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Brown Bread Ice Cream
Stale bread must be used for this cream, mixed with an equal quantity of stale sponge cake. Take 2 sponge cakes and 2 thick slices of bread, grate them into a jug, and pour over 1/2 pint of milk, and 1 pint of cream, made sweet with 1/2 pound of sugar. Place the jug in a saucepan, and stir the contents over the fire until it gets thick. A few of the bread crumbs sifted very finely may be added with a glass of any liquor liked to the mixture when quite cold, and just before being put to freeze. Freeze for about twenty-five minutes.
A Victorian brown bread ice cream, thickened with grated crumbs rather than egg yolks. The method is a double boiler in disguise, and the texture depends entirely on how finely the bread is grated.
- The jug in the saucepanThis is a bain-marie: the jug sits in a pan of simmering water so the milk never scorches. A heatproof bowl over a pan of water does the same job. Stir until the mixture coats a spoon; with no eggs it will thicken only modestly.
- Brown bread means wholemealThe title points to a wholemeal loaf rather than a soft sandwich bread, though the recipe itself says only 'stale bread'. Two thick slices is roughly 3 oz; stale bread grates rather than smears.
- Grate, then siftCoarse crumbs turn soggy and gritty in the frozen base. Grate finely, and the crumbs reserved for stirring in at the end should be sifted so only the fine dust goes in. Some modern versions toast those final crumbs for a nuttier flavour.
- Pint sizeIf the book is following British measure a pint is 20 fl oz, so the cream is 2 1/2 cups and the milk 1 1/4 cups. An American pint gives 2 cups and 1 cup. Either works.
- SugarHalf a pound is about 1 cup plus 2 tablespoons, and with the sponge cake already sweet this is very sweet by current taste. Two thirds of it is enough, bearing in mind that freezing mutes sweetness.
- A glass of liquorThe recipe does not say what size glass; in period cookery a wineglassful is usually reckoned at about 2 fl oz. Brandy, rum or sherry suits it. Keep the quantity modest: alcohol depresses the freezing point and the cream will stay slushy.
- Chill before churningThe instruction to add the crumbs and liquor "when quite cold" matters. Refrigerate the base for several hours, ideally overnight, before it goes into the machine.
- The twenty-five minutesThat figure assumes a hand-cranked bucket churn packed with ice and salt. A modern machine gives soft-serve consistency in 20 to 30 minutes, after which it needs two to three hours in the freezer to firm up.
- YieldThe liquid alone comes to 1 1/2 pints before the sugar, cake and crumbs are counted, so the churned yield is larger than that; enough for six or more.