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Dessert

How We Cook in Tennessee

A collection of old Tennessee recipes for frozen creams and ice creams, including apricot, lemon, strawberry and a grape syrup.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By Jackson (Tenn.). First Baptist Church. The Silver Thimble Society · From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 19 ingredients
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Why it works: Cream and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 43,450 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓

How We Cook in Tennessee

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the base

  1. Whip three quarts of sweet cream.

  2. Scald the milk.

  3. Melt the sugar in the milk.

  4. Let it cool before freezing.

Make the fruit mixtures

  1. Rub the apricot pulps through a sieve.

  2. Slice the lemons and remove the seeds.

  3. Let the lemons stand half an hour with the sugar on them to make juice.

  4. Mash the strawberries with one cupful of sugar.

  5. When the sugar is dissolved, press the juice through cheesecloth.

  6. Wash and hull one quart of berries.

  7. Sprinkle over them one cup of fine granulated sugar, mash to a pulp, and let stand till the sugar is dissolved.

  8. Press through cheesecloth until only the seeds remain.

  9. Mash one quart of strawberries and add half a cupful of sugar; let stand half an hour.

  10. Boil a pound of sugar and half a pint of water together for ten minutes until they form a thick syrup.

Freeze

  1. Pour the milk into the freezer.

  2. When the cream is partly frozen, add the fruit and freeze as usual.

  3. Add the lemons and sugar.

  4. Add an equal amount of cream, and more sugar if needed.

  5. Freeze in three parts ice and one part rock salt.

  6. Scald one quart of cream and cool it.

  7. When ready to freeze, stir the cream into the juice and add more sugar till quite sweet.

  8. Scald a pint of cream and add eight ounces of sugar; when cold, add a second pint of cream.

  9. Turn the mixture in the freezer; when frozen very hard, add the mashed strawberries and turn the crank until well frozen.

  10. Mix all and freeze.

  11. Fill with chopped pecans or English walnut meats.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

327Calories
10 gProtein
14 gFat
45 gCarbs

Counts 6 of 7 ingredients. The other 1 aren't in our nutrition table and add nothing above, so the real totals are higher.

What these numbers assume: 6 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Milk1 cup (244ml) whole149
Cream1 tbsp (15ml) heavy51
Sugar1 tbsp (12.5g) granulated49
Strawberry1 cup (152g)49
Apricot1 medium (35g)17
Lemonjuice of 1 lemon (48ml)12
Waternot in our table0

One typical portion per ingredient; the recipe's quantities are not counted. A rough guide only, not for medical or dietary planning.

By Jackson (Tenn.). First Baptist Church. The Silver Thimble Society. Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures. See the original page.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  2. Apricot + milktop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together826 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Apricot + lemontop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,098 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  4. Milk + lemontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,053 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Cream + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together29,399 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Sweet cream
Whipped or added as cream, it gives the ice cream its rich body and smooth texture.
Sugar
Sweetens the mixture and lowers the freezing point, keeping the ice cream softer and scoopable.
Apricots
Provide fruit flavour and pulp that adds body to the ice cream.
Strawberries
Provide fruit flavour and colour; mashing them with sugar draws out juice.
Lemons
Add acidity and brightness that balances the sweetness of the cream and sugar.

The step that matters

Freeze in three parts ice and one part rock salt. Rock salt lowers the ice's melting point so the brine gets colder than ice alone, which is what freezes the cream. Too little salt leaves the mixture slushy and slow to set.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cream, apricot, milk, sugar):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Peachfits better
  3. Strawberryfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cream, apricot, milk, sugar. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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