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Surprise Loaf
Beat yolks of eight eggs until thick; add three-quarters cupful of sugar; beat again; then turn on one cupful hot milk, pinch of salt; cook in double boiler until custard coats a spoon; cool. Then add a whip from one quart of cream, one-half teaspoonful vanilla, two drops almond extract, freeze as for ice cream. When ready to serve, have a sponge cake baked in a cylindrical pan; scoop out the inside, leaving a substantial wall; pack the cavity with the frozen cream and fit the end on again; stick full of almonds blanched, and garnish with French candied strawberries.
This is a frozen bombe served inside a hollowed sponge cake — the Victorian ancestor of the ice-cream cake. The custard base is straightforward; the vagueness is all in the freezing and assembly.
- "A whip from one quart of cream"Older cooks whipped cream and skimmed off only the stiff froth that rose, returning the slack liquid to be whipped again. In practice, whip a quart (4 cups) of heavy cream to soft-to-medium peaks and fold in all of it; a quart roughly doubles when whipped, so expect something in the region of 7-8 cups of whipped volume.
- Cook the custard to 170-175F"Coats a spoon" means the custard leaves a film on the back of a spoon through which a drawn finger leaves a clear track. Above about 180F the yolks curdle, and in a double boiler that happens slowly enough to catch — stir constantly and pull it off the heat at the first sign of thickening.
- Chill before foldingThe custard must be cold, not merely cool, before the whipped cream goes in, or the cream deflates and the mixture churns to butter-flecked slush. Refrigerate several hours or overnight.
- "Freeze as for ice cream"At the time this meant a hand-crank freezer packed with ice and coarse salt. A modern ice-cream machine works; without one, freeze in a shallow metal pan and beat it smooth two or three times as it sets, since a custard this rich takes badly to being left alone.
- The cylindrical panA plain deep round mould; a tube or angel-food pan would also serve, though the recipe does not specify. Bake the sponge, cool completely, then cut a lid off the top, hollow out the crumb leaving a substantial wall (about three-quarters of an inch works), fill, and replace the lid. Trim rather than tear -- a torn wall collapses under the weight of the frozen cream.
- Harden after fillingThe filled loaf needs at least two hours back in the freezer before slicing, or the first cut will push the filling out. Blanched almonds and candied fruit go on just before serving; they soften and weep if frozen with the cake.
- Two drops of almond extractNot a rounded measure — modern extracts are strong, and two drops is meant to sit behind the vanilla rather than announce itself. "French candied strawberries" are glacé strawberries; any good candied fruit or fresh berries will do the same decorative work.
- YieldRoughly 10 to 12 servings. Best assembled and served the same day, though frozen storage firms the cake rather than staling it.
"Surprise" was a standing convention in nineteenth-century dessert naming: a cake that turns out to be full of ice cream, an omelette that turns out to be cold inside, a shell that conceals something the diner did not expect. The best-known member of the family is the baked Alaska, often said to have originated at Delmonico's in New York in the 1860s, though the story is traditional rather than documented; the simpler unbaked version here — hollow sponge, frozen filling, lid replaced — asked far less of a household cook, since it needed no meringue and no last-minute browning. Its appearance in a "Dainty Dishes" chapter places it among the frozen desserts a home cook might attempt with a freezer packed with ice and rock salt. The eight yolks and full quart of cream mark it as company food, made when there was a table to impress.