No. 3598

The Helmet

Le Casque

The helmet shown in Fig. 724, is made in a two-quart tin mold filled with a pudding. When unmolded decorate it with halved pistachios and cover these with a thin layer of strawberry ice cream (No. 3451). The crest of the helmet is of vanilla, the edge resting on the socle of chocolate and the whole is dressed on a natural water socle. The feather should be made of spun sugar.

← No. 3597 Swan with Reeds and Rushes Molded Ices & Large Pieces No. 3599 The Well →

For the Modern Kitchen

This is an assembly, not a formula: Ranhofer assumes you already have the frozen mixtures on hand and are only building the showpiece. Read it as a set of construction notes for a molded ice, and expect to spend more time on the base and the sugar work than on the ice itself.

"A pudding" means an iced puddingIn the frozen section of The Epicurean a pudding is a bombe-type mixture — a cooked custard or meringue base with cream, often with candied fruit — frozen firm in a mold, not a steamed pudding. Any dense, low-water bombe mixture will unmold cleanly; a light, airy ice cream will slump once it is out of the tin.
The two-quart tin moldFancy ice molds of this period were tinned metal forms, often made in two halves with a lid, but the recipe specifies nothing beyond a two-quart tin mold. Nothing equivalent is sold now; a two-quart pudding or bombe mold, or a metal mixing bowl for the dome with the crest built separately, is the practical substitute. Two quarts of frozen pudding serves roughly 12 to 16.
Freeze hard before unmoldingThe hinge of the whole piece. A molded ice needs several hours at the coldest setting you have, and the finished, decorated helmet has to go back into the freezer between each stage. Dip the mold in cool — not warm — water for a few seconds only, then invert onto a chilled platter.
SocleA socle is the pedestal the piece stands on. Here there are two: a slab of chocolate under the helmet's edge, and beneath that a "natural water socle" — a block of clear ice, carved to shape. A carved ice base is the only faithful reading; a chilled marble or metal plinth achieves the same effect with far less labor.
The strawberry ice cream coatNo. 3451 is Ranhofer's strawberry ice cream. It is spread over the pistachios in a thin layer with a palette knife, which only works if the base pudding is frozen rock solid and the ice cream is at spreading consistency — softened just enough to move, not melting. Work in a cold room and return the piece to the freezer the moment it starts to gloss.
Vanilla crest and pistachiosThe crest is of vanilla; whether it was filled into the crest of the mold or built up separately, it has to be firm enough to hold a ridge. Halved pistachios should be blanched and skinned for color — the purple skins read as brown under a pale ice.
Spun sugar featherSugar cooked to the hard-crack stage, roughly 300-310F, then thrown in threads from a fork and gathered into a plume. Spun sugar collapses quickly in humid air, so it is made last and set in place at the moment of service.
ServingThe recipe says nothing about service; a piece like this would presumably be shown whole and then broken down, the crest and feather lifted off and the dome cut in wedges from the top. Have a warmed knife and a second chilled plate ready.

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 long chapter of molded ices belongs to the tradition of the pi¨ce mont©e — the architectural centerpiece that dominated formal European and American service through the nineteenth century. The helmet, the swan, and the well that flank it in the book are all fancy ices of the kind the French kitchen called glaces de fantaisie: frozen puddings shaped in tin molds, glazed in contrasting ice creams, and mounted on socles of chocolate or carved ice so that the dessert arrived at the table as sculpture. Such pieces depended on the industrial ice trade, which by the 1890s delivered clear-cut blocks to city kitchens cheaply enough that a chef could saw one into a pedestal and let it melt away over the course of an evening. The style faded with the long banquet service that supported it; mechanical refrigeration made ice cream easier to keep but the twenty-course dinner that justified a helmet made of it did not survive the First World War.