Bombe Mignon

Bombe Mignon (an apricot ice dome filled with nut-enriched frozen cream) teaches the architecture of a bombe glacée: a bright, firm shell surrounding a softer, richer heart. The centre is pâte à bombe, egg yolks expanded with hot sugar syrup, lightened with real cream, and flavoured with hazelnuts. The one true thing to know before touching the pan is this: pound the nuts with some of the syrup, never dry. Dry pounding releases their oil and gives you a grey, heavy centre.

The original entry is a brigade command rather than a household recipe: clothe the mould with apricot ice, then fill it with nut Bombe-preparation. It assumed a glacier, the brigade’s frozen-dessert specialist, with prepared ices at hand, deep metal moulds packed in salted ice, and enough mixture for a dining room. Here the brigade quantity becomes one 1-quart mould, the salted-ice cabinet becomes an ordinary freezer, and an electric mixer carries the whisking. Those old service arrangements are scaffolding and can go. The apricot lining and syrup-cooked pâte à bombe are the dish, so both stay.

When cut, the bombe should show a clean apricot-orange ring around a pale hazelnut centre, one sharp and refreshing, the other round with yolk and cream. One cook, one stove, one evening; the freezer does the night shift. Before you begin, set the mould in the freezer and remember the nuts: syrup first, then pounding.