Mastering the Art of French Cooking, Volume 2 (182 page)

Optional but useful: a candy thermometer

A quart glass measure with 2 cups cold water and 2 ice cubes

A metal spoon

Remove cover from sugar syrup, and insert candy thermometer if you are using one. Boil rapidly, and when bubbles begin to thicken, watch temperature or start dropping driblets into iced water. Boil to 238 degrees, the soft-ball stage—sugar makes a sticky but definite shape when worked in cold water with your fingers.

Immediately start beating egg whites at moderate speed, dribbling boiling syrup into them until all is used. Continue beating egg whites at moderate speed until cool, and until mixture forms stiff peaks when lifted—when you draw a spatula through it, the walls of meringue on either side of the path remain erect and unmoving. (If you are using a portable beater, you may set the meringue bowl in a basin of cold water to speed the cooling.) Beating time: 8 to 10 minutes using a beater on a stand.

2)
Baking the meringue decorations—about 1 hour at 200 degrees

2 pastry sheets about 12 by 16 inches, no-stick if possible, buttered and floured

A rubber spatula

The dessert mold: an 8-cup cylindrical charlotte mold, baking dish, or even a flower pot, at least 4 inches deep

½ the meringue mixture (3 cups)

A canvas pastry bag 12 to 14 inches long with ¾-inch cannelated ribbon-tube opening

A small knife (to cut off meringue from tube when necessary)

Preheat oven to 200 degrees. Draw guidelines on pastry sheets with point of rubber spatula to mark depth of mold, so that you will know how long to make the meringues: they are to stand upright around the sides of the mold. (Leftover meringues are to be layered into mold with the chocolate mousse; you may wish to decorate top of dessert, after unmolding, with meringues either whole or crumbled.) A suggested decoration, to resemble the braid on a military cap, would be a series of straight ribbons alternating with serpentine shapes.

Whatever you decide upon, scoop the meringue mixture into the pastry bag, and squeeze out shapes between the guidelines on the pastry sheets, making the decorations ⅛ to
³
⁄
₁₆
inch thick, and no more than 1½ inches wide. You will need
12 to 16 perfect specimens, therefore use up all the meringue in the bag; muffed shapes can be layered with the mousse, and you will have some breakage after baking because the meringues will be brittle.

Set baking sheets in upper- and lower-middle levels of oven for about an hour, or until you can gently nudge a few loose from baking surface. They will not puff up, they will not change shape, and they should remain pure white; they simply dry out. While still warm, they bend slightly; as soon as they are cool, they become crisp and fragile. Remove baking sheets from oven, push all meringues gently loose, but leave them on the baking sheets.

3)
The chocolate mousse—mousse au chocolat meringuée—about 8 cups

12 ounces semisweet baking chocolate

3 ounces unsweetened baking chocolate

A saucepan for the chocolate, and cover for the pan

⅓ cup dark rum

A saucepan of simmering water removed from heat, large enough to hold chocolate pan

The dessert mold from Step 1

1 Tb soft butter

Waxed paper

Break up the chocolate, and place in the saucepan with the rum; cover, and set it in the pan of hot but not simmering water. While chocolate is melting, fold an 18-inch piece of waxed paper in half lengthwise, cut in two along fold, and with the 2 pieces held together, cut into blunt-ended wedges 5 to 6 inches at the wide end, 2½ inches at the blunt end, and ½ inch longer than depth of mold. Cut a circle of waxed paper to fit in bottom of mold exactly, and place it in the mold. One at a time, dot soft butter on one side of waxed paper wedge and insert against inside edge of mold, small end of wedge at bottom; butter holds paper in place. Continue around inside of mold, overlapping paper so that mold is completely covered. Refrigerate in order to set butter and keep paper glued to mold.

The meringue mixture remaining from Step 2

2 cups chilled whipping cream in a beating bowl

A larger bowl with a tray of ice cubes and water to cover them

A large (balloon) wire whip, or a hand-held electric beater with clean, dry blades

As soon as chocolate is melted, and you have beaten it to a soft, smooth texture, whip it into the meringue mixture. In its separate bowl, set cream over ice and beat, circulating beater all around bowl to incorporate air into cream, until doubled in volume; continue beating a few minutes more, until beater leaves light traces on surface, and a bit of cream lifted and dropped back softly retains its shape. This is now
crème Chantilly.

Remove the cream from the ice, and set the chocolate-meringue mixture over it, beating for a few minutes until cool but not stiff—if chocolate is warm it will deflate
the whipped cream. Then, with a rubber spatula, turn the
crème Chantilly
out on top of the chocolate, and fold the two together, cutting down from surface of cream to bottom of bowl with rubber spatula, and turning spatula against side of bowl as you draw it out; continue rapidly, rotating bowl as you fold. If the meringues are not yet ready, refrigerate the mousse.

4)
Filling the mold

Not allowing it to touch sides of mold if you can help it, turn a 1-inch layer of mousse into the bottom of the mold; this will give support to the meringues you are to place against the sides. Remembering they are fragile and break easily, arrange the meringues best side out against mold and upright around its edges, spacing them about ¼ inch apart. Turn in another layer of mousse about ¾ inch thick, cover with extra meringues, and continue filling the mold with mousse and meringue layers, ending with a layer of meringues. (Do not trim off protruding ends of upright meringues at this point.) Cover mold with plastic wrap, and freeze for 6 hours at least.

5)
Unmolding and serving

To unmold the dessert, bend waxed paper back from edges of mold, bend protruding meringue ends down over dessert, and turn a chilled serving dish upside down over mold. Reverse the two and dessert should unmold immediately—if not, reverse mold, run a knife between waxed paper and edge of mold, and reverse again. Carefully peel off waxed paper from top and sides. You need no decoration on top, unless you have baked meringue decorations for it or you wish to crumble leftover baked meringues over it.

Optional: