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Iced Diplomatic Pudding
Cut into small squares one ounce peeled almonds, half a candied lemon peel, two candied apricots, six candied cherries and two sliced candied pineapples; place them in a bowl, add two tablespoons well-picked Sultana rasins, pour in three tablespoons good rum, mix all well in the seasoning and let infuse for an hour.
Prepare three half pints vanilla ice cream, add to the vanilla a half pint whipped cream and the infused fruits. Mix well with spatula, place the cream in a dome-shaped quart mould, lay sheet white paper over, cover mould and bury in the tub with broken ice and rock salt for one and a half hours. Remove, dip in lukewarm water for a few seconds, wipe well, then unmould on a cold dish. Mix in a bowl a gill strawberry syrup with two tablespoons maraschino, pour over the pudding and serve.
A moulded bombe of vanilla ice cream, whipped cream and rum-soaked candied fruit, frozen in a salt-and-ice bath. Everything hinges on working fast enough that the ice cream never fully melts.
- The measurements"Three half pints" vanilla ice cream is 3 cups, or a pint and a half; the half pint of whipped cream is 1 cup. A gill of strawberry syrup is half a cup.
- Freezing without an ice tubThe buried mould in broken ice and rock salt reaches well below 32F, which is why an hour and a half suffices. A domestic freezer at 0F needs at least 4 to 6 hours for a quart mould, and overnight is safer.
- Rum lowers the freezing pointOnly the three tablespoons of rum go into the mould; the maraschino is in the sauce poured over at the end. Adding much more spirit to the mixture makes it harder to set firm enough to unmould cleanly.
- Soften, do not meltThe ice cream has to be pliable enough to fold with a spatula but still cold. Let it stand 10 to 15 minutes in the refrigerator rather than on the counter, and stop folding the moment the fruit is distributed.
- Drain the fruitAfter the hour of infusing, lift the fruit out with a slotted spoon and let the loose rum drain off before folding it in, since the extra liquid works against a firm set.
- The sheet of paperWaxed or parchment paper laid directly on the surface before the lid goes on keeps ice crystals and any brine seepage off the pudding. Plastic film does the same job.
- UnmouldingA few seconds in lukewarm water is literal — five to ten. Wipe the mould dry, invert onto a chilled plate, and return the whole thing to the freezer while you mix the syrup and maraschino.
- YieldA quart mould gives six to eight servings. Sauce it at the table; the syrup slides off a frozen dome quickly.
A pudding à la diplomate was originally a moulded set custard or bavarian cream layered with candied fruit, ladyfingers and kirsch — a dish of the nineteenth-century French repertoire, its name generally traced to the ornamental dishes served at diplomatic tables rather than to any one ambassador. The iced version here belongs to the family of bombes that filled the last course of long formal dinners: an ice cream lightened with whipped cream, studded with fruit macerated in spirits, frozen in a shaped mould and turned out whole for the dining room. Cookbooks of this period assumed a household with an ice tub, rock salt and someone to pack the mould, which is why the freezing instruction is given in an hour and a half rather than overnight. The strawberry syrup and maraschino poured over at the last moment are period practice as well; maraschino then meant the dry cherry liqueur from Dalmatia, not the sweet red syrup the name later came to suggest in America.