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U.S. president Donald Trump recently got the royal treatment on a state visit to the United Kingdom, when he attended a banquet hosted by King Charles III. As you might expect of a royal banquet, it was a formal affair with a strictly fine dining menu. It’s been widely reported that the menu included Hampshire watercress panna cotta with Parmesan shortbread and quail egg salad. In addition, there was an organic Norfolk chicken ballotine served with courgettes (known stateside as zucchini) and a jus infused with thyme and savory. But the standout was the dessert.
Guests were served a vanilla ice cream bombe with a Kentish raspberry sorbet interior and lightly poached Victorian plums. An ice cream bombe, or bombe glacée, is a French dessert, and there are a number of ways to prepare it. Some are made entirely of ice cream or sorbet, while others may have layers of cake or meringue. Baked Alaska is a kind of ice cream bombe, and it famously features a torched meringue coating.
Based on descriptions of the dish served at the banquet President Trump attended, it featured a vanilla ice cream exterior over a raspberry sherbet core, either topped with or served alongside plums. The name “bombe” is French, and it means exactly what you think. The dessert is designed to look like a cannonball, or bomb, so it’s frozen in a spherical shape. The trick to making it work is just time, since the process is not as complicated as the end result makes it seem.
Putting an ice cream bombe together
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For a two-layer vanilla ice cream bombe, the chefs would have filled a bowl with softened vanilla ice cream then inserted a smaller bowl, pressing it into the ice cream before placing it back in the freezer to harden. Once frozen, the smaller bowl is removed, leaving a hollow in the now-solid vanilla ice cream. Softened raspberry sherbet can then fill that indentation, and the bombe goes back in the freezer. When it’s time to serve, the bowl is turned over onto a plate, and the chefs likely warmed the outside to loosen the ice cream. On a plate, it would look like a perfect sphere of white vanilla ice cream, and when a diner digs in, the surprise of the smaller sphere of pink raspberry sherbet, different from the ice cream, awaits.
For this dessert, there were also lightly poached plums, which may have been served on the side of the bombe to provide some textural contrast and a little tartness, depending on how they were poached. For example, fruits can be poached in sweet tea or other sugary concoctions to imbue them with added flavor. The plums may have been spooned over the top, as ice cream bombes made with fruit often include some of the fruit as a garnish. The finished dish looks very elegant, but it is quite simple to prepare with planning and can be made with multiple layers and flavor combinations. If you ever have some free time and a desire to eat like a king, all you need is ice cream and some nesting bowls.
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