No. 3587

Valence Cup with Peaches

Coupe de Valence aux Peches

Prepare some Andalusian ice cream (No. 3446); mold it in a cup mold that has been imbedded in ice; freeze in ice and salt for one hour; unmold and decorate with peeled peaches cut in four, soaked in champagne, sugar and maraschino, adding to them well-pared oranges cut in sections, having withdrawn the seeds.

← No. 3586 Tutti-Frutti Ices & Ice Creams No. 3588 Vermeil Globules a la Damseaux →

For the Modern Kitchen

A composed dessert rather than a formula: a molded ice cream turned out and dressed with macerated fruit. Almost everything that needs explaining is in the freezing and the fruit.

The base is elsewhereAndalusian ice cream (No. 3446) is cross-referenced, not reproduced here, so this page alone will not get you a dessert. Ranhofer's ice creams are generally built on cooked custard bases; if you are not working from the full book, a plain custard ice cream is the nearest stand-in, though this page does not tell you how the original was flavoured.
"Freeze in ice and salt for one hour"This is packing, not churning. The filled mold was buried in a mixture of crushed ice and rock salt to harden it. A modern freezer at 0F does the same job, but slowly: give a filled 1-quart mold at least 4 hours, and longer for anything deeper.
The cup moldPeriod ice molds of this kind were commonly pewter, frequently made in two parts or hinged so the shape could be released whole; the recipe itself specifies nothing beyond "a cup mold." A metal bombe mold, charlotte tin or small loaf pan works; line it with plastic wrap if it has no seam to open.
UnmoldingWrap the mold in a cloth wrung out in hot water for a few seconds, or dip it briefly, then invert onto a chilled plate. Return the unmolded cream to the freezer while you finish the fruit.
Peeling peachesScore, drop into boiling water for 20 to 30 seconds, then into ice water; the skins slip. Freestones quarter cleanly, clingstones do not.
MaraschinoIn 1894 this meant a dry, clear cherry liqueur of the Luxardo type, not the pink syrup from a jar of cocktail cherries. The latter will make the dish cloying.
How long to macerateThirty minutes in champagne, sugar and maraschino is enough for ripe fruit. Past an hour the quarters slump and weep, and the wine loses what little sparkle it had.
"Well-pared oranges cut in sections"Cut away peel, pith and membrane entirely and lift out the segments as supremes. Any membrane left on turns chewy and unpleasantly bitter against the ice cream.
YieldThe original gives none. A quart mold with the fruit serves six to eight at the scale this book assumes, where a coupe is one course among many.

A Little History

The Epicurean (1894) was Charles Ranhofer's summary of some thirty years as chef at Delmonico's in New York, and its ices section runs to well over a hundred numbered coupes, bombes and mousses — the fashionable close to a long menu, each one a molded base dressed with a named garnish. The naming follows French restaurant convention rather than geography in any strict sense: Valence may nod to Valencia oranges or to the Rhone town, but the book does not say, and the pairing of a molded cream with orange sections and maraschino was standard vocabulary rather than regional cooking. What the recipe really documents is the labor behind a hotel ice: a brigade with an ice house, pewter molds, rock salt by the barrel and someone to peel oranges to the membrane, all so a dessert could be turned out whole at the table.