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Cafe Parfait
1 cup milk 1/4 cup Mocha coffee Yolks 3 eggs 1/3 teaspoon salt 1 cup sugar 3 cup thin cream Scald milk with coffee, and add one-half the sugar; without straining, use this mixture for making custard, with eggs, salt, and remaining sugar; add one cup cream and let stand thirty minutes; cool, strain through double cheese-cloth, add remaining cream, and freeze. Line a mould, fill with Italian Meringue, cover, pack in salt and ice, using two parts crushed ice to one part rock salt, and let stand three hours.
A frozen coffee custard packed in a mould around a core of Italian meringue. The hinge is the custard: it must thicken over water just short of a simmer, because once it boils the yolks curdle and no amount of straining will bring back the texture.
- "Mocha coffee"This means the dry ground coffee, not brewed liquid — Mocha was a bean name (from the Yemeni port), used loosely for good coffee. Use a quarter cup of medium-ground beans, scalded in the milk and steeped; the instruction not to strain at that stage is deliberate, since the grounds keep infusing through the custard-making and the standing time.
- Cream quantitiesCream is added in two stages: one cup while the custard is warm, the rest after straining. "Thin cream" is roughly today's light cream, around 18-20% fat. The total cream called for is unclear as printed, and a scant three cups of thin cream to one cup of milk gives a plausible parfait; less will freeze harder and grainier.
- Making the custardCook over hot, not boiling, water, stirring, until it coats a spoon - 170-175°F on a thermometer. Take it off the heat at once; the recipe then has you add one cup of cream, let it stand thirty minutes and cool it before straining through doubled cheesecloth to catch grounds and any set egg.
- SaltOne-third of a teaspoon is an odd measure to modern eyes; measure a scant third of a teaspoon and move on. Its job is to sharpen the coffee, not to season.
- Freezing"Freeze" here means churning in a crank freezer. An ice-cream machine does the same work; churn to a soft-serve stage, no firmer, or it will not spread cleanly against the mould.
- Lining the mouldChill the mould first, then press the frozen custard in an even layer up the sides with the back of a cold spoon, leaving a cavity for the meringue. Any gap fills with ice crystals during the three-hour pack.
- Salt and ice, or the freezerTwo parts crushed ice to one part rock salt gives a brine well below 32°F, which is what sets the parfait without further stirring. A domestic freezer will also set it, though still air works more slowly than a brine pack in contact with the mould and may need longer than three hours; keep the mould covered and sealed either way, since coffee ice takes up other odours quickly.
- Italian meringueThe filling is egg whites beaten with hot sugar syrup, made up separately. It stays soft when frozen, which is the whole point of the contrast.
- Yield and servingYield depends on what the printed cream quantity intends; roughly a quart and a half, serving eight to ten. Dip the mould briefly in cool water, turn out, and slice so each portion shows the pale core.