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Raspberry Ice
Mix with the juice of one quart of ripe raspberries half pint ripe currants, one and three-quarter pounds of fine white sugar, three pints of water, juice of two lemons; strain, mix well, and freeze. In this manner all juicy fruits may be frozen.
A plain fruit sorbet built on the old proportions: roughly equal weights of sugar and fruit juice, thinned with water. It works in a modern ice cream machine with almost no adjustment.
- The quantities in modern termsOne quart of raspberries yields about 1 1/2 to 2 cups of juice; half a pint of currants gives perhaps 1/2 cup. One and three-quarter pounds of fine white sugar is about 4 cups granulated, and three pints of water is 6 cups. Total volume comes to roughly 2 to 2 1/2 quarts of base.
- Dissolve the sugar first"Fine white sugar" in recipes of this kind chiefly signalled a well-refined white sugar rather than brown; whether its grain was finer than modern granulated is not certain. Either way, warm a portion of the water with the sugar into a syrup and cool it fully before combining, or undissolved sugar can leave the ice gritty and freezing uneven.
- Currants are the pointRed currants, not dried Zante currants. They carry acid and pectin that give raspberry ice body and keep it from tasting flat. Frozen red currants work; if none can be had, a little more lemon juice compensates for the acid, though not for the texture.
- Strain seriouslyCrush the fruit and press it through a fine sieve or jelly bag. Raspberry seeds are hard and unpleasant in a frozen ice, and the recipe's single word "strain" is doing real work.
- FreezingThe original assumed a hand-crank freezer packed with ice and rock salt, churned perhaps 20 to 30 minutes. An electric churn takes about the same. Without a machine, freeze in a shallow pan and rake with a fork every 30 minutes for 3 to 4 hours for a granita-like result.
- Sugar level and servingThe syrup is on the sweet side by current taste, but sugar is what keeps a water ice scoopable rather than solid; cut it back substantially and the ice will freeze harder. The batch is large -- on the order of two to two and a half quarts -- so portion accordingly; ripen an hour in the freezer before serving.
- The general rule at the end"All juicy fruits may be frozen" this way holds up. The working ratio is about 1 part sugar to 2 to 2 1/2 parts combined juice and water, with acid from lemon; strawberries, peaches and cherries all take it.
The pairing of raspberries with red currants is older than the mechanical freezer: the two ripen together in northern gardens, and the currant's sharpness and setting power had long been used to prop up raspberry in jams and jellies. Water ices need no dairy and no custard, only sugar, fruit and a means of freezing, and the cheap wooden hand-crank freezer with its ice-and-salt bucket brought them within reach of an ordinary kitchen. The closing line, offering the formula as a template for any juicy fruit, is characteristic of cookbook compilers who preferred to give a proportion the cook could apply to whatever the garden produced rather than a page of near-identical recipes.