has an aura a fabulous, old-fashioned dessert that your guests will always anticipate with great

expectations.

Who is who in the frozen dessert arena

Now that we know ice cream and sundae, let’s look at their close siblings frozen custard,

French ice cream and French ice cream custard, all enriched with egg yolk or whole egg and all

have higher milk fat contents than ice creams. Ice milk is lean sibling that has milk instead of cream,

while sherbet, also called sorbet, contains even less milk or no milk at all. But don't be fooled if you

are diet conscious—sherbet has just about the same calories as ice cream. Sugar makes up for the

lost milk fat. Fruit purée or fruit juice and heavy sugar syrup are the main ingredients. But the

French make a barely sweetened sorbet so light they serve it between courses to cleanse the palate.

Gelato is an Italian variety of especially rich, creamy ice cream.

Granite, granité or granita is a light frozen fruit juice dessert originally from Spain. To

make the granular, sandy texture of granite they let the fruit juice mixture freeze without stirring.

Spumoni is an Italian sherbet blended with large amount of Italian meringue. (Italian

meringue is cooked beaten egg white sweetened with hot sugar syrup.). It is wonderful.

Parfait is a frozen dessert with a rich egg yolk custard base, whipped cream and flavoring.

You freeze the ingredients in individual serving containers, usually long, tapered parfait glasses. It is

very delicate with plenty of air whipped in for a light texture. The mixture is great in frozen cakes,

too. In the U.S., the term often refers to a dessert made up of alternating layers of ice cream and

sauce served in a stemmed glass, but that is not an authentic parfait. The American style is not only

easier, with no cooking involved, but can be much lighter if the sauce is not too rich.

Frozen soufflé is similar in composition to parfait with one or two additional ingredients.

You add gelatin to the thickened egg yolk along with the fruit, fruit juice, chocolate or other

flavoring. After you fold in the whipped cream and egg whites, you freeze it in a soufflé mold. If the

custard and gelatin solidify too much, you will have trouble folding in the whipped cream and egg

whites. Watch it closely while chilling to catch it at the just right consistency for ease in folding

them in. Taking it out of the freezer and letting it soften a little before serving is also a matter of

timing.

Bombe is a combination of frozen parfait and ice cream. It is an elegant, classic French

dessert. The presentation is impressive. You can do it at home without much expertise, but you do

need tall, narrow glassware to serve it in or you sacrifice the effect. To make a bombe, smear

softened ice cream on the lightly oiled inside surface of individual, well-chilled parfait containers,

and put them in the freezer until the ice cream is solid again. Remove the glasses and fill with soft

parfait all the way to the top. Return the filled glasses to the freezer until the mix freezes solid.

Serve them directly from the freezer with mint or edible flower garnish to a conversation-stopping

dinner party—as if a bomb fell on the table.

The French have special large molds specifically designed to make large bombe. After

unmolding, they cut the bombe into individual multilayered servings. Traditionally, they pour sauce

over the slices before serving. Expect to spend some time in your kitchen when making bombes.

Baked Alaska is our very own spectacular dessert, yet it is nothing like preparing a bombe,

in fact, it is easy even though sounds intimidating. You hardly need a recipe to make baked Alaska

but try this one.

Serious Kitchen Play