Home › The Principles of Cookery › Apricot Ice Cream
Apricot Ice Cream
Take half a pound of apricot jam: mix with it a pint of cream, the juice of a lemon, half a dozen almonds blanched and pounded, and two table-spoonfuls of noyeau. Mix and strain thoroughly. Freeze and serve either in a mould or glasses. Time to freeze, about half an hour. Sufficient for a pint and a half. Probable cost, 1s. 6d.
A jam-based ice cream with no eggs and no cooking — the jam supplies all the sugar and most of the flavour, so its quality decides the result. A few of the quantities and one ingredient need translating.
- The measurementsImperial measures: a pint of cream is 20 fl oz, or about 2½ US cups; half a pound of jam is roughly three-quarters of a cup. The 1s. 6d. cost is Victorian retail pricing and is only of historical interest.
- NoyeauNoyeau (usually spelled noyau) is a sweetened liqueur flavoured with fruit kernels, sold today as crème de noyaux. Amaretto or a good kirsch stands in acceptably; two tablespoons is the upper limit, since alcohol depresses the freezing point and more will leave the mixture slushy.
- Strain before freezing, not afterThe instruction to "mix and strain thoroughly" is the hinge. Pounded almonds and jam both carry solids and fruit skin; pushing the mixture through a fine sieve is what separates this from a grainy fruit fool. Do it before the mixture goes anywhere near the freezer.
- The creamNineteenth-century "cream" was unstandardised and was probably richer than modern single cream. Use heavy or whipping cream, unwhipped, or the ice will freeze hard and icy rather than smooth.
- Half an hour to freezeThat timing assumes a hand-cranked pail packed with ice and coarse salt, which chills faster than a domestic freezer. In a modern ice-cream machine expect 20–30 minutes of churning; still-frozen in a tray it needs several hours with vigorous whisking every 40 minutes.
- If you mould itTo turn it out of a mould it must be frozen considerably firmer than for serving in glasses — pack it into the mould after churning and give it at least four hours in the freezer, then dip briefly in warm water to release.
- YieldA pint and a half, or about 3½ cups: four modest servings, six in small glasses.
- SweetnessNo sugar is added because the jam carries it. If your jam is a modern low-sugar preserve, the mixture will taste thin and freeze harder; taste before churning and add a spoonful or two of sugar syrup if needed.
One of the simplest sorts of iced cream: no custard, no cooking, and a jar of preserve doing the work of fresh fruit — a practical choice in a country where apricots ripen briefly and unreliably. Noyau, the liqueur called for here, was a fashionable Victorian flavouring made by steeping fruit kernels (peach, apricot or almond) in spirit and sugar; its faint marzipan note is the same one reinforced by the pounded almonds. Cookbooks of this period often assumed a pewter freezing pot set in a wooden pail of pounded ice and salt, worked by hand with a spaddle, and half an hour was a realistic estimate for that apparatus. The dish belongs to a moment when ice was becoming cheap enough — shipped in bulk from Norway and North America into British ports through the later nineteenth century — for frozen desserts to move from the confectioner's shop into the middle-class household.