Submitted by Jeanne
Chantilly Meringu&eacute;e or Elegant Ice Cream
The days after Thanksgiving mean leftovers! In our house, that also means leftoverChantilly Meringu&eacute;e ice cream. I usually make it a few times a year, but I really should make it more often because it&amp;#8217;s just about the most delicious thing we&amp;#8217;ve ever eaten.
The recipe is from&nbsp;Mastering the Art of French Cooking, vol. 2 by one of my cooking goddesses, Julia Child, and her writing partner, Simone Beck.&nbsp; I love bothMastering the Art of French Cooking books.&nbsp; The recipes look complicated but, if you&amp;#8217;re willing to stick with them, they are amazing.&nbsp; One of my all-time favorites is the one for&nbsp;Chantilly Meringu&eacute;e&amp;#8212;or Whipped Cream with Italian Meringue.&nbsp; And while you can use this recipe for fillings in cakes, we freeze it and eat it as ice cream. It&amp;#8217;s light and fluffy&amp;#8212;and you don&amp;#8217;t need an ice cream maker to make it.
This recipe looks somewhat difficult at first glance.&nbsp; The&nbsp;complication is that it has two distinct steps.&nbsp; First you make one recipe, then go&nbsp;ahead a few pages and&nbsp;use what you&amp;#8217;ve just made in&nbsp;another recipe.&nbsp; But, if you actually read the recipes,&nbsp;they&amp;#8217;re simple and straightforward.&nbsp; I&amp;#8217;ve made it&nbsp;often over the years and it comes out perfectly every single time.&nbsp; Leave it to Julia to share a recipe that is so simple at its heart and yet so elegant.There are two basic steps to creating this confection: making the&nbsp;Meringue Italienne (Italian Meringue) and then use that to make the&nbsp;Chantilly Meringu&eacute;e. Don&amp;#8217;t let the number of steps intimidate you&amp;#8212;it&amp;#8217;s actually quite easy once you start doing it.
This recipe also contains one of my favorite cooking techniques: combining sugar syrup with whipped egg whites to create a shiny and perfect meringue.&nbsp; Years ago, my friend Ingrid showed me how to do this&amp;#8212;and it looked like magic!&nbsp; But, it&amp;#8217;s actually a technique that serious cooks use fairly often&amp;#8212;most notably in buttercream frosting.&nbsp; It gives me a&nbsp;sense of pride each time I do this&amp;#8212;feeling like like I am following in a long line of experts who&amp;#8217;ve discovered the perfect technique.&nbsp; And I love the fact that it requires the cook to trust his or her instincts and know that it will come out.&nbsp; And this is what Julia taught&amp;#8212;have fun and trust your instincts.I usually make this&nbsp;several hours before big holiday meals&amp;#8212;most notably Thanksgiving and Christmas. I then place it in the freezer to&nbsp;freeze so it&amp;#8217;s ready by the time we are having dessert. Since it&amp;#8217;s an ice cream confection, it goes with almost anything&amp;#8212;pie, cake, pudding, cookies, as well as on its own. And, I&amp;#8217;ve even included an extra step you can take to make a chocolate version&amp;#8212;so&nbsp;incredibly good it should be called Food of the Goddesses.
I&amp;#8217;ve rewritten the recipe here to be in a linear order.&nbsp; I&amp;#8217;ve used all of Julia&amp;#8217;s steps, but placed them in a more modern format.&nbsp; I&amp;#8217;ve also included my own optional addition for for making a chocolate version.Chantilly Meringu&eacute;e or Elegant Ice Cream-adapted from&nbsp;Mastering the Art of French Cooking, vol. 2Special Equipment Needed-a stand mixer is very helpful for this recipe. A hand mixer will do in a pinch.-candy thermometer is very helpful unless you are familiar with finding the soft-ball stage using the ice water technique (which is actually quite easy)-freezer-friendly containers for freezing the meringu&eacute;eIngredientsFor the&nbsp;Meringue Italienne2&amp;#160;C granulated sugar2/3&amp;#160;C water3/4&amp;#160;C egg whites&amp;#8212;about 5-6 large or extra large eggsbig pinch of salt1/4 tsp cream of tarter1/2 tsp vanilla extractFor the&nbsp;Chantilly Meringu&eacute;e1 recipe of Meringue Italienne2&amp;#160;C chilled heavy cream2-4 tsp vanilla extractOptional: if you want to make this chocolate, 1/2&amp;#160;C unsweetened chocolate + 1/2&amp;#160;C semi-sweet chocolate, chopped)1) To make the&nbsp;Meringue ItalienneMeasure out all the ingredients before you start&amp;#8212;this makes the process go much more smoothly-combine the water and sugar in a large, heavy-bottomed saucepan and set over medium high heat-do not mix with a spoon, instead, swirl pan slowly by its handle to mix the sugar and water-continue to swirl the liquid as it comes to a boil-continue to swirl until it turns from cloudy to clear-stop swirling pan, cover, reduce heat to low and let simmer while you beat the egg whites-in the bowl of the stand mixer, beat egg whites for about a minute&amp;#8212;until they start to become foamy-add the cream of tarter and salt-beat, gradually increasing the speed to high, until the egg whites form stiff peaks-beat in vanilla-stop beating and go to next step-remove cover from your sugar syrup, and insert candy thermometer if using-raise heat and boil rapidly-when the bubbles start to look thicker, watch the temperature or start dribbling drops into iced water-boil until the mixture reaches the &amp;#8220;soft-ball stage&amp;#8221;&amp;#8212;when it makes a definite but blobby shape when you try to form it into a ball under the ice water, or 238 degrees on your thermometer-once the sugar syrup has reached the soft-ball stage, immediately start beating the egg whites again on medium speed-carefully and slowly pour the hot sugar syrup in a thin stream into the egg white mixture as it beats until you&amp;#8217;ve used all of the sugar syrup-continue to beat the egg whites on medium high until shiny, stiff peaks form out of the mixture and the bowl is cool to the touch&amp;#8212;about 10 minutes-stop beating and set aside2) to make the&nbsp;Chantilly Meringu&eacute;e-beat the cream until it has doubled in volume (don&amp;#8217;t beat so long as to turn it into butter)-beat in vanilla extract-with a spatula, fold about 1/3 of the whipped cream into your&nbsp;Meringue Italiennemixture to lighten it.-then scoop out the remainder of the whipped cream onto the meringue mixture and fold it in as rapidly and as lightly as possible&amp;#8212;you want to try not to deflate the mixture too much-once the mixture is combined, scoop it into a freezable container (we use a Tupperware container) and place in freezer until you&amp;#8217;re ready to eat it. It will take a few hours to fully freeze, but even if it&amp;#8217;s not fully frozen, it will still taste deliciousFor the optional chocolate version:-when you come to step 2, making the&nbsp;Chantilly Meringu&eacute;e, melt the chopped chocolate in a double boiler or a heat-proof bowl set over a pan of simmering water until just melted-beat the melted chocolate into the cream-then follow the remainder of the&nbsp;Chantilly Meringu&eacute;e instructions for folding the cream into the meringue mixtureEnjoy!