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Fruit, Lemon, in Cream
Rub off on lump sugar the rind of two lemons; add this, with the strained juice, to one pint of cream, six ounces of sugar, and one dessertspoonful of brandy; mix these ingredients well together, and freeze them in an ice-pot, stirring them with a wooden spoon. Time, half an hour for the freezing process. Cost, 2s. 6d. Enough for eight glasses.
This is a hand-frozen lemon cream ice, from the era when freezing meant a metal pot buried in ice and salt. The technique translates directly to a modern churn, but two details in the original deserve attention: how the lemon flavour is extracted, and when the acid meets the cream.
- Rubbing sugar on the rindDragging a lump of sugar over the whole lemon strips the zest and its oil onto the sugar — what is now called oleo-saccharum. It captures the aromatic oils that a grater leaves behind on the box. Use 2-3 oz of sugar cubes and work them over both lemons until yellow and damp, then dissolve them into the cream.
- The pintCassell's is a British book, so this is an imperial pint of 20 fl oz — about 2 1/2 US cups. Single or whipping cream both work; the higher the fat, the smoother the result.
- Sugar is structural, not just sweetSix ounces (a scant cup) into a pint of cream reads as a lot, and it is deliberate: sugar depresses the freezing point and keeps the ice soft enough to scoop. Cutting it substantially gives a hard, icy block.
- Add the juice last, and coldThe strained juice of two lemons is enough acid to curdle cream, especially if the cream is warm. Chill the sweetened cream thoroughly first, then whisk the juice in slowly just before churning. Slight thickening is expected; visible curds mean it went in too fast.
- The ice-potAn ice-pot or sorbeti fere sat in a bucket of crushed ice and coarse salt; the wooden spoon scraped the freezing layer off the walls so it froze in fine crystals rather than a solid sheet. An electric or frozen-bowl machine does the same job.
- Half an hour is optimisticHalf an hour -- Thirty minutes of scraping in a well-packed pot gives a soft, spoonable ice. A modern churn takes 20-25 minutes to that stage, and the texture improves after 2-3 hours in the freezer to firm up.
- The brandyA dessertspoonful is roughly two teaspoons — enough to round the flavour and slightly soften the set without stopping it freezing. More alcohol will keep it slushy.
- YieldEight glasses of the period means small stemmed glasses, not modern bowls; reckon on four to six servings.
Cream ices like this one belong to a long line of English dessert ices that appear in confectioners' manuals from the eighteenth century, and by the time Cassell's was compiled in the later nineteenth century they had moved from the pastry-cook's shop into ambitious domestic kitchens. Ice itself was part of what made that possible: the bulk ice trade brought lake ice from North America and Norway into British ports through the middle of the century, and ice wells and insulated stores made crushed ice easier for town households to buy than it had once been. The instruction to rub the rind off on lump sugar is older than that trade, though -- it appears in punch recipes long before -- and it survives because it captures the peel oil well.