Home › Pudding Sauces › Coffee Ice Cream
Coffee Ice Cream
1 quart cream 1 1/2 cups milk 1/3 cup Mocha coffee 1 1/4 cups sugar 1/4 teaspoon salt Yolks 4 eggs Scald milk with coffee, add one cup sugar; mix egg yolks slightly beaten with one-fourth cup sugar, and salt; combine mixtures, cook over hot water until thickened, add one cup cream, and let stand on back of range twenty-five minutes; cool, add remaining cream, and strain through double cheese-cloth; freeze. Coffee Ice Cream may be served with Maraschino cherries or in halves of cantaloupes.
A cooked custard base steeped with ground coffee, then churned. The instructions assume a hand-crank freezer and a coal range with a cool back plate; both translate easily.
- Mocha coffeeThis means coffee beans, ground, not a chocolate-coffee flavouring. A third of a cup of medium-ground coffee is roughly 1 oz; any good aromatic Arabica will stand in.
- The custard temperature"Cook over hot water until thickened" means a double boiler, stirred, until the mixture coats a spoon; in modern terms that is somewhere around 170-175F. Pushed much hotter the yolks begin to curdle, and straining will not fully rescue the texture.
- "Back of the range"The coolest part of a coal stove, used for holding things warm without further cooking. A modern equivalent is a covered pan set off the heat. The coffee has already been scalded with the milk; this rest lets the infusion continue, so give it the full twenty-five minutes.
- StrainingThe double cheesecloth removes coffee grounds and any set egg. Do not skip it; grounds left in the base turn gritty and bitter once frozen.
- Chilling before freezing"Cool" should mean thoroughly cold, refrigerated several hours or overnight. A base churned lukewarm freezes coarse and stays icy.
- CreamPeriod "cream" was not standardised; heavy cream is the safest modern substitution here. The one cup added to the hot custard enriches and helps cool it; the rest goes in cold.
- FreezingIn a modern machine, churn 20-30 minutes, then harden in the freezer at least four hours. The base comes to roughly 1 3/4 quarts, so most domestic machines will need two batches.
- Yield and servingAbout 2 quarts, serving 10-12. The cantaloupe-half presentation was a summer dining-room flourish; use a ripe, well-chilled melon and scoop it out only at the last minute.