations the book has already given elsewhere. Nothing here is difficult; the whole thing depends on keeping every component hard-frozen while you work.

The hinge: work cold and work fastEach stage is built onto a frozen surface, and a soft base will slump before the pyramid goes on. Keep the unmolded bases, the piping bag and the finished pieces in the freezer between steps, and return everything to the freezer the moment it looks glossy at the edges.
The cross-referenced preparationsNo. 3458 is Ranhofer's vanilla ice cream; No. 3469 is his flori di latte, here scented with kirsch as the recipe directs. The "iced biscuit preparation" (biscuit glace) is generally a bombe-type mixture of whipped cream folded into a cooked egg-and-sugar base; note that Ranhofer wants it "very firm" so that the piped pyramid will hold.
"Flori di latte"An irregular spelling of fior di latte, literally "flower of the milk," generally an ice made from cream and sugar with no eggs and no added flavouring. Modern Italian gelaterie still sell it under the same name.
"Push through a pocket"A poche is a pastry bag. Use a large star tip and pipe in a rising spiral, narrowing as you go, to get the pyramid. A bag chilled beforehand helps.
"Pack in ice and freeze"The original assumes a salt-and-ice freezing box, which reaches well below the freezing point of water. A domestic freezer will do the same work, but it chills more slowly than a salt bath, so the half hour given for the mold may need extending.
The moldsThree inches across and an inch deep with flaring sides and a central depression describes something close to what would now be sold as a shallow tartlet or brioche tin. Any small mold that gives a dished top will serve; dip briefly in warm water to unmold.
The macaroonNot a modern French macaron but an almond macaroon of the older sort; amaretti are the closest thing on a shop shelf. Soak briefly in maraschino -- left too long it will fall apart when you set it in place.
Yield and servingRanhofer gives none, as usual. Each mold is a single portion, and a three-inch base built up into a pyramid is a substantial one. Serve straight from the freezer on a chilled plate — this will not survive a warm dining room.

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 ice chapter is a long one: page after page of molded, layered, liqueur-scented constructions named for operas, actresses, spa towns and society hostesses. Frascati is a hill town outside Rome known for its villas and its white wine, though in nineteenth-century culinary naming a place name attached to a dessert often pointed less to the place itself than to a fashionable Parisian restaurant or cafe -- Frascati's was a well-known Paris establishment of the earlier nineteenth century -- and the connection is traditional rather than documented. What the recipe really shows is the logic of a large brigade kitchen: the vanilla ice, the fiore di latte and the biscuit glace were all standing preparations made in quantity, and many different named desserts could be assembled from them by varying the mold, the liqueur and the garnish. Kirsch and maraschino are both cherry spirits and both appear constantly in ices of the period.