Bombe or Bombe Glacee refers to a French frozen ice cream dessert that has been made in a round mold. The ice cream is usually added to the mold in layers and the center of the dessert may consist of different fillings.
History
The idea of molding desserts can be credited to the French. In the 16th century, it was discovered that below-freezing temperatures could freeze fruit juices or sweetened water into a kind of chilled sorbet. That was when the cooks started to experiment freezing different kinds of sweetened liquids. By the 18th century, they had discovered how to make ice cream. As there was a tradition of using molds to make ice cream, one bright cook froze his ice cream in a round mold resulting in the very first Bombe dish. One of the very first mentions of this dish is in the "The Harvest of the Cold Months," by Elizabeth David in the early 20th century. In the book, she describes the swirling layered round ice creams which were commonly served at the time, resembling onions and were layered with different flavors of ice cream. Fancy bombes formed the centerpieces of wedding banquets and were frosted or covered with layers of decorations.
Auguste Escoffier, the famous French chef, is also credited with purifying the original bombe recipe. He seemed to prefer simpler elegant bombes. Escoffier's cookbook, the famous Le Guide culinaire had over 30 different recipes for making a bombe and the dish became quite popular by the late 20th century. The dessert also started appearing on restaurant menus by late 1882. Escoffier also purified the original recipe by creating an original first layer called the custard layer of the bombe. This layer had more water content and created larger ice crystals resulting in a harder crunchier texture on the first layer of the bombe. Although Escoffier used round molds, chefs also used bowls to create half round or inverted bowl layered ice cream desserts which were also referred to as bombe.
Ingredients and Preparation
The traditional recipe used a special outer layer of the ice cream that was made by boiling sugar and water together. Egg yolks were whipped and added to the syrup and whipped again over indirect heat. This resulted in a thickened aerated ice cream layer that formed the first layer of the bombe. This layer was referred to as the custard layer and was derived from an Italian candy making process called candito d’uova or candied eggs. This layer was chilled and additional layers were built on top of it with contrasting colors and flavors. A few recipes also use cake in the first layer and cover it with the custard ice cream and then build the layers on top of this. The dish is frozen for a minimum of six hours before serving.
Popular Variations
There are many variations of the basic bombe recipe. Traditionally, chefs made the ice cream by hand but nowadays, chefs use readymade ice cream and layer the ice cream in round bowls to form the characteristic shape. A large range of flavor combinations are possible due to the large variety of commercial ice creams. For example, Tricolor Ice Bombe is prepared by layering readymade strawberry ice cream, pistachio ice cream and vanilla ice cream, in a round bowl. The bowl is placed in the freezers and chilled for 20 minutes and served garnished with fresh raspberries. Raspberry bombe is prepared by using a special bombe mold. The custard ice cream forms the first layer followed by raspberry ice cream and lastly with fresh cream. Bombe Richelieu is an original Escoffier recipe and it uses rum ice cream with coffee ice cream and chocolate sprinkles.
Trivia
The original custard layer of ice cream has higher water content. As it chills, it forms big crystals of water. This results in a crunchier texture to the first layer of the bombe. However, for some reason, this custard layer does not work well with chocolate and it does not gel properly when chocolate is used. The bombe is also thought to be built on the original Italian ice cream Spumone.
