Quince Ices
Make as for pear and apple ices, custard, cream, etc., using the quince cordial sometimes to vary the flavour.
This is a variation note rather than a standalone recipe: it sends you back to the pear and apple ice formulas in the same chapter and asks you to swap in quince. The important thing to know is that quince behaves very differently from pear or apple, and the substitution is not one for one.
- Quince must be cookedRaw quince is hard, astringent and close to inedible; it has none of the ready sweetness of a ripe pear. Peel, core and stew or bake the fruit until tender and rosy, then sieve or blend it before it goes anywhere near the freezer.
- Base proportionsFor a water ice, a workable ratio is about 2 cups quince purée, 1 cup sugar and 1 cup water, with lemon juice to sharpen. For the custard or cream versions the original mentions, fold the same quantity of purée into a cooked custard of 2 cups milk or cream, 4 egg yolks and 3/4 cup sugar, cooked to 170-175F.
- Sugar is structuralBecause quince purée is thick and tastes far less sweet than pear or apple, an under-sweetened mix freezes rock hard. Aim for roughly 20 percent sugar by weight of the total mix; taste the unfrozen base and let it read slightly too sweet, since cold mutes sweetness noticeably.
- Quince cordialUnder this name period books describe both a sweetened quince syrup and a brandy-based cordial, so either may be meant. Bottled quince syrup or a homemade one works; if you use an alcoholic version, add it sparingly, as alcohol lowers the freezing point and will keep the mixture soft.
- "Ice" in this bookWater ice, cream, custard -- In general period usage a water ice is fruit, sugar and water alone; an ice cream or "cream" contains dairy; a custard ice is dairy plus egg yolks. The original lists custard and cream side by side and simply substitutes the fruit, leaving the choice to the cook.
- Freezing without a pail freezerThe text says nothing about equipment; a hand-cranked pail packed with cracked ice and rock salt, commonly around three parts ice to one part salt, was the usual method of the period. A modern churn does the same job; if still-freezing in a shallow pan, break up the ice crystals with a fork every 30 minutes for the first two hours.
- Chill and restCool the base fully, ideally overnight. Quince pectin thickens on standing, which gives a smoother texture and helps the ice hold its shape after churning.
- YieldThe quantities above make roughly 1 quart, serving six as a small course. Quince is intense; modest portions suit it better than large ones.
Quince was a fixture of the American and British household garden well into the twentieth century, valued precisely because it was useless raw and so had to be turned into something keeping — marmalade, jelly, preserves, and the quince cordial that this note reaches for. Its very high pectin content made it the standard jelly fruit before commercial pectin was sold, and the word marmalade itself traces back to marmelo, Portuguese for quince. A fruit-cookery book of this era typically grouped quince with the pear, as here, since both are pomes and both were handled by long stewing; the terseness of the entry reflects how such books were written, with one worked formula followed by a string of variations assuming the cook would turn back a page. Ices themselves were a mark of an ambitious household at the turn of the century: they required a supply of ice and rock salt and a good deal of cranking.