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Orange-Flower Cream Ice
Chop fine an ounce of fresh candied orange-flowers, add three ounces of sugar, four yolks of eggs, a quart of cream, and two spoonfuls of orange-flower water. Put in a saucepan, and let it come to boiling point. Take it off, and whisk till cold, then freeze.
A plain egg-yolk custard scented two ways with orange blossom, then churned. The whole success of it is in not letting the custard actually boil.
- "Come to boiling point"Take this as a limit, not an instruction. A yolk custard thickens at about 175-180F and scrambles above roughly 185F; heat it gently, stirring, until it coats the back of a spoon and lift it off at the first sign of a bubble at the edge. Straining it into a cold bowl afterwards catches any threads that do form.
- A quart of creamAn imperial quart is 40 fl oz, so about 5 US cups; a US quart of 4 cups will also work and gives a slightly richer set. Four yolks to that much cream is a lean custard by modern standards, which is what keeps the flower flavour forward.
- Candied orange-flowersCrystallised orange blossoms, sold by confectioners in the period and now largely a specialist item. Candied orange peel is not the same thing and will read as marmalade; if you cannot find the flowers, lean on the orange-flower water instead of substituting peel.
- Orange-flower waterStill sold, usually labelled orange blossom water, in Middle Eastern and baking aisles; note that neroli is the essential oil, a different and far more concentrated product. Strengths vary a great deal between brands, so add the two spoonfuls at the end, off the heat, and taste; freezing mutes aromatics, so the unfrozen custard should smell slightly too perfumed.
- SugarThree ounces is about 6 to 7 tablespoons, low enough that the finished ice will freeze quite hard. Sugar depresses the freezing point, so if you want it scoopable straight from the freezer go to 4-5 oz, or hold back a spoonful of the sugar and add a tablespoon of a neutral spirit.
- "Whisk till cold"Whisking as it cools stops a skin forming and beats in a little air. Chilling the custard thoroughly, ideally overnight, before churning gives a finer texture than freezing it merely cool.
- To freezeThe original assumes a pail freezer packed with ice and salt. An ice-cream machine handles it directly; without one, freeze in a shallow tray and beat hard with a whisk or fork every 30 minutes until set, three or four times, to break up crystals.
- YieldAbout 1.5 quarts of finished ice, serving eight to ten in the small portions of the period. It is best within a day or two, before the dairy flavour dulls the blossom.
Orange-flower water was one of the dominant sweet flavourings of European cookery from the seventeenth century onward, used where a modern cook would reach for vanilla extract, and it lingered longest in ices, biscuits and creams. This belongs among the cream ices, the family of frozen custards distinct from water ices and sorbets, and by the 1880s such ices were said to be within easier reach of households, since the commercial ice trade and hand-cranked freezers with the ice-and-salt jacket had made the process less of a confectioner's specialism. Candied orange blossoms of the kind called for here belonged to the same confectioner's trade as crystallised violets and rose petals, all of which faded from ordinary English kitchens over the following century as vanilla and chocolate took over the ice-cream repertoire.