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Biscuit Glace
Dissolve two cupfuls of granulated sugar in one cupful of boiling water, put over the fire and boil slowly until the syrup will spin a short thread. Pour it slowly over the yolks of six eggs which have been beaten until very light; return to the fire and stir for two minutes or until the mixture will slightly coat the bowl of the spoon. Strain in a bowl, set into a pan of cold water and whip with long, even strokes until the mixture is cold and spongy in texture. Add one small teaspoonful of vanilla and four tablespoonfuls of sherry or two tablespoonfuls of Maraschino, whip for five minutes longer, then stir in lightly one pint of thick cream whipped to a solid froth. Fill a mould with this; cover and bind with a strip of buttered cloth and pack in ice and salt for three hours or more. Or it may be divided into small fancy paper cases, the tops dusted with stale macaroon crumbs and placed in a case for four hours.
This is a still-frozen dessert — a pâte à bombe lightened with whipped cream — so it needs no churning, but it does need the sugar syrup taken to the right point and the base whipped genuinely cold before the cream goes in.
- The hinge: syrup stage"Spin a short thread" is the thread stage, commonly given as about 223-234F on a candy thermometer, with a "short" thread at the lower end of that. Under-boiled syrup gives a base that never thickens and will freeze grainy; taken past the soft-ball point it will set into strings when it hits the yolks.
- Cooking the yolksPouring 230F syrup in a slow stream while whisking hard, then stirring two minutes over low heat to the coating-spoon stage, does cook the yolks. Keep the pan off direct high heat and do not stop stirring, or you get scrambled egg that the straining step is there to catch.
- Whip until cold, and mean itThe bowl is set into a pan of cold water, as the recipe directs. Expect roughly 10-15 minutes by hand, appreciably less with an electric mixer. If the base is even faintly warm it will deflate the whipped cream and the finished ice will be dense and buttery.
- Thick creamUse heavy or whipping cream, 36% fat or above. One pint is 2 cups; whip it to soft-firm peaks, not stiff, so it folds in without breaking the base.
- MaraschinoThe original means the clear Dalmatian marasca-cherry liqueur, not the pink syrup from a jar of cocktail cherries. Any decent maraschino liqueur works; the recipe does not specify which sherry.
- Freezing without ice and saltThe mould packed in ice and rock salt (about three parts ice to one of salt was a common period proportion, though this recipe gives none) freezes the mixture hard without churning. A modern freezer does the same job: cover the mould with plastic wrap and foil and give it 4-6 hours, or overnight.
- "Placed in a case"The last sentence reads oddly, since the mixture has already been divided into paper cases. It is most likely a slip or misprint for the ice cave or freezing box. Read it as: fill the paper cases, dust with crumbs, freeze four hours.
- Macaroon crumbsAlmond macaroons, dried out and crushed, not coconut macaroons. Amaretti crumbs are the closest thing on a shop shelf.
- YieldAbout 1.5 quarts, serving 8 to 10 — a quart-and-a-half mould, or ten to twelve small paper cases.
Biscuit glac he still-frozen French ices built on a pâte à bombe