Israel State Dinner Dessert - 1980: Orange Sherbet Cake

"I don't think I ever witnessed such a production, before or since, as the preparation for the State Dinner for Prime Minister Menachem Begin of Israel. All food preparation was supervised by a rabbi who had been sent to us specially for the task. The dinner was to be dairy-free, including my dessert, and orange sorbet cake. Every time I turned around, there was the rabbi, watching to make sure that the ingredients going into my cake were kosher. There was no problem with the genoise layers, which I baked at the White House. He also approved the dairy-free whipped topping that was to frost the cake and the caramel-dipped orange segments that were to decorate it. But since my ice cream machine had churned many batches of dairy-rich ice cream and couldn't be boiled or cleansed with the torch, the rabbi insisted that I make the sorbet—just orange juice and sugar—in a brand-new machine. I knew from a friend that Jean-Louis, a restaurant at the Watergate Hotel, had just unpacked a new ice cream freezer and hadn't yet used it, so I high-tailed it over there to make my sorbet, packed it in ice, and rushed back to the White House." - Excerpt from "A Sweet World of White House Desserts" By Roland Mesnier.

Date of Work: 1980
Medium: Photo
Credit: Collection of Roland Mesnier

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