A Drama Queen Of A Dessert: Mount Vesuvius

Mount Vesuvius isn’t just a volcano – it is also a curious dessert that reminds me a little of Baked Alaska. (The above photo shows a vacherin, as I could not find a picture of the volcano-as-dessert). 

The recipe comes from The Vest Pocket Pastry Book (1901), a tiny and charming little book that really could fit into the vest pocket of a chef. It was written for restauranteurs. Mount Vesuvius is near Naples, Italy and is the only volcano in mainland Europe to have erupted within the last century. 

Mount Vesuvius

Take vanilla ice cream, firmly frozen; mix into it coarsely broken macaroons. Build this on a glass, porcelain or silver stand, to represent a mountain. Impress a meringue shell about the size of half an egg on top, fill with alcohol. Garnish the piece with small fancy cakes and kisses; ignite the alcohol and serve.

The meringue shell seems pretty small relative to the ice cream mountain, but then again you would not want to have a big shellful of brandy or whatever, up there, igniting. And you would not want to be carrying the mountain around after you lit the top.

The recipe for kisses in this cookbook states that they are meringues in fancy shapes.  And there is also a recipe for fancy cakes:

Fancy Pastry Cakes

These cakes are made of puff paste. A great variety can be made: for instnace, rolling out the paste to 1/8 of an inch thickness, and cutting out half moons, diamonds, wreaths, etc.; brush them over with water and bestrew with sugar. Bake in a rather brisk oven. When done, holes can be made in center of the cakes and filled with jelly or cream, etc.

The perfect dessert to serve to a gathering of drama queens, or conversely to wake up placid guests who might be a little bit bored.

Image is from the 1961 Larousse Gastronomique of the closest thing I could find, a magnificent and frilly vacherin, which consists of rings of meringue or almond paste, filled in with heaps of ice cream and fruit and more meringue.