Chef Juliette
The Making of Ices
Freezing is the recipe: pack ice hard with salt, keep the canister moving, and scrape each frozen film into the base until the Glaces turn smooth, fine, and homogeneous.
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Plum Ice
Created by Chef Juliette
Based on No. 2774, Plum Ice, from Le Guide Culinaire (1907) by Auguste Escoffier
Glace aux prunes, calibrated to 20° Baumé before churning, lets ripe fruit, lemon, and syrup meet in the exact balance that keeps each spoonful bright, smooth, and softly scoopable.
Desserts
French
Outdoor Dining
Make Ahead
Budget Friendly
20 min
Active Time
25 min cook•4 hr 45 min total
YieldAbout 1 quart (8 servings)
Glace aux prunes teaches the central truth of every fruit glace: sweetness is structure. At 20° Baumé, the base freezes fine-grained and softly scoopable; too little sugar turns it stony, while too much leaves it slack. Plum acidity swings hard from basket to basket, so taste first, then let the gauge settle the texture.
The book assumed a pastry section with a syrup gauge always ready, a freezing canister packed with salted ice, and enough hands to keep it turning. A handheld refractometer and a countertop ice cream machine do the same work at home. The staff and heavy canister are scaffolding and can go; measured density and quick freezing are the dish and must stay. The linked formula lands neatly in one modern canister, about a quart for the table. One cook, one stove, one evening, with the freezer taking the last watch.
Combine the plum, syrup, and lemon completely before you judge either sweetness or density. That final calibration to 20° Baumé is the step that matters most, and you must make it before the base meets the cold.
Glace aux prunes belongs to the glacier and pâtissier repertoire of Paris, where fruit purées were balanced by syrup density and frozen separately from cream-based glaces. Fruit ices traveled from specialist freezing rooms to bourgeois dining tables as hand-cranked sorbetières made smaller service practical. The instruction to bring this preparation to 20° refers to a syrup-gauge density, not a serving temperature, and its slightly higher mark than the apricot cousin answers the plum's different balance of water, sugar, and acid.
The technique, the tradition, and the story behind every dish.
Discover Culinary ExplorerIngredients
Apricot Ice reference preparation, made with fresh plum purée in place of apricot purée
Quantity
1 home-scale batch Apricot Ice (No. 2761), about 1 quart (1 L / 1.1 kg)
follow through the unfrozen mixture, then calibrate as directed
| Ingredient | Quantity |
|---|---|
| Apricot Ice reference preparation, made with fresh plum purée in place of apricot puréefollow through the unfrozen mixture, then calibrate as directed | 1 home-scale batch Apricot Ice (No. 2761), about 1 quart (1 L / 1.1 kg) |
Equipment Needed
- •Handheld refractometer reading 0 to 50° Brix, or a syrup hydrometer marked in degrees Baumé
- •1½-quart countertop ice cream machine
- •1-quart shallow freezer container with lid
- •Fine-mesh sieve and flexible spatula
Instructions
- 1
Follow the linked formula
Follow Apricot Ice (No. 2761) exactly through the unfrozen mixture, replacing its fresh apricot purée with the same volume of fresh plum purée. Leave the syrup, lemon, proportions, and sequence untouched. This is the book's instruction: the cousin supplies the method, while plum supplies the fruit. Do not freeze the mixture yet.
- 2
Calibrate the density
Stir the complete base thoroughly, then take its reading at the calibration temperature specified for your instrument. A syrup gauge should read exactly 20° Baumé; a digital Brix refractometer should read about 36° Brix. If the reading is low, replace a tablespoon of base with the same syrup used in the linked formula. If it is high, replace a tablespoon with unsweetened plum purée. Work 1 tablespoon (15 ml / about 15 to 20 g) at a time, stir fully, and read again. If you cross the target, don't discard anything. Reverse the adjustment in smaller spoonfuls. Ça se rattrape.
Taste after the instrument agrees. The gauge controls freezing texture, but it cannot judge acidity; if the plum tastes dull, add a few drops of the formula's lemon juice and check the reading once more. - 3
Chill the base
Cover the calibrated mixture and chill it to 40°F (4°C) or colder, about 2 hours. A thoroughly cold base freezes quickly and forms smaller crystals. Churning a warm mixture only asks the machine to perform the refrigerator's work, and the texture pays for it.
- 4
Churn until dense
Stir the cold base once more, pour it into the running ice cream machine, and churn until it rises into dense, softly ridged folds, usually 20 to 25 minutes. Stop while it still yields to the paddle. If it remains liquid after 20 minutes, the freezer bowl or base was not cold enough; stop, chill both completely, then churn again. Keeping a warm machine turning only makes slush, and patience rescues it.
Without a machine, freeze the base in a shallow metal pan and beat it vigorously every 30 minutes until firm. The crystals will be slightly coarser, but the flavour and density remain true to the dish. - 5
Set and serve
Pack the glace into a shallow 1-quart container, press parchment directly against the surface, cover, and freeze for about 2 hours to set. Before serving, leave it at room temperature for 8 to 10 minutes, just until a warm scoop passes through without force. If it has frozen hard during longer storage, give it 15 minutes in the refrigerator rather than heating it. Serve generous scoops in chilled coupes. À table!
Chef Tips
- •Choose plums that smell fragrant at the stem and yield slightly under a thumb. A hard plum can be made sweet, but syrup cannot invent ripe plum flavour.
- •Taste before you sweeten. Red, black, and golden plums can differ sharply in sugar and acid even when equally ripe, which is why the final 20° reading governs the preparation.
- •Twenty degrees is a density reading, not a temperature. A small digital refractometer is the cleanest home equivalent to the pastry kitchen's long glass syrup gauge, and one drop is enough.
- •For outdoor dining, keep the container buried in an insulated cooler with frozen packs until dessert. Scoop at the last moment, because a correctly balanced fruit glace softens readily once it leaves the cold.
Advance Preparation
- •The calibrated base can be covered and chilled up to 24 hours before churning. Stir it thoroughly and confirm the density again before it goes into the machine.
- •Churn the glace up to 3 days ahead and keep parchment pressed against its surface. Move it to the refrigerator for about 15 minutes before serving if it becomes very firm.
Frequently Asked Questions
Nutrition Information
1 serving (about 138g)
Calories
155 calories
Total Fat
0 g
Saturated Fat
0 g
Trans Fat
0 g
Unsaturated Fat
0 g
Cholesterol
0 mg
Sodium
5 mg
Total Carbohydrates
38 g
Dietary Fiber
1 g
Sugars
35 g
Protein
1 g
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