Raspberry Ice
4 cups water. 1 3/4 cups sugar. 2 cups raspberry pulp. 1/4 cup orange juice. 2 tablespoons lemon juice.
PROCESS: Make a syrup by boiling water and sugar twenty minutes. Mash berries and rub through a fine sieve, add orange and lemon juice, combine with syrup, strain and freeze. Shape with a cone mold and place in seed cavities of halves of canteloupe.
A simple water ice built on a boiled sugar syrup, served in melon halves. The technique is sound; only the equipment and a couple of proportions need translating.
- The syrupThe ingredient list as printed does not give the water and sugar amounts for the syrup. For a raspberry ice of this type a standard proportion is roughly equal parts sugar and water by volume, boiled to a light syrup; taste the finished mixture before freezing, since the sugar controls texture as much as sweetness.
- Twenty minutes of boilingThat is a long boil by modern habit and will reduce the syrup considerably. Boil in a heavy pan, watch that it does not colour, and expect a noticeably thick syrup that thins again when the fruit and citrus go in.
- Sugar is not optionalIn a water ice the sugar depresses the freezing point and keeps the crystals fine. Cutting it sharply gives a hard block that has to be chipped rather than scooped.
- FreezingThe recipe says only 'freeze', which for a recipe of this kind would most likely have meant a hand-cranked bucket freezer packed with ice and rock salt. An ice cream machine does the same work; failing that, freeze in a shallow metal pan and break up the crystals with a fork every 30 minutes for about three hours.
- StrainingRaspberry seeds are the reason for both the sieve and the final strain. Push the pulp through with a flexible scraper rather than forcing it, and strain again after combining so the ice stays clean on the tongue.
- CantaloupeChill the melon halves thoroughly and scrape the cavity dry, or meltwater and melon juice will pool under the ice. Ripe, heavily perfumed melon overwhelms raspberry; choose a firm one.
- YieldWith the syrup amount missing from the printed recipe the yield cannot be fixed; two cups of pulp plus citrus and a moderate quantity of syrup would give something on the order of a quart, enough for several melon halves.
Water ices — fruit juice or pulp, sugar syrup and nothing else — were the lighter half of the American frozen-dessert repertoire, distinct from the custard-based ice creams made in the same freezer bucket. They were considered suitable to serve between courses as well as at the end of a meal. Placing the ice in a melon half fits the period's fondness for serving food in its own natural vessel, a habit that also produced apples filled with jelly and tomatoes hollowed for salad.