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Rochester Ice Cream
Candied chestnuts (or those preserved in vanilla will do as well, as the flavoring in the ice cream is vanilla). Mince one ounce and a half of the chestnuts to the beaten yolks of four eggs, Place and two ounces of powdered sugar; flavor with vanilla. basin containing mixture on the stove, keeping it near the back where it will not cook too fast. Whisk it well for seven or eight minutes, remove basin and set it in pan of crushed ice and beat it until it is cold, so as to insure smoothness. Fold in two gills of cream whipped to a stiff froth, and fill paper cases with the mixture. Place them carefully into ice cream freezer, and freeze for about two hours.
— Mrs. Frederic E. Craigie
This is not a churned ice cream at all but a frozen mousse — a cooked egg-yolk sabayon lightened with whipped cream and set hard in individual cases. The whole thing hinges on the egg base: whisked steadily over gentle heat it thickens to a ribbon, and left a minute unattended over too much heat it scrambles and the dessert is finished.
- Weights, not spoonsAn ounce and a half of chestnuts is about 40 g, roughly a scant third of a cup once minced. Two ounces of powdered sugar is about 55 g, or a little over half a cup sifted.
- Two gills of creamA gill is half a cup, so this is one cup (240 ml) of heavy cream, measured before whipping. Whip it to soft-firm peaks rather than truly stiff — over-whipped cream will not fold into the cold yolk base without leaving streaks.
- The stove, translated"Near the back where it will not cook too fast" describes the cool zone of a coal range. Use a bowl set over barely simmering water and keep whisking; the base is done when it holds a brief ribbon from the whisk, around 165-170F.
- Chilling over ice mattersBeating the cooked base until cold over crushed ice is not optional fussiness. A warm base melts the cream on contact and the frozen result turns grainy.
- Candied chestnutsThese are marrons glacés, sold in jars or boxes at holiday time; chestnuts "preserved in vanilla" are the closely related preserve in vanilla syrup, which the recipe accepts as a substitute. Mince them fine — large pieces freeze into hard nuggets.
- Paper casesSmall pleated paper soufflé cups or ramekins lined with paper. Fill them level and give them a firm surface; the mixture is soft going in.
- Freezing without a freezerThe original simply sets the filled cases into an ice-cream freezer, which in this period meant a bucket packed with ice and salt — a much colder surround than a domestic freezer, which is likely why two hours is given. In a modern freezer at 0F, allow four hours or overnight, covered to keep off ice crystals.
- YieldRoughly two and a half to three cups of finished mixture — four generous or six small servings. Serve straight from the freezer; it softens quickly.
Frozen desserts built on a whisked egg-yolk base and whipped cream, rather than churned in a freezer, went by the names biscuit glacé, frozen mousse or parfait in late nineteenth-century American kitchens. The candied chestnut marks this as a fashionable receipt — marrons glacés were an imported luxury, generally traced to the chestnut country of Piedmont and the Ardèche, and by the turn of the century they were reaching American grocers in jars and decorative boxes as a holiday item. Why this one is called "Rochester" is not documented; place names were often attached to frozen desserts of the period, and community cookbooks copied them down as received.