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Maraschino Ice Cream
Mix one gill of maraschino with a pint and a half of cream and six ounces of sifted sugar. Whip the cream, then freeze. The above quantities are sufficient for one quart. Time, according to the mode of freezing.
A three-ingredient still-frozen cream, closer to a semifreddo than to a custard ice cream. The alcohol is the whole problem and the whole point.
- The gillCassell's is a British book, so a gill is a quarter of an imperial pint: 5 fl oz, about 2/3 US cup. American sources often use a gill of 4 fl oz, which is why the same word turns up meaning half a cup elsewhere.
- Pint and a halfAn imperial pint is 20 fl oz, so this is 30 fl oz of cream, roughly 3 3/4 US cups. Use heavy or whipping cream; the recipe depends on the fat for body since there are no eggs.
- SugarSix ounces by weight, about 170 g, which is a scant cup of granulated. "Sifted" may mean no more than passed through a sieve to break lumps, though in period usage it often meant sugar pounded fine and then sieved.
- The hinge: alcohol and freezingA gill of maraschino (usually around 32 per cent alcohol) in a quart of mixture depresses the freezing point somewhat, so the result will set softer than a plain cream ice. Whipping the cream first, as instructed, helps give the frozen mixture body. Expect a soft, scoopable texture and keep it in the coldest part of the freezer.
- Order of workDissolve the sugar in the maraschino and a little of the cream before whipping the rest, or the sugar will deflate the whipped cream as you fold. Fold the flavoured base into the whipped cream rather than whipping everything together.
- Maraschino means the liqueurA clear, dry cherry-kernel liqueur made from marasca cherries, not the sweet red syrup that clings to supermarket cocktail cherries. Luxardo and similar bottlings are the intended article; cherry brandy or kirsch will taste quite different.
- "According to the mode of freezing"When this was written that meant a pail-and-churn freezer packed with ice and salt, perhaps 20 to 30 minutes of cranking. A modern machine will take a similar time but may not reach a firm set because of the alcohol; still-freezing in a shallow tray, stirred every 30 minutes for the first two hours, also works.
- YieldOne quart, which serves six to eight as a dessert. It softens fast on the plate, so serve in chilled glasses.
Maraschino is generally traced to Zadar on the Dalmatian coast, where distillers made it from marasca cherries with their crushed kernels, giving the clear liqueur its faint almond bitterness; by the nineteenth century it was a fashionable European luxury and a standard flavouring in the confectioner's cupboard alongside vanilla and orange-flower water. Cassell's places this among a long run of iced creams, and a well-stocked Victorian household might have access both to imported liqueurs and to block ice; flavouring a cream with a spirit was a quick way to produce something that looked expensive without a custard, a copper pan or a cook's full attention. The recipe's terseness is telling: no eggs, no cooking, no straining, just cream, sugar and a bottle.