ICES AND ICE-CREAM

Perfectly fresh sweet cream makes the most delicious ice-cream« A substitute is a preparation of boiled new milk, etc., made late in the evening if for dinner, in the morning if for tea, and placed on ice. One mixture is a custard made as follows : Take two quarts new milk, put on three pints to boil in a custard-kettle, or a pail set within a kettle of boiling water, beat yolks and whites of eight eggs sepa- rately, mix the yolks with the remaining pint and stir dofujiy into the boiling milk, boil two minutes, remove from the stove, immodiaidg add one and a half pounds sugar, let it dissolve, strain while hd through a crash towel, cool, add one quart rich cream and two table* spoons vanilla (or season to taste, remembering that the strength of the flavoring and also the sweetness is very much diminished by the freezing). Set the custard and also the whites (not beaten) in a 30ol place until needed, and about three hours before serving begin the preparations for freezing. Put the ice in a coarse coflee-sack, pound with an ax or mallet until the lumps are no larger than a small hickory-nut ; see that the freezer is properly set in the tub, the beater in and the cover secure ; place around it a layer of ice about three inches thick, then a layer of coarse salt — rock salt is best — then ice again, then salt, and so on until packed full, with a layer of ice last. The proportion should be about three-fourths ice and one-fourth salt. Pack very solid, pounding with a broom-handle or stick, then remove the cover and pour the custard to which you have just added the well-whipped whites into the freezer, filling two- thirds full to give room for expansion ; replace the cover and begin turning the fr

ICES AND ICE-CREAM. 176

fng this operation several times until the cream is well frozen, and you can no longer turn the beater. (The above quantity ought to freeze in half an hour,' but the more pure cream used the longer it takes to freeze.) Brush the ice and salt from and remove the cover, take out the beater, scrape the cream down from the- sides of freezer, beat well several minutes with a wooden paddle, replace the cover, fill the hole with a cork, pour off all the water, pack again with ice (using salt at the bottom, but none at the top of tub), heap the ice on the cover, spread over it a piece of carpet or a thick woolen blanket, and set away in a cool place untO needed ; or, if molds are used, fill them when you remove the beater, packing the cream in very tightly, and place in ice and salt for two hours. To remove the cream, dip the molds for an instant in warm water. When cream is used in making ice-cream, it is better to whip a part of it, and add just as the cream is beginning to set.

Coffee ice-cream should be thickened with arrowroot; the flavor- ing for almond cream should be prepared by pounding the kernels to a paste with rose-water, using arrowroot for thickening. For cocoa-nut cream, grate cocoarnut and add to the cream and sugar just before freezing. The milk should never be heated for pine- apple, strawberry, or raspberry cream. Berry flavors are made best by allowing whole berries to stand for awhile well sprinkled with sugar, mashing, straining the juice, adding sugar to it, and stirring it into the cream. For a quart of cream, allow a quart of fruit and a pound of sugar. In addition to this, add whipped cream and sweetened whole berries, just as the cream is beginning to set, in the proportion of a cup of berries and a pint of whipped cream to three pints of the frozen mixture. Canned berries may be used in the same way. A pint of berries or peaches, cut fine, added to a quart of ordinary ice^^ream, while in process of freezing, makes a delicious fruit ice-cream.

Freeze ice-cream in a warm place (the more rapid the melting of the ice the quicker the cream freezes), always being careful that no salt or water gets within the freezer. K cream begins to melt while serving, beat up well from the bottom ^Ith a long wooden paddle. Water-ices are made from the juices of fruits, mixed with water, sweetened, and frx)zen like cream. In making them, if they

176 ICES AND ICE-CREAM.

are not well mixed before freezing, the sugar will sink to the bot* torn, and the mixture will have a sharp, unpleasant taste. It is a better plan to make a syrup of the sugar and water, by boiling and skimming when necessary, and, when cold, add the juice of the fruit.'

The following directions for making " self-freeziug ice cream** are from ** Common Sense in the Household." After preparing the freezer as above, but leaving out the beater, remove the lid care- fully, and with a long wooden ladle or flat stick beat the custard as you would batter steadily lor five or six minutes. Replace the lid, pack two inches of pounded ice over it ; spread above all several folds of blanket or carpet, and leave it untouched for an hour ; at the end of that time remove the ice from above the freezer-lid, wipe off carefully and o|)en the freezer. Its sides will be lined with a thick layer of frozen cream. Displace this with the ladle or a long knife, working every part of it loose ; beat up the custard again firmly and vigorously for fifteen or twenty minutes, until it is all smooth, half-congealed paste. The perfection of the ice-cream de- pends upon the thoroughness of the beating at this point. Put on the cover again, pack in more ice and salt, turn off the brine, cover the freezer entirely with the ice, and spread over all the carpet. At the end of two or three hours more, again turn off the brine and add fresh ice and salt, but do not open the freezer for two hours more. At thai; time take the freezer from the ice, open it, wrap a towel wet in hot water about the lower part, and turn out a solid column of ice-cream, close grained, firm, delicious. Any of the recipes for custard ice-cream may be frozen in this way.

Ice-creams may be formed into fanciful shapes by the use of molds. After the cream is frozen, place in mold, and set in pounded ice and salt until ready to serve. Cream may be frozen without a patent freezer, by simply placing it in a covered tin pail, and setting the latter in an ordinary wooden bucket, and proceed exactly as directed for self-freezing ice-cream,, packing into the space between them, very firmly, a mixture of one part salt to two parts of snow or pounded ice. When the space is full to within an inch of the top, remove cover.

IQES AND ICE-CREAM, 177

Chocolate Ice-Creah.

Scald one pint new milk, add by degrees three-quarters of a pound sugar, two eggs, and five table-spoons chocolate, rub smooth in a little milk. Beat well for a moment or two, place over the fire and heat until it thickens well, stirring constantly, set off, add ft tablespoon of thin, dissolved gelatine, and when cold, place in freezer ; when it begins to set, add a quart of rich cream, half of it well whipped.

To make a mold of chocolate and vanilla, freeze in separate freezei*s, divide a mold through the center with card-board, fill each division with a difierent cream, and set mold in ice and salt for an hour or moi'c.

To make chocolate fruit ice-cream, when almost frozen, add a

coffee-cup of preserved peaches, or any other preserves, cut in fine

Egoless Ice-cream.

A scant tea-cup flour to two quarts new milk ; put three pints on to boil (in tin pail set in a kettle of boiling water), mix the flour with the other pint tiU smooth, then stir it in the boiling milk ; let it boil ten or fifteen minutes, and, just before taking it from the fire, stir in one and a half pounds pulverized sugar (any good white sugar will do). Care must be taken to stir all the time after put- ting in the sugar, only letting it remain a moment, or just long enough to dissolve it ; take from stove, and strain at once through a crash toweL When cold, add one quart cream. Flavor with vanilla, in the proportion of one and a fourth table-spoons to a gallon.

^-Mrs. lAbbie DoUbear.

Fruit Frapees.

Line a mold with vanilla ice-weani, fill the center with fresh berries, or fruit cut in slices, cover with ice cream, cover closely, and set in freezer for half an hour, with salt and ice well packed around it. The fruit' must be chilled, but not frozen. Strawber- ries and ripe peaches are delicious thus prepared. — Mn. J. C. P.,

StoMridgey

Ice-cream.

Three pints sweet cream, quart new milk, pint powdered sugar,

the whites of two eggs beaten light, table-spoon vanilla ; put in 12

178 ICES AND ICE-CHEAM.

freezer till thoroughly chilled through, and then freeze. This is very easily made. — Mrs. OogsweU,

Ice-cream. One quart new milk, two eggs, two table-spoons com starch; heat the milk in a dish set in hot water, then stir in the com starch mixed smooth in a little of the milk ; let it boil for one or two minutes, then remove from stove and cool, and stir in the egg and a half pound sugar. If to be extra nice, add a pint of rich cream, and one-fourth pound sugar, strain the mixture, and when cool add the flavoring, and freeze as follows: Prepare freezer in the usual manner, turn the crank one hundred times, then pour upon the ice and salt a quart boiling water from the tea-kettle. Fill up again with ice and salt, tum the crank fifty times one way and twenty-five the other (which serves to scrape the cream from sides of freezer) ; by this time it will turn very hard, indicating that the cream is frozen sufficiently. — Mrs. Win, Herricky

Lemon ics- cream. Squeeze a dozen lemons, make the juice quite thick with white sugar, stir into it very slowly, three quarts of creanii, and freeze. Orange ice-cream is prepared in the same way, using less sugar.

Pike-apple Ice-cream. Three pints cream, two large ripe pine-apples, two pounds pow- dered sugar ; slice the pine-apples thin, scatter the sugar between the slices, cover and let the fruit stand three hours, cut or chop it up in the syrup; and strain through a hair-sieve or double bag of coarse lace; beat gradually into the cream, and freeze as rapidly as possible ; reserve a few pieces of pine-apple unsugared, cut into square bits, and stir through cream when half frozen, first a pint of well-whipped cream, and then the fruit. Peach ice-cream may be made in the same way. — Mr^, L. M. T.,

Strawberry Ice-cream.

Sprinkle strawberries with sugar, wash well and rub through a

sieve ; to a pint of the juice add half a pint of good cream, make

it very sweet; freeze, and when beginning to set, stir in lightly one

pint of cream whipped, and lastly a handflil of whole strawberries

ICES AND ICE-CREAM. 179

sweetened. It may then be put in a mold and imbedded in ice, or kept in tbe freezer ; or masb with a potato-pounder m an earthen bowl one quart of strawberries with one pound of sugar ; rub it through a colander, add one quart of sweet cream and freeze. Or, if not in the strawberry season, use the French bottled strawberries (or any canned ones), mix juice with half a pint of cream, sweeten and freeze ; when partially set add whipped cream and strawberries.

Kentucky Cream. Make a half gallon rich boiled custard, sweeten to taste, add two table-spoons gelatine dissolved in a half cup cold milk; let thb cus- tard cool, put it in freezer, and as soon as it begins to freeze, add (me pound raisins, one pint strawberry preserves, one quart whipped cream; stir and beat well like ice-cream. Blanched almonds or grated cocoa-nut are additions. Some prefer currants to raisins, and some also add citron chopped fine.— Jifi^. Ocv. J. B. McOreary^

Ksntiicky.

Apple Ice.

Grate, sweeten and freeze well-flavored apples, pears, peaches or

quinces. Canned fruit may be mashed and prepared in the same

Currant Ice.

Boil down three pints of W£^ i^d a pound and a half sugar to one quart, skim, add two cups of currant iuice. and when partly frozen, add the whites of five eggs.

Lemon Ice.

To one pint of lemon juice, add one quart of sugar, and ono quart of water, in which the thin rind of three lemons has been allowed to stand until highly flavored. When partly frozen add the whites of four eggs, beaten to a stifl" froth.

Orange Ice. ^

Boil three-quarters of a pound of sugar in one quart of water ;

when cool add the juice of six oranges ; steep the rinds in a little

water, strain, and flavor to taste with it. The juice and rind of

one or two lemons added to the orange is a great improvement.

Freeze like ice-cream.

Strawberry Ice. •

Maah two quarts of strawberries with two poun(*3 of sugar; let

180 ICES AND ICE-CBEAM.

stand an hour or more, squeeze in a straining cloth, pressing out all the juice; add an equal measure of water ; and when half frozen, add the beaten whites of eggs in the proportion of three eggs to a quart. — R, L. C. , Baltimore, Md.

Tba. Ice-cream.

Pour over four table-spoons of Old Hyson tea, a pint of cream, scald in a custard-kettle, or by placing the dish containing it in a kettle of boiling water, remove from the fire, and let stand five minutes ; strain it into a pint of cold cream, put on to scald again, and when hot mix with it four eggs and three-fourths pound sugar, well beaten together; let cool and freeze. — Mm A, C. i/., Ptii^ldi,

Washington Fruit Ice-cream.

Take two dozen sweet and half a dozen bitter almonds; blanch in scalding water, throw into a bowl of cold water; pound one at a time in a mortar, till they become a smooth paste firee from the smallest lumps; add frequently a few drops of rose-water or lemon- juice to make them light and prevent ''oiling." Seed and cut a quarter pound of the best bloom raisins ; mix with them a quarter pound of Zante currants, picked, washed and dried, and three ounces of chopped citron ; dredge well with flour. Take a half pint of very rich milk, split a vanilla bean, cut it into pieces two or three inches long, and boildl' iji the milk till the flavor of the vanilla is well extracted, then ^ain it out and mix the vanilla milk with a pint of rich cream, and stir in gradually a half pound of powdered loaf-sugar and a nutmeg grated. Then add the pounded almonds, and a large wine-glass of either marasquino, noyau, curacoa or the very best brandy. Beat in a shallow pan the yolks of eight eggs till very light, thick and smooth, and stir them gradually into the mixture. Simmer over the flre (stirring all the time), but take ofi* just before it boils, otherwise it vrill curdle. At once stir in the fruit, set to cool, and then add a large tea-cup preserved strawberries or raspberries, half a dozen preserved apricots or peaches, half a dozen preserved green limes, and any other very nice and delicate sweetmeats; add a pint whipped cream lightly to the mixture; put the whole into a large melon-mold that opens in the middle, and freeze four hours in the usual way. Turn out when wanted and serve on a glass dish. — Mn. Chv. Oravery Oregon.