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Meringue Panaches
Prepare a pint only of vanilla ice cream. Place two gills thick cream in a copper basin, set basin on ice and whisk the cream to a stiff froth, then add ounce powdered sugar and six drops vanilla essence; whisk again one minute. Divide the vanilla ice cream in twelve meringue shells, join the two together and place on six saucers. Slide a fancy tube at the bottom of a pastry bag, then drop in the whipped cream and with it evenly decorate the meringues.
A composed ice cream dish rather than a baked one: the only real work is whipping cream properly and assembling fast enough that nothing melts. Everything hinges on temperature.
- Two gills of creamA gill is half a cup, so two gills is one cup (about 240 ml) of heavy cream. Whipped, it yields roughly two cups — ample to pipe over six assembled meringues.
- The copper basin on iceCopper conducts heat away quickly and the ice keeps the cream near freezing, which is what makes it whip stiff and stable. Any metal bowl chilled in the freezer for fifteen minutes does the same job; plastic holds warmth and grease and is the one bowl to avoid.
- An ounce of powdered sugarAbout 1/4 cup (4 tablespoons) of confectioners' sugar by modern weight. Period 'powdered sugar' meant sugar ground fine; modern confectioners' sugar also carries cornstarch, which helps the cream hold its shape on the plate.
- Vanilla essencePeriod essences varied in strength; six drops was a small dose of a concentrated flavouring, and something on the order of a quarter teaspoon of modern pure vanilla extract is a reasonable starting equivalent. The recipe adds it with the sugar, after the cream is already stiff.
- Meringue shellsThe hollow oval shells sold as meringue nests or shells, two of which are sandwiched around the ice cream to make a rounded shape. A pint across twelve shells is about 1/6 cup each, or a third of a cup in each finished pair.
- Work cold and work fastChill the saucers, and have the whipped cream piped and the bag loaded before you touch the ice cream. Meringue starts dissolving on contact with anything wet, so assembled panachés hold perhaps ten minutes before the shells go soft.
- The fancy tubeSome decorative tip, fitted into the bag before the cream goes in, as the recipe directs. A star tip is the obvious modern choice; piping onto the joined seam hides it.
- YieldSix servings, one per saucer, as the recipe's own arithmetic indicates.
Panaché is French for variegated or mixed — in confectionery it suggested a dish of contrasting colours or flavours, and by the late nineteenth century meringues glacées and their variants were fixtures of the restaurant ice course. Serving a pint of vanilla firm through service depended on a reliable supply of ice.