Pudding à la Richelieu

Pudding à la Richelieu (a prune-and-Kirsch jelly shell around a vanilla cream custard) teaches that temperature, not force, controls a cold mould. The dark shell must set firmly around an iced inner mould, and that inner mould leaves only when tepid water loosens its skin. Pull at it and the shell tears. Warm it for a few seconds and it lifts cleanly. That is the one true thing to know before you touch a pan.

The grand pastry kitchen assumed very stiff clarified dessert jelly ready at hand, a matched Charlotte mould with a tinned insert and handles, and enough ice to keep every station cold. Your honest equivalent is powdered gelatin, a smooth 900 ml metal mould, and a tall stainless tumbler that leaves a 2 cm channel around itself. This version serves six, not a banquet. The brigade scaffolding goes, but the equal parts of prune purée, reduced prune juice, and Kirsch jelly stay, as do the iced insert and the vanilla Bavarois (custard lightened with whipped cream and set cold). Those are the dish. One cook, one stove, one evening.

The shell should taste of prune first, with Kirsch lifting it rather than shouting, while the center stays pale, soft, and vanilla-rich. Cool the Bavarois until it only begins to thicken before it enters the hollow. Warm filling melts the shell, while fully set filling leaves gaps. The decisive step is the release of the inner mould: tepid water, five seconds, then straight up.