No. 3576

Ribambelle

Boxes imitating the fancy boxes of the itinerant dealers of Paris. Coat the bottom and sides with nougat cream (No. 3452); fill the center with uncooked maraschino cream (No. 3462) into which incorporate half as much whipped cream (No. 50) and one ounce of small vanilla chocolate pastilles for each quart of preparation. Pack these boxes in a freezing box or cave and serve accompanied by small wafer cakes or very thin waffle cornets.

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For the Modern Kitchen

This is an assembly formula from a book that assumes you have already made its component creams, so nothing here works in isolation. The whole point is a lined box of nougat ice cream filled with a lighter maraschino cream studded with chocolate.

It depends on three cross-referencesNos. 3452, 3462 and 50 are a nougat cream, an uncooked maraschino cream, and whipped cream. Ranhofer's "uncooked" creams are broadly cream, sugar and flavouring frozen without a cooked custard base, so substituting a modern egg custard will give a heavier, yellower result than intended.
"Boxes"Box-shaped ice-cream moulds, lined with the nougat cream in a shell perhaps half an inch thick and filled with the maraschino mixture, then turned out to imitate the fancy boxes sold by Paris itinerant dealers. Small loaf pans or metal terrine moulds lined with plastic wrap serve the same purpose.
Freezing box or caveA cave was an insulated box packed with cracked ice and coarse salt where moulded ices were left to harden and hold their shape. A domestic freezer set as cold as it goes, ideally 0F or below, does the same job; give the filled moulds at least four hours before unmoulding.
Vanilla chocolate pastillesSmall flat discs of vanilla-flavoured sweetened chocolate. Miniature chocolate chips or finely chopped couverture are the closest thing; one ounce per quart is deliberately restrained, meant to be found rather than tasted throughout.
MaraschinoThe original means the dry liqueur from Zara, distilled from marasca cherries with their stones, not the syrup from a jar of cocktail cherries. Alcohol depresses the freezing point, so resist increasing it; too much and the centre never sets firm enough to slice.
Folding in the whipped creamHalf as much whipped cream as maraschino cream, incorporated into the frozen base before it is packed into the mould. Work quickly and keep everything cold, or the mixture loosens and the shell softens where it meets the filling.
Yield and servingServing -- serve each portion with the small wafer cakes or very thin waffle cornets specified; they supply the crispness the two soft creams lack.

A Little History

The Epicurean (1894) is Charles Ranhofer's record of some thirty years as chef at Delmonico's in New York, and its ice-cream chapter is where the kitchen's showmanship is most obvious: dozens of numbered formulas built from a handful of base creams, moulded to imitate other things -- in this case a street vendor's sweet box. Ribambelle in French means a long string or troop of things; the recipe's own gloss is simply that the moulds imitate the fancy boxes of the itinerant dealers of Paris. Such trompe-l'oeil ices depended on the ice-and-salt freezing cave, which let a moulded dessert be built in layers hours ahead and held rigid until service; mechanical refrigeration was still uncommon in restaurant kitchens, and much of the ice used in New York was still cut from northern lakes in winter.