No. 3599

The Well

Le Puits

Have a lead mold the shape of a well and fill it with light vanilla ice cream (No. 3458); this mold should have an inside one to form the hollow of the well; freeze for an hour, unmold it on a water socle dressed on a napkin and fill the inside with half a pound of rice, blanched and cooked in a light twelve-degree vanilla syrup (No. 3165); drain and add a salpicon of apricots cut in small sticks and shredded pistachios; mix the whole into strawberry ice cream (No. 3451), having mixed into it the same quantity of whipped cream (No. 50) flavored with a little maraschino; the ornament on top should be made of spun sugar, fastened on to the well just when serving (see Fig. 725).

← No. 3598 The Helmet Molded Ices & Large Pieces No. 3600 Turban with Pineapple or Strawberry or Sulta →

For the Modern Kitchen Do not make this as written.

This is a set piece from the Delmonico's pastry department rather than a household dessert, and the single most important thing about it is the mold. The remaining notes are offered to explain what Ranhofer is describing, not as a working method.

The lead moldRanhofer means what he says: nineteenth-century ice molds were commonly cast in lead or lead-bearing pewter alloys, cheap and soft enough to take fine detail. Lead migrates into cold, wet, slightly acidic foods, and dairy and fruit ices held in contact with the metal for an hour and then scraped out are close to a worst case. There is no rinse, seasoning or liner that makes an antique lead mold food-safe, and no safe level of dietary lead is recognised. Antique ice molds belong on a shelf.
Provenance is not a defenseOld molds bought at auction are frequently sold as "pewter" without any assay. Pewter of this period could carry substantial lead, with lower grades commonly ten percent or more, and even tinned surfaces wear through at the seams and detail lines where food sits longest. If the metal is unmarked and old, treat it as lead.
If you want the dessertThe bombe-and-rice construction it describes is still made; work from a current recipe and modern food-grade equipment rather than adapting this one.
Twelve-degree syrupA hydrometer reading of syrup density, not a temperature; readings of this kind in the period were usually on the Baume scale. Twelve degrees corresponds to a light syrup of roughly twenty percent sugar, the strength used for cooking rice and fruit so they sweeten without candying.
Water socleA socle is a plinth. A water socle is one frozen from clear water in a mold, used purely as a cold pedestal for the piece; the napkin under it catches the melt. It is display architecture, not something eaten.
SalpiconIn this period a salpicon is simply an ingredient cut into small uniform pieces, here apricot batons, folded into the strawberry ice and whipped cream lightening it.
Spun sugarThe crown over the well is caramel spun into threads, which softens and collapses quickly in humid air. Hence Ranhofer's instruction to fasten it on only at the moment of service.

A Little History

Le Puits is French for "the well," and the conceit is literal: an outer mold shaped like a well-head with an inner core that leaves a hollow shaft, filled with a rice-and-fruit ice so that the guest looks down into something. It belongs to the tradition of the piece montee, the architectural dessert that was as much table decoration as food, and which Charles Ranhofer practiced on a grand scale during his years as chef at Delmonico's in New York. The Epicurean (1894) devotes a long section to these molded ices, many of them accompanied by engraved figures. The cross-references to numbered syrups, ices and creams elsewhere in the book are a reminder that this was written for a brigade working from a single house repertoire, not for a cook improvising alone. Lead and lead-alloy molds were common professional equipment in the nineteenth century; the hazard was raised by some sanitarians of the era, though how widely kitchens acted on it is not well documented.