Home › Ice Creams and Ices › Italian Cream
Italian Cream
Stir into 1 pint of thick cream the rinds of 2 lemons rubbed off on lumps of sugar, and as much more pounded loaf sugar as will sweeten. Whisk up the cream with the juice of 1 lemon, strain 1 ounce or more of dissolved gelatine to it, and beat well together. Flavor with noyau or curacoa, and fill a mould. Freeze, turn out, and garnish with any kind of sweetmeats or preserved fruits. Time, half an hour.
A moulded frozen cream rather than a churned ice cream — closer to a semifreddo set with gelatine. Two things need attention before you start: the gelatine quantity and the order in which the lemon juice goes in.
- The gelatine is far too much by modern measurePeriod gelatine was coarser and less consistent than the modern product, but an ounce of modern powdered gelatine would set a pint to rubber. Use about 1 teaspoon (a scant 1/8 oz) of powder bloomed in a little cold water, or one and a half sheets, and no more.
- Add the acid carefullyLemon juice whisked into thick cream will curdle it if the cream is cold and stiff or the juice goes in all at once. Whip the cream only to soft mounds, then trickle the juice in while whisking steadily.
- Rinds rubbed on sugar lumpsThis is the old way of extracting citrus oil: rub sugar cubes hard over the lemon skin until they are yellow and damp, then crush them. A microplane zest beaten into the sugar does the same job.
- Loaf sugarLoaf or lump sugar, pounded, is simply granulated sugar. "As much more as will sweeten" means roughly 3 to 4 oz (about 1/2 cup) total for a pint of cream; taste before freezing, as cold mutes sweetness.
- Dissolving the gelatineMelt the bloomed gelatine over low heat until clear, then let it cool to barely warm before straining it into the cream. Poured in hot it will slacken the whipped cream; poured in cold it sets into threads.
- Noyau and curaçaoNoyau (crème de noyaux) is an almond-scented liqueur, curaçao an orange one. Either works; allow about 1 to 2 tablespoons. Too much alcohol will keep the mixture from freezing firm.
- "Time, half an hour" and the freezingThe half hour most likely refers to freezing the mould packed in ice and salt, which chills faster than a domestic freezer. In a modern freezer allow several hours, or overnight, for a pint mould.
- Turning outOil the mould lightly, cover with plastic before freezing, and dip the outside in warm water for a few seconds to release. Serve at once; a gelatine-set cream softens quickly.
- YieldA pint of cream plus air fills a 1 1/2-pint mould and serves four to six.