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Bombe Printaniere
Prepare a pint only of vanilla ice cream and keep in the freezer until required.
Bury a bomb-shaped mould in the ice. Place four egg yolks in a copper basin with two ounces sugar and one tablespoon maraschino; set on corner of range and whisk up for eight minutes. Remove, place basin on ice and briskly stir with a wooden spoon until thoroughly cold. Add a half pint whipped cream, mix for one minute, and keep the basin on the ice until required. Finely chop up four ounces candied fruits and place in a bowl with a teaspoon rum. Remove mould from ice, wipe the inside and line the mould with the chopped fruits. Place the vanilla ice cream all around the mould, then fill up the mould with the cream preparation. Lay a sheet of white paper on top of the cream. Cover the mould very tightly, so as to prevent water from getting in. Bury the mould in the vanilla ice cream tub for two hours. Remove, unmould on a folded napkin and serve.
A classic bombe glacée: a shell of vanilla ice cream around a lightly frozen liqueur mousse, built in a mould buried in ice and salt. The whole thing hinges on keeping every stage cold enough that nothing slumps while you assemble it.
- The freezer, then and now"Keep in the freezer" and "bury the mould in the vanilla ice cream tub" refer to a tub packed with cracked ice, in period practice usually with coarse salt added, though the recipe does not say so; such a pack holds below 32F. A domestic freezer at 0F does the same job; chill the mould in it for an hour before you start.
- The mouldA bombe mould is a hemispherical or dome-shaped metal form with a tight lid. A 1 1/2-quart stainless bowl or a metal pudding basin works, covered with plastic wrap then foil pressed tight; the sheet of white paper laid on the surface acts as a barrier over the cream, and can be parchment or wrap laid directly on the mousse.
- Egg yolks over heat"Corner of range" means indirect, gentle heat. Whisk the yolks, sugar and maraschino in a bowl set over barely simmering water and take them to 160F on an instant-read thermometer, which will happen well inside eight minutes; carried much further they begin to set and curdle.
- Copper basinUnlined copper is traditional for egg work, though the stabilising effect is best documented for whites; it also conducts heat evenly. Do not leave an acidic mixture standing in it. A stainless or glass bowl over a water bath gives much the same result with less fuss.
- MaraschinoThis is the clear cherry liqueur of the Luxardo type, not the sugary red syrup sold for cocktail cherries. Two ounces of sugar by weight is a scant 1/3 cup.
- Assembly orderPress the chopped candied fruits against the chilled mould first, then line the walls with softened vanilla ice cream in an even half-inch layer, working fast and returning the mould to the freezer if it starts to glaze. Fill the centre with the mousse last.
- Freezing timeTwo hours in a salt-and-ice tub is enough; in a home freezer allow at least six hours, or overnight, before unmoulding.
- UnmouldingDip the mould in warm water for five to ten seconds, wipe it, and invert onto a chilled plate. The folded napkin absorbs melt and keeps the bombe from sliding.
- YieldA pint of ice cream plus roughly a pint of mousse gives six to eight servings.
The bombe glac ée takes its name from the mould, an ovoid or spherical form said to resemble an early cannonball or shell, and it became a fixture of French restaurant dessert service in the second half of the nineteenth century. The interior is a pate a bombe, egg yolks whipped with sugar over heat until thick, cooled, and lightened with whipped cream, a preparation that freezes soft rather than hard and so contrasts with the firmer ice cream shell around it. Bombes were named variously, usually for a flavouring, a city, or a season: printaniere simply means "springlike", here signalled by the candied fruits and the maraschino.