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Cinnamon Ice Cream
Mix half an ounce of powdered cinnamon with half a pound of sifted sugar, the yolks of two eggs, and half a pint of new milk; boil this custard over a slow fire, stirring it all the time until it thickens; then add one pint of thick cream and the juice of a small lemon. Pour into a mould and freeze. Time to prepare, twenty minutes. Probable cost, 2s. 2d. Sufficient for a quart of ice cream.
A straightforward boiled custard base, spiced heavily and frozen. The proportions are Victorian in two respects: the sugar is high and the cinnamon is very high by modern standards.
- Imperial measuresCassell's pint is 20 fl oz, so half a pint of milk is 10 fl oz (about 1¼ US cups) and the pint of cream is 20 fl oz (2½ US cups). Half a pound of sugar is roughly 1 cup plus 2 tablespoons of granulated.
- Half an ounce of cinnamonThat is roughly five to six level teaspoons of ground cinnamon, close to two tablespoons, for a quart of ice cream, which will read as medicinal to most palates and leaves a gritty texture. One to two teaspoons, or a few sticks steeped in the hot milk and strained out, gives a cleaner result.
- New milkSimply fresh whole milk, as opposed to milk that had stood and been skimmed. Whole milk is the direct substitute; skimmed or reduced-fat milk will thin the custard.
- Boil this custardDo not take the word literally. Two yolks in 10 fl oz of milk will scramble if it reaches a true boil; cook over low heat, stirring, until it coats the back of a spoon, around 175-180F, then take it off.
- The lemon juiceThe hinge of the recipe. Acid added to hot dairy curdles it, so cool the custard completely, stir in the cream, and add the lemon last, immediately before freezing.
- Pour into a mould and freezeThis assumes freezing in a metal pot buried in a tub of ice and coarse salt, worked and scraped by hand, the mixture then moulded and packed back in the ice. A modern churn gives a far smoother result; a still-frozen mixture in a domestic freezer needs beating every 30 to 45 minutes to break up ice crystals.
- Cost and yield2s. 2d. is the Victorian retail cost, not a modern guide. The stated quart is accurate and serves six to eight.
Cinnamon was one of the standard flavourings of English ice creams from the eighteenth century onward, sitting alongside ginger, orange-flower water and bergamot in a repertoire that predates the dominance of vanilla and chocolate. Cassell's New Dictionary of Cookery collects it in an era when ice cream had only recently moved within reach of the middle-class household: ice was being imported and stored commercially in quantity, and hand-cranked freezers were sold widely enough that a general household dictionary could assume one. The instruction to "pour into a mould and freeze" names no apparatus, and may point to the older pot-freezer method, in which the mixture is worked in a metal vessel buried in ice and salt, and the mould itself may then be packed away in the ice until dinner. The heavy hand with the spice reflects a period taste for pronounced sweet-spiced flavours, and the lemon juice, common in Victorian ice recipes, was added to lift a mixture that would otherwise be flatly rich.