by Julia Child
A 4-cup measure
1 lemon
2 packages (2 Tb) unfavored powdered gelatin in a 1-cup measure
Squeeze juice out of oranges and lemon and strain into measure, to make 2 cups. Pour ½ cup of juice into the gelatin, and stir a tablespoon of juice into the pineapple-sugar syrup to liquefy it.
2) Making and molding the mousse
4 egg yolks
1 Tb cornstarch
The 2½-quart pan with the crushed sugar lumps
A wire whip or electric beater
The pineapple-sugar syrup
The orange and lemon juice
A wooden spoon
Beat the egg yolks and cornstarch with the crushed sugar for a minute or two until yolks are thick and sticky. Gradually beat in the pineapple-sugar syrup, and continue beating vigorously for 2 minutes. Beat in the orange juice. Set over moderate heat and stir slowly (2 strokes per second), reaching all over bottom of pan. As custard warms, it will become foamy, and when a faint breath of steam rises it is beginning to thicken. Continue stirring over heat until it thickens enough to coat spoon lightly; custard must not come to the simmer and scramble the yolks, but it must thicken.
The gelatin and orange juice mixture
Remove custard from heat and immediately scrape the gelatin mixture into the hot custard, beating vigorously to be sure gelatin dissolves completely.
4 egg whites (at room temperature)
Pinch of salt
¼ tsp cream of tartar
A clean, dry bowl and electric mixer or balloon whip
Beat the egg whites until foaming, beat in the salt and cream of tartar, and continue until egg whites form stiff peaks. Then beat the egg whites into the hot custard with your whip, making a foamy mass—the mousse.
The pineapple wedges
A 6-cup metal mold, fluted or decorated if you wish
Half the orange peel
A large bowl with 2 trayfuls of ice cubes and water to cover them
A rubber spatula
Plastic wrap
Arrange a handful of pineapple wedges in the bottom of the mold for decoration. Drain the pineapple maceration liqueur into the mousse, then fold it in along with the orange peel. Set bowl with mousse in bowl of ice cubes and water; stir every few minutes with rubber spatula until mousse thickens and is about to set. (Beat with wire whip if necessary to smooth it again.) Rapidly turn ⅓ of the mousse into the mold, spread half the pineapple wedges over it, cover with half the remaining mousse, then the rest of the pineapple and finally the last of the mousse. Cover with plastic and refrigerate until serving time.
(*) May be made a day of two ahead; may be frozen and served either frozen or thawed.
3) Serving
A large bowl of hot water
A chilled serving dish
The rest of the orange peel
Either crème Chantilly (lightly whipped cream with confectioner’s sugar and flavoring);
Or crème anglaise (custard sauce), with a little heavy cream stirred in
Shortly before serving, dip mold for 5 seconds in hot water, turn serving dish upside down on top of mold and reverse the two, unmolding dessert onto dish. Fold remaining orange peel into whatever sauce you have chosen, and pass separately.
RIZ DES HESPÉRIDES
[Mold of Orange-flavored Rice and Cherries]
In the long-ago European days before frozen strawberries and canned apricots, the only fruits to be had during the winter were dried or glacéed; when once in a while fresh oranges came in from Italy or Spain, they would be combined into something very special, like this unusual rice dessert. You will find it a delicious illustration of what wonders can be wrought with simple and inexpensive ingredients—the rice is simmered in milk and puréed orange peel, then molded with glacéed orange and lemon peel, cherries, and almonds; it is served with custard sauce or whipped cream.
For a 6-cup mold, serving 8 to 10
Make this the morning, or the day, or several days before you wish to serve.
1) The orange rice
¾ cup plain, raw, white rice
3 quarts rapidly boiling water in a saucepan
2 large, bright-skinned oranges
A vegetable peeler
An electric blender
2 cups milk
A heavy 2-quart flame-proof baking dish with cover
2 Tb butter
⅛ tsp salt
Pinch nutmeg
Waxed paper
Preheat oven to 300 degrees. Sprinkle rice into boiling water and boil rapidly for exactly 5 minutes; drain immediately. Wash oranges. Remove the zests (orange part of peel) with vegetable peeler, and place in blender with ½ cup of the milk. Purée zests and milk, and pour into baking dish; add rest of milk, blanched rice, butter, salt, and nutmeg. Bring just to the simmer on top of the stove, then lay waxed paper over surface of milk, cover dish, and place in middle level of preheated oven. Bake for 30 to 40 minutes, until rice is tender and all liquid has absorbed. While rice is cooking, prepare ingredients in next step.
2) The fruit garniture
⅓ cup glacéed cherries
A pan of boiling water and a sieve
A small bowl
2 Tb Cognac
⅔ cup mixed, diced glacéed orange peel, lemon peel, and citron
A small saucepan
1 package (1 Tb) plain, unflavored gelatin
2 Tb strained lemon juice
3 Tb strained orange juice
3 Tb orange liqueur
A pan of hot water to hold the pan of glacéed fruits and gelatin
Slice cherries in half lengthwise (through stem end) and drop into boiling water to wash off preservatives. Drain, and place ½ in the small bowl with the Cognac. Then drop rest of glacéed fruit into boiling water and leave for several minutes—to soften as well as wash them. Drain, and put into small saucepan with the remaining cherries. Sprinkle on the gelatin, and stir in the lemon juice, orange juice, and orange liqueur. Let gelatin soften for several minutes, then set the pan in hot water, stirring occasionally, so gelatin will dissolve completely by the time you are ready to use it. (Reheat water, as necessary.)
3) Assembling the mold
A 6-cup charlotte mold or cylindrical dish 3 to 3½ inches deep, bottom lined with waxed paper
1 cup sugar
1 cup water
A small, heavy saucepan and cover
A cup of iced water or a candy thermometer
1 tsp vanilla
½ cup sliced almonds with or without skins
As soon as you remove the rice from the oven, make the sugar syrup: blend sugar and water in saucepan and bring to boil over moderately high heat, swishing pan by handle until sugar has dissolved completely and liquid is perfectly clear. Cover pan and boil rapidly for 1 to 2 minutes, until syrup is forming large, thick bubbles. Uncover and in a few seconds test: syrup should form a soft ball in the iced water, or be at a temperature of 238 degrees. By spoonfuls, rapidly but gently fold the syrup into the rice. Fold in the diced fruits and gelatin mixture, and the vanilla; drain in the Cognac from the cherries, and fold in along with the sliced almonds. Mixture should cool somewhat before being molded; set in a pan of cold water or over cracked ice and water, folding occasionally until liquids and rice form a homogeneous blend.
Arrange the reserved cherry halves in the bottom of the mold, cut-side up. Spoon the rice into the mold, which will be almost filled. Cover with waxed paper or plastic, and chill for several hours, or until set.
4) Serving
A chilled serving plate
Either 3 cups crème anglaise (custard sauce) flavored with orange liqueur;
Or crème Chantilly (lightly whipped cream) flavored with orange liqueur and sweetened with confectioner’s sugar
Run a thin knife around edge of dessert, turn serving platter upside down over it, and reverse the two to unmold dessert onto plate. Surround with a little of the custard sauce or crème Chantilly, and pass the rest separately.
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br /> LE PÉLERIN EN TIMBALE
[Molded Almond Cream]
This is a cross between the rich charlotte Malakoff and the classic Bavarian cream: a custard sauce bound with gelatin and butter, flavored with toasted almonds, kirsch, and apricot, and molded in a cake-lined dish. It gets its name from the pilgrims who, in the days before modern processing, stuffed their pockets with nonperishables like dried fruits and nuts. We assume that this particular pélerin paid his host for the night in almonds, which his hostess put to use in the following manner. (Note that this dessert improves in flavor if made a day or two in advance of serving.)
For a 6-cup mold, serving 8 to 10
1) Preliminaries
7 ounces (about 1½ cups) blanched whole almonds
A roasting pan or pizza tray
A kitchen timer
An electric blender
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Spread almonds in pan and toast for 5 minutes in middle level of oven; stir them up and toast another 5 to 6 minutes, stirring every 2 to 3 minutes to be sure they do not burn. They should be deep golden brown. When cool, pulverize ½ cup at a time in electric blender; set aside.
A 6-cup cylindrical charlotte mold or baking dish about 3½ inches deep
A round of waxed paper
A long, thin knife
A butter sponge cake, génoise, “shortcake,” or other cake of that type (can be store-bought), such as a round one at least 8 by 1½ inches
2 heavily buttered pastry sheets
3 Tb melted butter
2 to 3 Tb sugar
1 Tb kirsch
Meanwhile, line bottom of mold with the waxed paper. Then slice cake into horizontal layers each no more than ⅓ inch thick. Cut a round out of the top-of-cake layer to fit bottom of mold and place round inside-side up on a baking sheet. Cut rest of cake layers into strips 1¼ inches wide and arrange on the baking sheets. Paint with melted butter and sprinkle with sugar. When almonds are done, raise thermostat to 400 degrees. Set baking sheets in middle and upper-third levels of oven and bake the cake strips for about 10 minutes, until they are lightly golden brown. Remove from oven, sprinkle with drops of kirsch, and set aside.
2) The custard sauce—crème anglaise—and almond cream
1½ Tb (1½ packages) unflavored powdered gelatin
⅓ cup kirsch in a measure
¾ cup sugar
6 egg yolks in a heavy-bottomed
2-quart stainless or enameled saucepan
A hand-held electric beater or a wire whip
2½ cups hot milk in a small saucepan
A wooden spoon
8 ounces (2 sticks) butter cut into ¼-inch slices
The toasted almonds
1 tsp vanilla extract
If needed: a pinch of salt; a few drops of almond extract
Sprinkle the gelatin over the kirsch and set aside. Beat the sugar gradually into the egg yolks and continue beating for several minutes until mixture is thick, pale yellow, and forms a ribbon for a few seconds when a bit falls back on the surface. Gradually beat in the hot milk, adding it in a thin stream. Set mixture over moderate heat and stir slowly with wooden spoon, reaching all over bottom of pan, for 4 to 5 minutes until sauce thickens enough to film spoon with a creamy layer. (Be careful sauce does not come to the simmer and curdle the egg yolks, but you must heat it to the point where it thickens.) Immediately remove from heat and stir vigorously for 1 minute to cool slightly, then scrape the gelatin and kirsch mixture into the hot sauce, beating thoroughly for 2 minutes, to be sure gelatin dissolves completely. (A hand-held electric beater is useful here, and from now on.) Beat in the butter, 4 pieces at a time, then the almonds and vanilla. Taste carefully: add a little salt and drops of almond extract if you feel them necessary. Set aside; you will have about 5 cups of sauce, which should still be slightly warm or at least tepid when used in next step.
3) Filling the mold
Line the mold with the toasted cake, sugared sides against mold, as follows. Place circle in the bottom; cut strips to fit upright and close together side by side, trimming one or two into wedges if necessary to fill in gaps.
A ladle
The tepid almond cream
Leftover cake strips
About ⅓ cup apricot jam
Plastic wrap
Ladle ⅓ of the almond cream into the mold. Paint several cake strips with apricot jam and arrange in a layer over the cream. Ladle more cream into mold to fill to ⅔ and cover with additional apricot-painted cake strips. Finally fill the mold with the remaining almond cream, pouring some down between cake strips and side of mold if necessary. Top with additional cake strips if any remain; cover with plastic wrap and chill several hours until set.
(*) AHEAD-OF-TIME NOTE: Finished dessert will keep 4 to 5 days under refrigeration or may be frozen.
4) Serving
A chilled serving dish
3 cups apricot sauce
Optional: 3 cups crème Chantilly (lightly whipped cream), sweetened, and flavored with kirsch
Carefully run a thin knife around edge of mold several times to detach sides of dessert. Then turn dish upside down over mold, reverse the two and give a sharp downward jerk to unmold dessert onto dish. Spoon a little of the apricot sauce over top of dessert, and the rest around it on the dish. Refrigerate if not to be served immediately. Pass optional crème Chantilly separately.
LE MARLY—LA RIPOSTE
[French Strawberry Shortcake Made with Rum-soaked Brioche]
Le Marly is the French retort—la riposte—to the American shortcake. Rather than being biscuit dough, or a savarin—which it closely resembles except in shape—the cake is brioche dough baked in a cake pan, then split in two, hollowed out, and steeped in rum- or kirsch-flavored syrup. The strawberry and whipped cream filling is topped with pie-shaped wedges of brioche that rise to a peak in the center, giving the impression of a Chinese coolie hat. Glazed with apricot and decorated with strawberries, it is a pretty dessert, and so easy to assemble that you might well make the whole dough recipe rather than the half portion needed. You will thereby have two brioche cakes; freeze the second one to have on hand for those times when you need something special in a hurry. Other fruits besides strawberries are delicious too, and are suggested at the end of the recipe.
For a round brioche 8 by 2½ inches, serving 6 to 8
1) Making and baking the brioche—about 5 hours (may be baked in advance and frozen)
NOTE: Because it will be soaked in rum or kirsch, the flavor of the brioche itself is not of great importance, and there is no need to make the buttery brioche fine; brioche commune, the pain brioché recipe, is the dough to use here and it needs only the first rise—or 2 rises to double if you are working in a hot kitchen.
½ the pain brioché dough
A round cake pan 8 by 1½ inches, smeared with 1 tsp soft butter
A cake rack
Follow the pain brioché recipe, but you may make the dough in an electric mixer as described.
As soon as the first rise is complete, deflate the dough, form into a ball (see directions for forming a round shape), and place seam-side down in pan; pat dough out to edges all around. Pan will be filled by about two thirds. Set uncovered at 75 to 80 degrees until dough has risen to fill the pan—about 1 hour. (Preheat oven to 400 degrees before dough has completed its rise.)
Bake in middle level of preheated 400-degree oven for 20 minutes, or until dough has risen about an inch above rim of pan and has begun to brown nicely, then turn thermostat down to 350 degrees and bake another 10 to 15 minutes. Brioche is done when it comes easily out of the pan, is nicely browned, and makes a hollow sound when thumped. Cool on a rack.
(*) AHEAD-OF-TIME NOTE: If you want to keep the brioche for several days or several weeks before using, wrap airtight when cool, and refrigerate or freeze it. To defrost frozen brioche, let sit several hours at room temperature, or place on a lightly buttered baking sheet for about 45 minutes in a 300-degree oven.
2) Prelim
inaries to assembling the dessert
the fruit filling:
1 quart fresh strawberries
A bowl
Sugar if needed
Wash the strawberries if necessary; hull them. Reserve 4 to 6 of the finest to decorate top of dessert; halve or quarter the rest, depending on size. Place in bowl, and toss lightly with sugar to taste.
the sugar syrup:
1 cup water in a small saucepan
¾ cup sugar
½ cup kirsch or dark rum
Stir the water and sugar over heat until sugar is completely dissolved; remove from heat. When syrup has cooled to lukewarm, stir in the kirsch or rum. (Syrup should be tepid when it goes over the brioche; reheat if necessary.)
apricot to glaze the brioche:
About ⅔ cup apricot jam (preserves) forced through a sieve into a small saucepan
2 Tb sugar
A wooden spoon
Bring the strained apricot jam and sugar to the boil, stirring, for several minutes until last drops to fall from spoon are sticky. Set aside; reheat before using.