No. 3586

Tutti-Frutti

Have some very cold tutti-frutti molds (Fig. 711). Incorporate a salpicon of candied fruits, cut in three-sixteenths inch squares and marinated in kirsch, in vanilla ice cream (No. 3458). Fill the molds half full with this and the other half with orange water ice (No. 3605). Close forcibly, remove the surplus ice and freeze for half an hour. Unmold and dress on lace paper, the same diameter as the tutti-frutti, and serve.

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For the Modern Kitchen

A moulded bombe in miniature: candied fruit in vanilla ice cream on one side, orange water ice on the other. The whole thing succeeds or fails on temperature discipline.

The hinge: everything must be hard before it goes in the mouldBoth the ice cream and the water ice should be at soft-scoop firmness, not melting, and the moulds themselves chilled in the freezer for an hour beforehand. Ranhofer's "very cold" moulds are the difference between two clean layers and a marbled mess where the water ice bleeds into the cream.
SalpiconSimply a mixture of small dice, here candied fruit cut in three-sixteenths-inch squares — call it 5 mm. Cutting them evenly matters more than it sounds, since large pieces of candied peel freeze into hard nuggets that fight the spoon.
Marinating in kirschRanhofer gives no soaking time. A short maceration softens the fruit and keeps it from freezing rock-solid, as the alcohol depresses the freezing point. Drain the fruit before folding it in; excess kirsch will keep the ice cream from setting firm.
"Close forcibly, remove the surplus ice"The mould is filled generously, the lid pressed down so the two mixtures compact with no air pockets, and whatever squeezes out at the seam is wiped away. Period manuals for moulds packed in salt ice often describe sealing the joint with butter or lard before burying it; in a home freezer, plastic wrap under the lid does the same job.
Freezing for half an hourIn 1894 that meant burying the sealed mould in a tub of cracked ice and coarse rock salt, which can pull the temperature to a few degrees below 0 F and sets a mould fast. A domestic freezer at 0 F is slower and less aggressive; allow two to three hours, and longer for anything above single-portion size.
UnmouldingDip the closed mould in cold water for a few seconds — not hot, which glazes and melts the surface — then turn it out onto the chilled serving plate. Return it to the freezer for a few minutes if it has softened before serving.
Lace paperA paper doily cut to the exact diameter of the moulded ice, so no paper shows beyond the edge. It absorbs the first drips and keeps the ice from sliding on the plate; a chilled plate serves the same purpose.
YieldThe recipe assumes individual tutti-frutti moulds, one per guest. Ranhofer gives no capacity, so scale the combined ice cream and water ice to whatever moulds you have and multiply by the number at table.

A Little History

Tutti frutti is Italian for "all fruits," and by the later nineteenth century the phrase had settled in American and Anglo-French confectionery to mean anything studded with a mixture of candied or preserved fruit — ice cream most of all. Charles Ranhofer, chef at Delmonico's in New York, published The Epicurean in 1894 as a complete record of the restaurant's repertoire, and its ices section runs to something like a hundred and fifty to two hundred numbered entries, cross-referenced so that a cook could assemble a composite dish from parts made elsewhere in the kitchen. That is exactly what happens here: two standing preparations, a vanilla ice cream and an orange water ice, combined in a two-part metal mould with a lid to give a two-toned portion that arrived at the table looking like a small piece of architecture. The technique belongs to the era of the ice house and the salt-and-ice freezing tub, when a brigade could hold moulded ices hard for hours and the visual precision of the unmoulded shape was the point of the exercise.