Iced Biscuit Bénédictine

Biscuit glacé à la Bénédictine (layered Bénédictine frozen parfait) teaches the discipline of cold: each band must be firm before the next arrives. Strawberry stays rosy below, Bénédictine runs amber-ivory through the middle, and violet sits pale and floral on top. Rush the freezing and you haven't made three layers; you've made a handsome muddle.

The original entry assumed three prepared ices, a long biscuit mold, and a freezing cabinet ready for service. Your honest home equivalent is one pâte à bombe, the hot-syrup yolk foam that gives biscuit glacé its light body, divided and flavored in a lined loaf tin. Making three complete bases was brigade scaffolding, so that goes. The strawberry, Bénédictine, and violet sequence stays, as does the independent freezing of every layer. Those are the dish.

This is one cook, one freezer, one evening, with most of the evening spent elsewhere while the cold does its work. Before adding a new layer, press the one beneath it gently with a fingertip. It must feel firm and leave no mark. That pause decides the whole dessert.