No. 3585

Tutti-Frutti Biscuits

Biscuits Tutti-Frutti

Prepare a lady finger paste (No. 3377), adding a little butter; spread it in thin eighth of an inch layers on sheets of paper and bake in a brisk oven; after it has been removed punch out round pieces with a pastry cutter two and a quarter inches in diameter, also some bands seven and a half inches long by one and a half wide. Place one of the rounds at the bottom of a tin ring measuring two and three-quarters inches in diameter by an inch and a half in height; on top of this round range the band in a circle. Fill the center with two kinds of ice, one lemon water ice (No. 3604) and the other nut cream (No. 3461), both having a salpicon of fruits macerated in kirsch added to them, and freeze for one hour; unmold and range each tutti-frutti biscuit on a lace paper of the same size. Cover entirely with a smooth coating of whipped cream and decorate with lozenges of angelica and halved cherries, placing a whole one in the center; freeze once more for half an hour and serve.

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For the Modern Kitchen

Ranhofer assembles this the way a hotel pastry department did: a thin sponge shell, two contrasting ices packed side by side, a cream coating and a final hardening. Nothing in it is difficult, but the sequence has to be respected or the sponge softens and the cream slumps.

The hinge: work cold and fastEverything must be assembled with the ices at scooping-firm, not soft, and the filled rings returned to the freezer immediately. If the ice slackens against the sponge the band buckles and the biscuit will not unmold cleanly.
"Biscuit" here is not a cookieIn the frozen-dessert vocabulary of the period a biscuit glace was usually a moulded ice, often rectangular or round and served in a paper case, the word pointing to the form rather than to any cookie-like texture -- though in this instance the mould is lined with actual sponge.
Brisk ovenA hot oven, roughly 400-425F on a modern dial; the book gives no temperatures. The sponge is spread only an eighth of an inch thick, so it wants three to five minutes at most: pale gold, dry to the touch, still flexible enough to cut without shattering.
Lady finger paste in a sheetA standard savoiardi batter, egg yolks and sugar whipped, whites folded in, flour folded last, with the little butter Ranhofer adds for pliability. Spread on parchment rather than plain paper and cut the rounds and bands while the sheet is still warm.
SalpiconA salpicon is simply small, even dice. Use firm fruits, apricot, pineapple, candied cherry, angelica, cut about a quarter inch, and macerate an hour in kirsch. Drain them before folding in; excess liquor lowers the freezing point and the ice stays slushy.
The two icesLemon water ice is a lemon sorbet, nut cream a custard ice cream flavoured with praline or pounded almonds. Both are cross-references in the book, so scale a modern sorbet and a nut ice cream to about a pint each.
MouldsThe tin rings are 2 3/4 inches across and 1 1/2 inches deep, which is a standard modern ring mould or a wide cookie cutter set on a parchment-lined sheet. The 2 1/4 inch base round is deliberately smaller than the ring so the band sits inside it.
AngelicaCandied angelica stem, sold in green batons, is still available from confectionery suppliers but is no longer a pantry staple. Candied citron or another candied peel can be cut to the same lozenges, though neither matches angelica's colour.
YieldThe recipe gives none. A pint each of the two ices fills roughly six rings of this size, perhaps fewer once the sponge lining is allowed for; serve one per person, straight from the freezer, on the lace paper.

A Little History

The Epicurean (1894) is Charles Ranhofer's record of thirty-odd years as chef of Delmonico's in New York, and the ices section reads like an inventory of what a large restaurant kitchen could do with an ice house and a brigade of pastry cooks. Tutti frutti, Italian for "all fruits," was in use in American confectioners' and ice-cream vocabulary well before Ranhofer wrote, to mean a preparation studded with mixed candied or liquored fruit. What marks this entry as restaurant work rather than household cookery is its dependence on other numbered recipes, the lady finger paste, the lemon water ice, the nut cream, each made elsewhere in the book, plausibly by another hand in the kitchen. Ranhofer's reader is not expected to make one biscuit but to assemble dozens from components already on hand, which is why the instructions concern themselves with cutter diameters and mould heights and say almost nothing about flavour.