No. 3593

Fruit Basket with Doves

Corbeille Jardiniere aux Colombes

Make the stand representing a basket in two parts of colored water, with a hole in the center of each; when this stand has been frozen place it on the middle of an oval board thirteen inches long by nine and a half inches wide, having a half-inch diameter hole bored through the center; keep the whole firmly together and very straight with a nut-screw five to six inches long, screwing it in very tight. Have two cylindrical molds with bottoms, fill them with water and freeze; unmold and place them on the center line at one-third of the length of the stand; on each of these columns set a dove, imitating the eyes with a dry currant, and fasten a cherry-colored ribbon around his neck; decorate all around with fruits molded in various ices and dipped in hot water to unmold; put them in the freezing box or cave and freeze; afterward color them lightly and stick into them stalks with their respective leaves. All these ice cream pieces should be dressed at the last moment and then served at a dinner table or sideboard supper.

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For the Modern Kitchen

This is an assembly diagram more than a recipe: Ranhofer assumes you already have ice cream in the freezer and several sets of pewter fruit and bird molds on the shelf. The edible parts are the molded fruits and the two doves; the basket stand and columns are frozen plain water and are structure only.

The hinge: everything must be dead cold before it touches anything elseEach element — stand, columns, doves, fruits — is frozen separately and hard, then assembled in a single quick pass. If a piece has begun to sweat it will weld itself crookedly to the next and the whole thing lists within minutes.
"Freezing box or cave"A nineteenth-century ice cave is an insulated chest packed with cracked ice and rock salt, holding roughly 0 to 10F. A modern chest or upright freezer at 0F or lower does the same job; a freezer that self-defrosts will slowly frost and pit the surfaces, so wrap finished pieces until you need them.
Unmolding by dippingDip pewter or aluminum molds in hot water for two or three seconds only, then invert. Longer and the surface glazes over, which shows badly once the piece is colored.
"Color them lightly"Ranhofer meant a brush and thinned coloring. Gel food color diluted in a little cold water or plain vodka, applied to a rock-hard surface with a soft brush, gives the same flush without melting; return each fruit to the freezer between colors.
The hardwareThe half-inch bored board and the five- to six-inch "nut-screw" (a threaded rod with a nut) are food-contact parts in this construction. Use stainless steel and a board you would cut on, and scald both before assembly. A wooden dowel through the same holes works and will not chill-burn your fingers.
Currant eyes and stalksDried currants and real fruit stalks with leaves are pressed in at the very end. Rinse and dry the leaves; anything damp will freeze to the surface in a rime and mar it.
The dovesThe recipe says only to set a dove on each column, with a dry currant for the eye and a cherry-colored ribbon round the neck; it does not say what the dove is made of or molded in. Any hinged two-part mold of similar size stands in.
Yield and serviceThe board is thirteen by nine and a half inches, so this is a centerpiece; Ranhofer gives no serving count. It is dressed at the last moment and served at the dinner table or at a sideboard supper. The stand and columns are frozen water and are not eaten.

A Little History

Charles Ranhofer's The Epicurean (1894) records the kitchen of Delmonico's in New York, and its final chapters are given over to pi dces mont des in ice 2 baskets, hens with chicks 2 which were the visual climax of a long service dinner. Fancy molded ices had been a European court and confectioner's specialty since the eighteenth century, when pewter molds in the shape of fruits, asparagus and game birds let a cook set a bombe on the table disguised as something else entirely; the joke was that the peach was ice cream. Structural elements frozen from plain colored water, as here, are often said to have been a common trick for building height without wasting cream, and the whole genre depended on the commercial ice trade: a New York kitchen of the 1890s could count on cheap cut ice and rock salt to hold a cave near zero for hours, which is what allows Ranhofer to speak so casually of freezing a stand, two columns, two doves and a scatter of fruit as separate operations.